“History of the Church: The Church from Exile to Eternity, Part 2”

Recap of Last Week

Over the last four weeks, we’ve done a brief overview of what the Bible says about the people of God so that we can better understand who we are as the church.  Over these four weeks we’ve learned that the church is the chosen, miraculously created, international, marked-off people of God who believe the promises of God and who’re gathered together by God in order to listen to God and obey God, all of which is made possible by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

Last week we considered whether the exile brought God’s work of gathering his people to an end.  How could his people be gathered together since they were now scattered all over the world?  I mentioned that the prophets promised a restoration for the people of God.  But God’s restoration of his people undoubtedly brought up another question for them.  After they were restored to their land, how would they know that the same thing wouldn’t happen again? 

The bottom line is that they couldn’t.  This is why, in God’s mercy, he had another covenant that he was going to establish with his people.  It would be a covenant of grace, just like the Abrahamic covenant, meaning that it didn’t depend on the people’s obedience, but rather on God’s sovereign grace. 

A New Covenant

In this new covenant, God would gather his people in such a way that they could never be scattered again.  Through the new covenant God promised to do things that the Law of Moses could never do (Jer. 31:33-34).  He promised to write his word on his people’s hearts, be their personal God and their teacher in such a way that all his people would know him personally.

The end of verse 34 is crucial for us because it shows us what God will do to make all these other promises possible.  The word “for” at the beginning of the sentence alerts us that this is the ground of all the other promises.  In other words, God will write his law on his people’s hearts, be their personal God, and teach them to know him because he’ll remove their sins forever.  The permanent forgiveness of sin is the basis of the new covenant.  As long as the people still carry their sin, the holy God who made them can’t be in an intimate relationship with them.   

Covenants Established through Blood

This makes us wonder whether God has removed the thing that separated him from his people, and, if so, how?  How has God enacted this new covenant?  How was this new covenant going to be ratified, or authorized and confirmed, with the people of God?

The way God established his covenants with Abraham and Moses provide us with a clue.  Let’s look first at what God did with Abraham in Genesis 15:7-10.  Abraham wants confirmation that the Lord will keep his promises, so the Lord tells him to bring him a cow, two goats, and two birds.  Abraham undoubtedly understood exactly what God was asking him to do because this custom was common at that time.  Whenever two people solemnized, or formalized, a promise or covenant, they’d kill an animal, cut it in two, and walk between the two halves of the animal.  The ceremony was a dramatic portrayal of what would happen to either party should they break the covenant.  They were saying to each other, “If I break my promise, may I become like this severed animal!” 

After Abraham prepares for the ceremony, he falls into a deep sleep where the Lord speaks to him about what will happen to his offspring (vv. 12-16).  Then something strange happens in verse 17.  What’s going on here?  This is what theologians call a theophany, or a visual manifestation of the presence of God.  The smoking pot and flaming torch remind us of the pillar of cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness.  These things symbolize God’s unapproachable holiness. 

Notice that only one person walked the aisle between the severed animals.  Abram wasn’t asked to join the ceremony.  God alone walked the aisle.  God alone ratified this covenant.  This was an unconditional, unilateral covenant.  The Lord was saying to Abram, “I’ll make this covenant happen, not you.  If I break my word, I’ll be like these butchered animals.  I’ll do what I’ve promised or I’ll die.”  But God, of course, cannot die.  What sovereign grace God displayed to Abram that night!    

In verse 18, God uses the language of “covenant” to describe what he’s doing with Abram for the first time.  His covenant with Abram was as sure as his existence, he would do for his people what he promised to do, and he proved this through a ceremony involving blood.    

Next let’s look at how the Mosaic covenant was confirmed (Ex. 24:3-8).  What’s happening here?  Just as blood covered the doorposts of the believing Israelites on the night of the Passover, so blood covers those entering into this covenant with the Lord.  Judgment fell on a slain animal instead of the people.  The sacrificial victim was slain, their penalty was paid, and they’re covered by the blood of a substitute.  The Mosaic covenant is thus inaugurated with blood.

