The New Covenant

Am I the only one who sees this?

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

This piece is definitely going against the grain. I am not going to make any friends by doing this, but I feel impressed to write it, so I will be obedient. People not seeking the truth will be out quickly because it will challenge their beliefs. For those searching for the truth, I hope you will read it all and allow me to lay out my case. I invite you to show where I am missing the mark in the comment section below. Be cordial. I ask that you bring scriptural references to back up your points. I also ask that if you choose to cite Sha’ul (Paul) for your argument that you also do as the Bereans did and bring along with that citations from the Old Testament writings that back up your understanding of what Sha’ul wrote. If the Bereans could do it, you can too (Acts 17:11). If you can’t find it in the Old Testament, then as Peter said, you probably misunderstand Sha’ul (Paul) (2 Peter 15-16).

I have asked several Christians over the years to tell me where “The New Covenant” is in their Bibles only to find that they cannot tell me where it is even though they profess to live under it. Think about that; how do you live under something that you can’t even find or define? That deserves an answer. If we begin in the New Testament, we can find a New Covenant mentioned in Hebrews 8:8-12 but that is actually quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34, in the Old Testament, the Tanakh. We should look at the original in Jeremiah:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people. No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘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 iniquities and will remember their sins no more.

The word translated “new” here is חָדָשׁ (chadash) which is related to חָדַשׁ (also chadash), only one Hebrew vowel is different, but there were no vowel markings in the original Hebrew text. The first is defined as “new,” the second as, “renew.” These can sometimes be used interchangeably and since there were no vowels in the original, context must be used to determine which is appropriate in any given sentence. Consider the English word “read.” It is pronounced differently and has a different meaning when used like “to read,” vs. “have read.” They are related but only context tells you which is correct. We also use the word “new” in English as not always “brand new” but “new to us.” Consider getting a new car, a 2010 car. Is that “brand new” or only “new to us?” Obviously, the 16-year-old car is not brand new.

I do believe that it is correctly translated as “new,” not “renew,” in the Jeremiah passage. The best reasoning that I see is that it says, “It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers.” He is flat out telling us that it will be different, so it is something “new” or “novel.”

This is “The New Covenant” that was promised through Jeremiah the prophet. The question is, “Was this the covenant referred to by Yeshua/Jesus at the Last Supper, that was not the Passover meal, in Luke 22:20:

In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you”

When Yeshua said, “new covenant,” the Greek word that this is translated from is καινὴ (kainē) which means “Fresh, new, unused, novel.” This is “brand new.” But we must remember that a bunch of Jewish men sitting at the dinner table having a conversation were not doing that in Greek, they were speaking Hebrew. We are reading a Greek translation of a Hebrew conversation and there is always opinion and interpretation injected into translation. The choice to use καινὴ over a possibly more appropriate word ἀνανεόω (to renew) was someone’s opinion. This choice may have been innocent, but it may also have been chosen to inject a predetermined conclusion. I lean toward the latter.

Let’s look at what Jeremiah says this “New Covenant” will look like. We have already discussed that “it will not be like the covenant that was made with their fathers.” That means it is “new.” Who is YHVH making this covenant with? The text says, “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” Why is it said like this? Jeremiah lived after the kingdom split in two after the death of Solomon. At the time of Jeremiah’s writing, the northern kingdom of Israel had already been banished from the promised land for over 100 years. YHVH is promising that that banishment will not last forever, that He will restore both Israel and Judah which undoes the split. They will, at some point in the future, become one stick in His hand, Ezekiel 37:15-17:

Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “And you, son of man, take a single stick and write on it: ‘Belonging to Judah and to the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick and write on it: ‘Belonging to Joseph—the stick of Ephraim—and to all the house of Israel associated with him.’ Then join them together into one stick, so that they become one in your hand.

Does it say that this covenant is made with a church? It absolutely does not!

YHVH says, “I was a husband to them.” It was a wedding ceremony at Mt. Sinai. YHVH married Israel. They said, “I do” three times; their exact words were, “that which YHVH has spoken, that we will do.” (Exodus 19:8, Exodus 24:3, Exodus 24:7). The Torah, the instructions, are the Ketubah (the wedding contract). As we know, the Israelites broke this wedding contract and whored with foreign gods while Moses was still on the mountain. We will be returning to this shortly.

It is also written that YHVH will write His law, really the Hebrew word translated “Law” is Torah, in their minds and on their hearts. How is it that the Christian church wants to claim this covenant but insists that the Law, again, Torah, has been done away with? You can’t have it both ways!

YHVH continues, “I will be their God, and they will be My people.” He has chosen one people to Himself, Israel, all of Jacob’s sons. He hasn’t chosen a church. My book, Blessings & Curses: if my people… goes deep into this.

