Jeremiah 31:31
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah” (NIV)
Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Hebrews 8:1-13
Let’s dig into covenants today. This is the original Hebrew word bᵉrît describing a binding relationship established by oath, sealed with a sign and administered by God. It creates the framework of both a relationship and a legal bond that requires loyalty, blessing and accountability.
God made several covenants with people in the Old Testament – Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. Recall God’s covenant with Abraham. God promised Abraham offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky. He also promised him possession of the land of Israel – aka the Promised Land. To seal the covenant, God had Abraham kill a bunch of animals, cut them in two and God walked between them. And God ultimately fulfilled this promise to Abraham. God held up his end of the covenant.
God tells Jeremiah that He will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. Why would God need to make a new covenant? And what covenant would the new covenant replace? We have a great dissertation in the book of Hebrews that answers all those questions.
The answer to the first question – why would God need to make a new covenant? – lies in Hebrews chapter 8:
“But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people” (Heb 8:6-8).
The old covenant (or Old Testament) had problems. There was something wrong with it. God found fault with the people meaning that the people who were on the receiving end of the covenant were not perfect. The old covenant would only work if the people were perfect. The old covenant required perfection. God was upholding His end of the covenant but His people were falling short. Since God is a just God, he had to either withhold the promises of the old covenant or come up with a new one. And because God is righteous, He couldn’t just pretend the old covenant never happened. He had to fulfill it.
So what exactly was the old covenant? In simple terms, the Israelites were required to keep God’s law and in return God would protect and bless them. If the Israelites broke God’s law, they would be destroyed:
“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess” (Deut 30:15-18).
However, God made a way for the Israelites who did break His law to be brought back into compliance with the covenant. The breaking of His law could be remedied by the shedding of blood. More specifically, it required the shedding of the sinner’s blood. The only problem with that is that the sinner would be dead and wouldn’t be able to enjoy God’s blessing. So God allowed animal sacrifices to be a substitutionary death for the sinner. But yet there was a problem with that as well – the blood of an animal couldn’t atone for the sin of a human:
“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:1-4).
The author of Hebrews lets us in on a secret. God never intended the old covenant to be the final covenant. It was only a shadow of things to come. God knew that Israel couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain. God also wanted to extend his promises to the Gentile nations as well. The sacrifices and rituals were only meant to be a reminder that humans are imperfect and cannot measure up on our own. We are sinners in need of a savior. We need God’s help because we cannot simultaneously pay for our own sins and be blessed by God.
Therefore, God sent His Son as the Savior who could both fulfill the Old Covenant and establish the New Covenant. This New Covenant would be superior and established on better promises. This New Covenant made the old one obsolete and outdated and has completely replaced it through the death and resurrection of Jesus. And this is the new covenant:
“I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more” (Jer 31:33-34 and Heb 8:10-12).
Christ in the Old Testament 
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