A BETTER PROMISE - A NEW COVENANT
- Wardell Brantley
- Jul 31
- 7 min read
In the Bible (specifically in the book of Hebrews), God says the new promise and covenant through Jesus is better because it offers internal transformation, complete forgiveness, and a direct personal relationship with Him.
NEW TESTAMENT
Hebrews Eight
Why God Says the New Promise is Better
Inward Change: Instead of God's rules written only on stone tablets, He puts His laws into people's minds and writes them on their hearts.
Complete Forgiveness: Rather than temporary animal sacrifices that had to be repeated every year, Jesus made a single, perfect sacrifice that completely takes away sins forever.
Direct Relationship: Everyone in this new covenant knows God personally, from the least to the greatest, without needing an earthly priest to stand between them.
Built on Grace: The old system depended on human effort to obey strict rules, which people failed to do. The new promise rests entirely on God's unchanging faithfulness and finished work.
OLD TESTAMENT
GOD SPOKE TO THE OLD SAINTS AS NEEDED
He Spoke through Angels, fire, people and audible voices.
Abraham - 10 times
Noah 5 times
Jonah 2 times
Moses 80 times
Joshua 12 times
Elijah The Word came to Elijah
Elisha The Word came to Elisha (God performed 16 miracles through Elisha)
GOD SPEAKS TO US CONSTANTLY
Through the Holy Spirit and Jesus
HEBREWS 8:31
But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one. But finding fault with his people, he says:
See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
I showed no concern for them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And each person will not teach his fellow citizen, and each his brother or sister, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.
By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is about to pass away.
Better promises of the New Covenant
So the new covenant is not “Oops, let’s try that again” – but rather it’s “see, that didn’t work for you did it? Here’s the better deal.” And this new covenant wasn’t a new idea that Jesus sprang on people by surprise. God had been telling his people about a new covenant for a very long time.
Most of our passage today is a quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Written about 650 years before Jesus’s ministry. Today’s passage is the longest quotation of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and what is interesting is that the author quotes the passage in its entirety, without comment. The promise delivered by the prophet Jeremiah of a new covenant is so clear, that every single Jew should know its details.
Jeremiah 31 shows us how the new covenant God gave us through Jesus, has better promises than the Old Covenant God gave through Moses.
Better Promise 1: Inward Transformation
“I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts.”
The Old Covenant was involved almost entirely external realities. The law was written on stone. The sacrificial system was done with possessions such as your crops and livestock. The Old Covenant even encourages the people to “put copies of the law on your forehead and on your wrist”.
But where does God place his law under the new covenant? Into our minds. Onto our hearts.
God’s people have always been commanded to worship Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. In the Old Covenant, this command was to be carried out by our own human will and strength. And that’s why it failed. The reason it was set up like this was to show our inability to do that on our own.
So how is the New Covenant better? God puts those things in our hearts. He causes us to want these things. He gives us new desires. He transforms our hearts and our minds.
Better Promise 2: Personal Relationship
“I will be their God, and they will be my people. And each person will not teach his fellow citizen, and each his brother or sister, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them.”
In the old covenant, being a member had to do with being born an Israelite. Meaning, there were people in the covenant who did not know God! Because of this, God needed to continually act to show them who he was. And not everyone who was otherwise in the covenant community came to know God.
In the New Covenant, every individual in the covenant knows Him personally. God reveals himself to us. Through His Holy Spirit and the clear preaching of The Gospel message. He calls to us and those of us who are his sheep listen. Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. My sheep know me. My sheep hear my voice…and they follow me.” (John 10:14; 27)
Better Promise 3: Forgiveness of sin.
“…I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.”
In the Old Covenant, the sacrificial system was to atone for sins you had committed recently. One sacrifice for one sin. It was temporary atonement. Then you’d immediately go back out and commit another sin and once again bear the guilt.
In the New Covenant, it’s not just temporary atonement of a recent sin, but entire forgiveness of every sin, past, present, and future!
The New Covenant is far superior: Entire forgiveness of sin, Inward Spiritual Transformation, Personal Relationship. Isn’t this so much better? The author of Hebrews asks, why would you want anything else!?
How do we get in on the new deal?
Trust the priest!
In the Old Covenant, you would bring your required sacrifice, whether it was crops, or livestock, or a bird, or whichever sacrifice was required for your situation by the law. You would give it to the priest, who would present it in the tabernacle or temple on your behalf. You had to trust the priest would do the right thing with it, and had to trust that God was true to his word that your sin was now atoned for. We had to do this every time we sinned.
In the new covenant: we still bring a sacrifice. But we only bring it once. The Apostle Paul says in Romans that we bring ourselves as a living sacrifice, we come to The Great High Priest Jesus and give him our whole selves for our whole life.
We come, believing that He made the final sacrifice of himself, once and for all, on the cross, taking on the punishment we deserve for our sin, and paying the debt we owe because of our rebellion: Life for life. He bought us back from our slavery to sin and death. He forgives our sin and changes us from the inside out.
That’s how we get in on the new covenant. We enter the covenant through faith in Christ. Believe that He is who he said he is, and did what he said he did for us. Follow him, and you will find a miraculous thing has happened in your heart and mind: new desires. Inward Transformation.
HEBREWS 8
1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,
2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent[a] that the Lord set up, not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.
4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”
6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts,and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’for they shall all know me,from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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