After that He says, “No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.” This is enough to prove that this is not currently in effect when you consider the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

This is the command that we have been given by Yeshua Himself to carry out for the last 2,000 years, to teach. But Jeremiah wrote that there would be no reason to teach because all would know YHVH. That word Jeremiah used that we see as “all” is כוּלָּם֩ (kullam) which means: 1) all, the whole 1a) all, the whole of 1b) any, each, every, anything 1c) totality, everything.” This doesn’t exclude anyone on the planet. If that is the case, how is it that there are over two billion Muslims on planet Earth (one quarter of the population) worshipping the false god Allah? That should be the mic drop moment right there, but we will continue.

We have another witness to this in Acts 15. In this story, some have come and are stirring up strife telling new believers that they must “become Jews to be saved.” It says “be circumcised” but it means take on the Pharisees’ Oral Torah that are additions to YHVH’s Torah, which are not allowed (Deuteronomy 4:2). (This “Oral Torah” was later written down and is now called the Mishnah and Talmud.) There is a meeting where it is decided to only give the new believers four commandments to begin their journey. These four commandments are all Torah, and they are meant for a people coming out of idolatrous paganism. Then we get to verse 21:

“For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

I’m going to restate this as follows, “It is expected that these new believers will be in the synagogues every Sabbath (Saturday) where the Torah that Moses wrote will be taught.” Again, people are teaching and others are being taught. This is part of making disciples, fulfilling the Great Commission. The word for “disciple” in Hebrew is תַּלְמִיד (talmid) which means: a pupil, a student, and it is sometimes translated as “taught one.” There we see that the entire Great Commission is commanding something that will not be necessary under the covenant in Jeremiah 31.

Go look at any news site. If the Torah is written on everyone’s heart (it says “all” with no exclusions) and everyone knows YHVH, would you see all of the stories about rape, murder, human trafficking, fraud, and war? They are not hard to find; they are everywhere! Again, I go deep into this in my book Blessings & Curses: if my people…

I would suggest that it has to be willful ignorance after reading all of that to say that we are living the New Covenant that YHVH told Jeremiah to write to us about. So, I will move forward saying that this is not the “New” Covenant that Yeshua spoke of at the Last Supper.

That begs the question that if it was a “new” or “novel” covenant, then where is that in the Tanakh/Old Testament. It has to be there when you consider Amos 3:7:

Surely the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.

Can you find another “New Covenant” that YHVH revealed to His servants the prophets? I can’t (If you can, please post it below). That means that Yeshua could not have freestyled right there at the dinner table. He could not create something out of whole cloth. After all, He consistently said that He never spoke on His own accord but only what the Father told him (John 12:49) and the Father would not do something without first revealing it to His prophets.

I believe that we have exhausted the cases that Yeshua spoke “New Covenant” and what we are left with is that He said, “Renewed Covenant.” What covenant is He renewing? We discussed earlier that Israel married YHVH at Mt. Sinai. We also know that in Exodus 32, only 40 days after saying, “I do,” that they were caught in the act of adultery by making the golden calf. But, before that, back in Exodus 24:1-8 we read:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD—you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders—and you are to worship at a distance. Moses alone shall approach the LORD, but the others must not come near. And the people may not go up with him.”

When Moses came and told the people all the words and ordinances of the LORD, they all responded with one voice: “All the words that the LORD has spoken, we will do.”

And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD.

Early the next morning he got up and built an altar at the base of the mountain, along with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent out some young men of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the LORD.

Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splattered on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people, who replied, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

So Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

In our time, after the wedding ceremony, the marriage license is signed and the marriage is legal. They did not sign a marriage license; Israel entered into a blood covenant. What does that mean? It means that whoever breaks the covenant is agreeing to die, just like the animal whose blood was splattered on the people. They were agreeing to die if they broke the covenant!! This is the context of Exodus 32:9-10:

The LORD also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

After they commit adultery, breaking the covenant, YHVH was going to execute the very thing that they had agreed to (pun intended). He had every right to kill them all and start again with Moses. Moses interceded and then we see in verse 14:

So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

He didn’t kill them, though they deserved it. That doesn’t mean that He could just forget it. He is just. What He says stands. The death was owed; it would have to be paid at some point in the future. If that doesn’t happen, YHVH’s word means nothing and He is not trustworthy.

Oh how He tried with this harlot wife but eventually His patience wore out and He divorced Israel (not Judah, though she deserved it too) as we learn in Jeremiah 3:8:

I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery.

The marriage is over; Israel is a divorcee. But, YHVH has decreed that He would take her back at some time in the future. How is that to happen when you consider what the Torah says about this in Deuteronomy 24:1-4?

If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.

If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife, and the second man hates her, writes her a certificate of divorce, hands it to her, and sends her away from his house, or if he dies, then the husband who divorced her first may not remarry her after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the LORD. You must not bring sin upon the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

YHVH found her displeasing and gave her a certificate of divorce. She whored around and became defiled. YHVH may not remarry her. Quite the conundrum. The solution is found in Romans 7:1-3:

Do you not know, brothers (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For instance, a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she is joined to another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

Yes, YHVH married Israel at Sinai. But, Yeshua married Israel at Sinai! YHVH and Yeshua are one. Consider Deuteronomy 6:4:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.

