The New Covenant is God’s promise to redeem all of creation.  The words testament and covenant are interchangeable.  The entirety of the New Testament is about the New Covenant God will make with his people.

Portions of the New Covenant are found throughout the Old Testament, but It’s stated completely in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36.  The New Covenant age is what the old covenants pointed toward and led up to.

“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.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ” declares the LORD.  “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it 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,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:31-34

“ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.  Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 36:24-28

The promise includes three parts:

First: In God’s new creation, we’ll be given a new heart and a new spirit.  Our chief desire will be to honor and obey God.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”

God’s law will be written on hearts, not on stone tablets, and with new hearts, we will truly be the people of God. 

Second: We’ll finally be able to live in God’s presence, in his new creation, in the role God always intended for us.

“I will be their God, and they will be my people.” “Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.”

Charles Spurgeon called the phrase “I will be their God” the masterpiece of all God’s promises:

“This is the masterpiece of all the promises; its enjoyment makes a heaven below, and will make a heaven above.  Dwell in the light of thy Lord, and let thy soul be always ravished with his love.  Get out the marrow and fatness which this portion yields thee.  Live up to thy privileges, and rejoice with unspeakable joy.”

Morning and Evening, January 9 evening meditation

The fulfillment of this promise is pictured at the conclusion of Revelation.

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:3–4

Third: God promises to forgive our sin and restore our relationship.

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Hebrews 8:12 (quoting Jeremiah 31:34)

“… And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

Romans 11:27 NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:1-3 NIV

Unpacking the Pictures and Meaning of the New Covenant

Some of the most descriptive pictures of life under the New Covenant are found in the motifs of fathers and children, and shepherds and sheep.

“Now the beautiful relationships given to us repeatedly in Scripture between God and man are those of a father to his children and a shepherd to his sheep.  These concepts were first conceived in the mind of God our Father.”

Keller, W. Phillip. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23

Jesus proclaimed, “I Am the Good Shepherd”!  Pictures of the Good Shepherd describe the pattern of the relationship God has always wanted with mankind, and will have with us in the new covenant age.

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Psalm 23  NIV

We, in turn, will be his people, the sheep of God’s pasture.

Know that the LORD is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 100:3 NIV

You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.’ ”

Ezekiel 34:31 NIV

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.

Psalm 95:6-7 NIV

It’s important to acknowledge that the New Covenant is not in operation yet, at least not fully.  It’s a promise, and it will be our reality after Jesus returns, when God introduces a new creation.  At that time, God will be our God and we his people. 

In the present world, God often doesn’t measure up to our human expectations.  The question “If God is a good God, why do bad things happen to good people” has probably led more people away from God than any other.  We’re all quick to discount our own sin and rebellion, while holding firmly to our high expectations for God.  We want God to fulfill our wish for a benevolent God who always provides for us and protects us.  A God who’s our “Guardian Angel” seems to be the general shape of the hole in our hearts we’re trying to fill.

Are we wrong to imagine and yearn for a God who is our “Guardian Angel?  No, but we need to think this through.  In many places the Bible seems to support those hopes and expectations.  For example:

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

Psalm 23:1

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.  For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

14 “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

Psalm 91:9-11, 14-15

You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalm 32:7 NIV

The Lord will keep you from all harm – he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

Psalm 121:7-8 NIV

These and many other parts of the Bible seem to be saying that if we put our trust in God, nothing bad will happen to us.  But can we honestly say that no child of God has ever experienced an unmet need?  No.  History includes murders, wars, disease, famines and starvation, and Christians have never been exempt.  If we claim the Lord is our refuge, are angels then assigned to guard us in all our ways, so that no harm will overtake us?  No again.  Ask the Christian martyrs throughout history. 

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.  But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 NLT

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

James 1:2-4 NLT

So be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.  These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold — though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.  So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

Romans 5:3-4 NLT

What are we to make of the contradiction between verses that imply that if we trust God, nothing can harm us, and verses that tell us to expect and be ready for trials?  The New Covenant bridges this gap.  The Bible’s stories about God guarding, providing and protecting us are aligned with our own desire to be cared for.  That’s exactly who God has always wanted to be, and who God will be in the new covenant age.

The New Covenant reconciles God’s desires and ours with the reality of our lives here on earth.  We can apply a conclusion C.S. Lewis came to in Mere Christianity:

“Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

– C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 135-137.

Following Lewis’ logic, our desire for God to protect us and provide for us is a sign we are made for a different life and a different age, God’s New Covenant age.  As pastor and author J. D. Greear has said about the promises in Psalm 91 we quoted earlier.

“Jesus’ resurrection is the promise of what is to come for us, a resurrection in which every phrase of Psalm 91 will be literally true, and that promise is supposed to redefine how we see everything now on earth.”

J D Greear, Four Things God Promises When He Says, “I Will Protect You”

Presently, God is the guardian of our souls, but not necessarily our earthly bodies:

Once you were like sheep who wandered away.  But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.

1 Peter 2:25 NLT

But when the New Covenant arrives in force, our bodies will be as safe and secure as our souls are right now.

We can restate the New Covenant in light of all this:  God, understood as our loving creator, provider, protector, and redeemer, wants us to trust him with that role for all eternity.  And we will be able to live with God in his new creation because we’ll be given new hearts.  The entire picture is captured in Psalm 23, where God is the good shepherd, and we are his trusting sheep, dwelling in his house forever.

Facets of redemption found in this picture:

• In the New Covenant, God has promised to give us new hearts that will make us finally able to love him and to love others. 
• Our renewed hearts will be a gift from God, based on our faith that God is trustworthy.