Interestingly, Moses and the leaders of Israel then go up the mountain, see God, and partake in a covenant meal (vv. 9-11).  The Mosaic covenant is inaugurated by blood and followed by a meal.  This is a pattern that would continue.   

Promises Purchased by the Blood of Jesus

The covenant God made with Abraham was confirmed through a ceremony involving blood.  The covenant God made with Moses was also ratified with blood.  With this Old Testament background in mind, how do you think the new covenant would be inaugurated?  What would God have to do to confirm his promises with his people?

Blood would have to be spilled, and it was.  At the Last Supper, Jesus took “the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Lk. 22:20).  The other gospel writers say that the cup is “the blood of the covenant” (Matt. 26:28; Mk. 14:24). 

Jesus is saying that his blood is what will inaugurate God’s new covenant.  The breaking of his body and the sprinkling of his blood is what ratifies the new covenant. 

All the blessings of the new covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31 had to be purchased and given to God’s people.  We could never afford them ourselves.  We could never earn them.  We can only receive them.  The payment for these precious promises was the precious blood of Jesus.  The promises of God are free for us but they cost Jesus everything.   

The blood of Jesus is not some abstract theological concept or sentimental thing we sing about.  The spilled blood of the God-Man Jesus Christ is the tangible evidence that God has solemnized, or formalized, his new covenant with his people.  Jesus’ blood is the reason anything in the new covenant can happen.  Without his blood, we’d be left under the Mosaic covenant, with no hope.   

The Blood Is Sufficient

You may be thinking, “Pastor, I just don’t know if I believe all this.  Did God really do all this through Jesus’ death?”  You may struggle to believe that the promises of the new covenant are really yours through faith in Jesus’ death.  Let me try to help you with an illustration I heard this week.

In a sermon, Professor D. A. Carson asks us to imagine two Jews having a discussion in the land of Goshen in Egypt on the day of the Passover.  One said to the other, “Aren’t you a little nervous about what’s going to happen tonight?”  The other said, “Well, God told us what to do through Moses.  Haven’t you put the blood of the lamb on your doorposts, packed your bags, and prepared the meal to eat tonight?”  “Of course I’ve done all that,” the other man said.  “But there’s been all this scary stuff happening around here, with the flies and the locusts and now the angel of death is supposed to come and kill the firstborn.  That may not concern you because you have three kids, but I’ve only got one.  I know what God says, I put the blood there, but this is scary stuff.  I’ll be glad when this night is over.”  The other man says, “I’m not scared, I trust the promises of God!”

That night, the angel of death swept through the land.  Which one lost his firstborn?  The answer is of course, neither.  Why?  Because death doesn’t pass over them on the basis of the intensity or clarity of their faith, but rather on the ground of the blood of the Lamb. 

The blood of the Lamb is what purchased our life and salvation.  How we feel or what we’ve done can never change that.  Even if our faith is like shifting sand and even if doubts whip through us like a howling wind and even if we feel that God is distant and doesn’t see us or care for us and even if temptation or the Tempter seem to win the day, our house will stand and be secure if it’s covered by the blood of the Lamb.  As the hymn says, “I need no other argument, I need no other plea.  It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.”      

The Blood Takes Away Our Fears

On application of this glorious truth is that Christians have no reason to fear the future.  The shed blood of Jesus for our salvation means that our houses are safe.  We can live with courage and confidence that, no matter what happens, we’ll be okay because we’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, rescued from slavery to the fear of death, and set on a journey toward the Promised Land.  Come hell or high water, God bought us with his blood, so we have nothing to fear.

The Blood of Jesus Helps Us Look Like Jesus

The blood of Jesus also helps us live lives that look more like Jesus.  1 Peter 2:24, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”  The blood of Jesus changes our lives because, through the new covenant, God washes our sin away and gives us a new heart that wants to live like Jesus lived. 

The blood gives us a new banner to wave.  The blood gives us a desire to follow God into the unknown, to obey his Word even when it doesn’t make sense, and to compel as many people as possible to come with us.  The blood makes us more concerned for people’s souls than their political affiliation, makes us want to love our neighbors despite whose sign they have in their front yard, makes us want a more just and beautiful world, and makes us want to reveal his glory through our lives.     

