Better Covenant, Better Promises

Now Jesus, our High Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on better promises. Hebrews 8:6

GOD MADE A COVENANT with Israel in the days of Moses that was founded on grace: “I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery” (Exodus 20:2). God set the terms of this covenant: “If you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me” (Exodus 19:5, emphasis added). Essentially he told them: “If you obey me, I’ll bless you, and if you disobey me, I’ll curse you.”

They did not obey. But God didn’t give up on his people. He made a new promise through the prophet Jeremiah: “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts” (31:33). The new covenant was inaugurated by Jesus. Jesus replaced the “If . . . then” nature of our relationship with God with “I will.” The old covenant of legal threats was replaced by the new covenant of full provision in the person of Christ. And while this new covenant doesn’t do away with the law, it internalizes the law in our hearts. It changes us from people who pursue holiness through behavior modification efforts into people who long for a genuine inner holiness that emerges from hearts filled with the Holy Spirit.

It’s when the Spirit awakens us to the beauty of Christ that we can finally see that this is where the law was meant to lead us all along —not to better behavior, but to Christ. And this is the challenge for us as parents: to lead our children not merely toward better behavior, but to Christ.

Lord, you have given us a better covenant with better promises than you gave through the old covenant. No longer do we live in the fear of “If . . . then” but in the freedom of “It is finished!” So we ask you to save us from impressing upon our children a gospel of trying harder to live up to a standard outside of themselves. Instead, help us to communicate the Good News clearly so that they can live freely under the new covenant, which empowers us from the inside to live holy lives.