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The Two Covenants
Memory Verse: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt…” Jeremiah 31:31-32
Introduction
• The Scriptures consist of mainly two covenants–the old covenant and the new covenant. We find the old covenant in the Old Testament and the new covenant in the New Testament.
• In this lesson, we are going to learn about these two covenants and their difference.
The Lesson
• Our Lord God made different covenants with His children at different times since creation.
• He first made a covenant with Adam to rule over everything on earth and to eat of every fruit except from the tree of knowledge, or that he would die. Genesis 2:16-17; Hosea 6:7
• He made a covenant with Noah never to destroy the earth with flood. Genesis 9:11
• He made a covenant with Abraham to greatly multiply his descendants. Genesis 17:2
• He made a covenant with the Israelites in Horeb when He gave them the Commandments. Deuteronomy 5:2
• There are many other covenants God made with His people in the Old Testament, but the main covenant was the one that He made with Abraham and later reaffirmed to the Israelites to give them an inheritance of land:
• “On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, ‘to your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” Genesis 15:1
• “I will give you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” Genesis 17:8
• “… I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.” Exodus 6:8
• “For the Lord Your God is merciful God; he will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.” Deuteronomy 4:31
• The covenant the Lord God made with Abraham and his descendants was a covenant of an earthly inheritance. It was temporal. That is why the Lord God refers to it as “the land of your sojourning.”
• Through the prophets, the Lord God spoke of a new covenant He would establish with His people:
• “Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers…” Jeremiah 31:31-32
• The Lord God established the new covenant He spoke of through the prophets with blood.
• The old covenant was confirmed with the blood of calves and goats. “Hence, even the first covenant was not ratified without blood…” Hebrews 9:18
• The new covenant is also established with blood, but not with that of animal blood like the old covenant, but with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ: “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew 26:28
• The new covenant is not a promise of a temporal or earthly inheritance, but of eternal inheritance:
• “Therefore He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance…” Hebrews 9:15
Conclusion: The main covenant of the Old Testament is the promise to Abraham and his descendants to inherit a land of wealth and prosperity. It was an earthly inheritance that was a symbol to the promise of the new covenant. It was confirmed with the blood of sacrificial animals. But the new covenant in the New Testament is a promise of an eternal inheritance–the Kingdom of God–and it was established with the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Lord God made this covenant known through the prophets and fulfilled it through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior—incarnate of the Virgin Mary, who was crucified, died, and resurrected.
Written By: admin
Date Posted: 3/2/2013
Number of Views: 1734
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