The Blood Equips Us for Everything Good

There’s no way we can do any of this apart from the blood of Jesus.  The only reason we can do anything good for God is because Jesus bought those things for us with his blood.  This is what Hebrews 13:20-21 says.  God equips us for every good work and works in us everything that’s pleasing to him through Jesus and by his blood.  Every good thing the church receives from God and does for God is because the blessings of the new covenant were bought for them “by the blood of the eternal covenant…through Jesus Christ.”

The New Covenant is a Covenant of Grace

Jesus’ blood has inaugurated and ratified God’s new covenant with his people.  Let me say two things about the nature and scope of the new covenant. 

First, the nature of the new covenant is that it’s a covenant of grace.  In other words, it’s accomplished unilaterally by God alone.  From eternity past to Abraham to Moses, we’ve seen that God’s plan to create a people for himself is the result of his sovereign intervention.  There’s no people of God apart from God’s sovereign initiative and grace.

The sovereignty of God is seen in every dimension of the new covenant as outlined in Jeremiah 31.  God puts his word in his people, God enters into a relationship with them, God teaches them, and God forgives them.  In Jeremiah 32, God’s sovereign initiative becomes clearer (vv. 39-41). 

God is the one who makes sure that the new covenant is accomplished and applied to his people.  He doesn’t leave it to the power of the fallen human will to choose its way into, and keep itself in, the new covenant community. 

Remember that Ezekiel says that God gives us a new heart and a new spirit (11:19, 36:26-27).  Getting a new heart is God’s decisive action, not ours.  Our hard hearts are why we don’t love and trust in God.  For the new covenant to be more successful than the old, God will have to do heart surgery on his people, taking their cold, hard, dead hearts out, and give them warm, soft, alive hearts that love him. 

This means that, if you have faith in God, God gave it to you.  If you have love for God, God gave it to you.  If you have a desire to obey and serve God, God gave it to you.  Your “free will” is not why you are a Christian.  Your free will has only freely chosen things besides God.  In grace, and through regeneration (Tit. 3:4-7), God sets us free from our “free will” and gives us a new will, a new heart, to love and trust and delight in him. 

What was commanded by God in the old covenant is given by God in the new covenant.  Isn’t God good and kind to enable us to do the things he commands us to do?  He’s not a harsh taskmaster, asking us to make bricks with no straw.  He knows we can’t love him and obey his word on our own, so he comes to us, into us rather, and accomplishes his will in us.

These realities are meant to humble us, fill us with gratitude, increase our joy, give us courage to take risks for the mighty God who saved us, and lead us to pray earnestly that he would do this work in others. 

The New Covenant Extends to All the Nations of the World

Second, the scope of the new covenant is worldwide.  The blessings of the new covenant extend to all the nations of the world.  How do we know this?  Because Revelation 5:9 says that by Jesus’ blood, he “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” 

Through the new covenant, God intends for his grace to reach every people group on earth.  This is the fulfillment of his promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  Through the offspring of Abraham (ie. Jesus), God is gathering together a people for himself from all the peoples of the world. 

The Father chose them before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), sent the Son to come and purchase them by his blood (v. 7), then sent his Spirit to call them and give them new hearts that love and worship him (vv. 13-14). 

How does the Spirit call them?  The Spirit calls as we call people to respond to the gospel.  This is why we must share the gospel if people are going to be saved.  This also means that we can share the gospel with great confidence.  God will save his people – nothing will stop him.  We can go to the hardest people groups on the earth and share the gospel with them, knowing that some of them, eventually, are going to believe because Jesus has already purchased them with his blood.

Jesus’ blood has inaugurated and ratified God’s new covenant with his people.  The nature of the new covenant is that it’s a covenant of grace and the scope of the new covenant is worldwide. 

Next week, we’ll see how the new covenant creates worshipping communities, or gatherings of people who’ve been given new hearts by God and who want to worship him in spirit and truth.