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    The New Covenant
    The New Covenant
    The New Covenant
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    The New Covenant

    By Edwin Walhout

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    About this ebook

    Short devotionals analyzing some of the aspects and implications of the new covenant which Jesus introduced to replace the old covenant. This is the way people should live in order to achieve the goals that our Creator has set for us.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdwin Walhout
    Release dateFeb 14, 2014
    ISBN9781310603563
    The New Covenant
    Author

    Edwin Walhout

    I am a retired minister of the Christian Reformed Church, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Being retired from professional life, I am now free to explore theology without the constraints of ecclesiastical loyalties. You will be challenged by the ebooks I am supplying on Smashwords.

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      Book preview

      The New Covenant - Edwin Walhout

      THE NEW COVENANT

      Fifty Biblical Meditations

      by Edwin Walhout

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2014 Edwin Walhout

      Cover design by Amy Cole

      See Smashwords.com for additional titles by this author.

      Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      CONTENTS

      Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 About the Author

      Chapter 1

      OBSOLETE

      "In speaking of ‘a new covenant,’ he has made the first one obsolete.

      And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear."

      Hebrews 8:13

      We do not know who wrote the book of Hebrews. But whoever he was, he is writing some very controversial ideas. He is saying we now have a new covenant, that the old one is obsolete and will soon disappear. What exactly is he talking about?

      The old covenant is the Old Testament. The word testament means covenant. So the author of Hebrews is saying the New Testament is taking the place of the Old Testament. But how so? Isn’t the Old Testament inspired by God? How could it become obsolete?

      He does not mean the Old Testament as a body of religious writings, he means the Law of God, the Torah, which governed the Israelites during the Old Testament period of time.

      Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as well as all their descendants until the time of Moses, none of them had the Torah to guide them in their service of God. All they had was a monotheistic trust in one God only, as contrasted with a polytheistic trust in many gods like the surrounding nations.

      But when in God’s judgment the time was right, he gave them his Law at Mount Sinai, his Torah, and from that time until the time of Jesus, that is what the Israelites had to guide them in their service of God. There were laws about almost everything in that Torah: laws governing their personal behavior and the administration of justice, laws about how to worship God, holy days, various kinds of sacrifices, as well as a short summary of the basic guidelines of life in the ten commandments.

      But now, the author of Hebrews is saying, that Torah, that Law of God, has been replaced by something different, something new, a new covenant, a new way of obeying God. The Torah is becoming obsolete, no longer in effect. Something different and better is taking its place: a new covenant to replace the covenant of the Torah.

      But try to imagine what the ordinary Jewish person back then might be thinking. We have had the Law of God as our guide ever since the time of Moses, over a thousand years. And now, all of a sudden, it’s gone? Was that all a mistake then? How can we give up God’s Law when it has been our guide all these centuries? What could possibly be better than God’s Law, our beloved Torah?

      And we today might be thinking the same thing if we consider ourselves as Christians bound to obey everything in the Bible, Old Testament as well as New Testament. We might be surprised by what the New Testament actually teaches!

      Chapter 2

      SHADOW

      "Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come

      and not the true form of these realities,

      it can never … make perfect those who approach."

      Hebrews 10:1

      What’s better about the new covenant as contrasted with the old covenant? The author of Hebrews explains in this verse. The Torah could not make the Jews perfect. The Torah has only a shadow of the good things possible in the new covenant.

      A shadow is not the reality. When we see a shadow we might be able to deduce what it is that casts it. If the shadow has four legs it is probably an animal, a cat or dog or horse or cow. Or it might be a chair. If it has only two legs it might be a human person. If it is small it might be a child. We might even be able to distinguish a boy from a girl from the shadow. But we would never mistake the shadow for the reality.

      That’s the analogy that the author of Hebrews is drawing in this text. The very best that the Jewish people could achieve under the Law of God, the Torah, is only a shadow of the reality that God wants.

      Perhaps the most vivid way we can understand that is to remember what the Jews did to Jesus. They rejected him and persuaded the Roman authorities to crucify him. But Jesus was sent by God. So the Jews rejected the person God sent because they were devoted adherents to the Law of God. They rejected the Son of God in the name of the Law of God. They had the shadow but they rejected the reality.

      No matter how devoted the Jews were to the Torah it did not make them sensitive to what God was saying to them in Jesus. They could not hear what God was saying to them in the living person of Jesus, even though they were listening to what God had said long ago at Mount Sinai. Something had to happen to change that, to make them sensitive to the Word of God that was living and active, as it came to them via Jesus.

      So we may see the Jews of Jesus’ day as the shadow of what people could become if they listened to Jesus as the reality. The Torah kept them obedient to the rituals but could not bring them freedom of the spirit. They could observe those customs rigorously while at the same time not serving from the heart. They could be jealous or greedy or proud or unjust while maintaining a faithful observance of the traditional Jewish rituals of worship in the temple.

      That is what needed to be changed, the shadow that must give way to the reality. People must become people of God inwardly, not only outwardly, and that is what Jesus brought in the new covenant.

      Chapter 3

      BETTER

      "Accordingly, Jesus has also become the guarantee of a better covenant."

      Hebrews 7:22

      Jesus did not come simply to change things; he came to change things for the better. The covenant that Jesus brought is not just

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