Yeshua restates that in John 10:30:

I and the Father are one.

The law of marriage ends when He dies. He had to die to be able to marry Israel again; it was the only way for YHVH to be faithful to the very laws that He requires His people to be faithful to.

Back to the dinner table, He said in Luke 22:20:

In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the [re]new[ed] covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you”

At Mt. Sinai, Israel broke the blood covenant. The shedding of blood was required as the penalty for breaking it. Yeshua, because He never sinned could pay that penalty on behalf of the guilty party, Israel, which He did. There is no blood in Jeremiah’s covenant, but there is here. Now, the wrath that needed to be poured out upon Israel at Mt. Sinai because of their disobedience is satisfied with the blood of Yeshua. The Groom has died meaning the law of the first marriage no longer applies. Because of Yeshua’s resurrection, He is now able to marry the bride, that is Israel, again. The conundrum is solved with the death and resurrection of the Groom.

He has renewed that covenant but don’t think the wedding has happened yet. He has proposed. The bride has to say “yes.” That is the Great Commission, to go and make disciples, not believers. Disciples have the testimony of Yeshua and keep the commandments of God (Revelation 12:17). The bride will include the ones that teach what Yeshua taught, not a story about Him, and keep the commandments, the Torah. They will be native Israelites that have come out of their captivity by returning to their God and His ways, regrafted into Israel (native branches), and they will be gentiles that have been grafted in (the wild branches) (Romans 11). We are in the betrothal period. He is calling for His bride. The wedding supper is yet to come. It is coming soon, will you be there?

So, when will the Jeremiah 31 covenant be fulfilled? My understanding would be about a thousand years in our future. Yeshua’s second coming is soon. He will gather His true disciples, both the dead and the living. He will marry His bride and then reign on Earth for a thousand years. Those that are His, His bride, will be reigning with Him in their glorified, eternal bodies. The people that decide to fight when Yeshua returns will die. Those that didn’t fight and survived the anti-Christ’s reign of terror will live in the millennial kingdom without the influence of Satan since he will be locked in a pit for this period of time. They are still mortal human beings. They will die. There will be new people born. They will be living Torah since that is the Law of Yeshua’s kingdom. But, at the end, Satan will be loosed for a short time. Those humans will have to decide if they want to continue to follow Yeshua and His Torah or if they will rebel. If they rebel, they will die. After this, everyone that has ever lived that wasn’t raised at Yeshua’s second coming will be raised and judged. Those found written in the Book of Life will have eternal life, those not written therein will be thrown into the Lake of Fire along with Satan, the Beast, the False Prophet, death, and the grave. At this point we can say, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:54) All of Israel, both the native branches and the wild branches, will then be living under the covenant of Jeremiah 31. Those that just wanted to play church will find themselves in the Lake of Fire.

I do believe that there will be a partial fulfillment of Jeremiah 31 for those that are raised and transformed at Messiah’s second coming. Those are the people that have already chosen to live up to their wedding vows, keep YHVH’s Torah. They have already chosen this path. YHVH will then “write the Torah on their heart,” making it innate to who they are. This is the opposite of what YHVH did to pharaoh when He hardened his heart. We see only the word “hardened” in English but the Hebrew in this story uses three different verbs. Sergio DeSoto does an excellent job in his piece Three Hebrew Verbs and a Pharaoh to tell of this progression in which Pharaoh initially chooses to be hard and ultimately YHVH confirms that since that is his choice, He is going to strengthen him in it. This goes hand-in-hand with Sha’ul in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12:

The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.

Notice that they first “refused the love of the truth.” They made a decision, they acted. Because of their decision, YHVH strengthened the choice that they are already made, He sent them a delusion that they readily accepted. It is the same with the “Torah being written on our heart in the Jeremiah 31 covenant; because of the choice already made to obey Torah, He will also strengthen that decision making it easy for us to continue to obey. He will strengthen whichever decision that you make. What will you decide?

Many who think that because they are part of some Christian church and assume, or have been told, that they are “the bride,” will be very surprised when they wake up a thousand years in our future to find that they missed it all, they missed the Millennial Reign of Messiah. Consider Yeshua’s words in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’

He’s talking to believers, not disciples. He’s talking to people that would not have the truth. When He says, “workers of lawlessness,” He means those without Torah, those that would not follow the instructions, those that would not live up to the marriage vows.

It is imperative to understand which covenant you are actually living under at this current time. Realize what the requirements of that covenant are if you want to be included in “His People,” if you want to be part of “His Bride.”

When you realize that what you were told about the New Covenant is not true, you should ask yourself if there are other things that you believe that should be questioned. I wrote a book that discusses many other things that are common Christian knowledge that must be questioned.

Please consider my book Blessings & Curses: if my people…

This book reveals who we are, where we are, and what we can expect in the near future. Those are big claims. Get your copy today at Amazon and test those claims!

Visit the book’s website here: www.blessingsandcursesbook.com

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