Jesus, the New Covenant

We now live in a world where if you don’t like the rules you simply change them! We cheapen everything today and bend it to our own will.  But not so with God.

Source: youtube.com

It struck me recently that we live in a world of constantly shifting values, which changes its mind in a moment of time and where nothing seems to stand firm for very long. If we buy something and when we get it home we don’t like it we just take it back and get a refund and we can cancel or amend online orders at a touch of a button. If a child does not like what a teacher has said to them they can get their parent to challenge the teacher openly and the teacher has then to defend themselves to the child. If we break the law, then often if we can afford a good enough lawyer then we can at best avoid the consequences or the lawyer can negotiate a watered-down consequence for us. If a government does not agree with an age-old law or ruling it can just over rule it with persuasive argument and a manipulated vote. This thinking can subtlety pervade every part of our lives too, if we don’t like something or agree with it then we can just change it to agree with what we think is right. This came home very strongly recently while I was reading the book of Esther in the Bible.

In the story of Esther, a beautiful young Jewess is taken from obscurity and becomes the King’s wife.  Brilliant; a real Cinderella story you might say, and like Cinderella Esther keeps her identity secret, no one knows she is a Jew except for her Uncle. However, after a while through various devious circumstances which we will not cover here (just read the book of Esther for yourself, it’s a really good story), the King is tricked into making a decree that on a certain day all of the Jews in the land are to be killed and he seals the decree with his signet ring thereby making it binding (Esther 3). When news starts to spread about the decree Esther`s Uncle Mordecai asks her to go and plead with the King on behalf of her people. Reluctantly she agrees to do this and through many twists and turns of the story the plot is revealed to the King and he sees that his decree to have all the Jews killed is a mistake and the result of one evil person`s desire to wipe out an ethnic group. Great you think, everyone will be ok now the King just has to withdraw his decree and all will be well. Well actually no this was not the case because in King Xerxes day once a King had made a decree and sealed it with his ring then it could never be revoked even by the King himself (Esther 8:8). However, the King issued a new another degree which stated that on the day assigned for the execution of the Jews all the Jews would be allowed to defend themselves and fight back. In that way, they would be saved from annihilation.

Source: DailyVerses.net

Now I must admit I was really struck by the finality of the Kings word and the apparent stupidity of not being allowed to ‘change the rules’, but that is because we now live in a world where if you don’t like the rules you simply change them! We cheapen everything today and bend it to our own will. But not so with God. This led me to think about the difference in the way God looks at things. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned and were separated from God and God decreed that the way to deal with sin was to cover over it so the people would be able to live and come before God. God agreed that the people should sacrifice animals to seek forgiveness for what they had done wrong. The rest of old Testament, history shows us that the people did this on a regular basis because they were unable to stop sinning on their own. They knew that God had said that `without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22) and `Look the blood confirms the covenant the Lord has made with you` (Exodus 24:8). This was the agreement, the decree that the covenant and could not be changed. No matter how much the people tried to get around God’s decree or try to change or negotiate with Him, it stood just as strong as King Xerxes decree in the story of Esther.  This was just the same in the story of Esther for the Jews to be saved there had to be a new decree, and new agreement a new covenant, so we needed a new agreement a new covenant to free us completely from sin and from separation from God. Enter Jesus!

Romans 5:6 (NLT) tells us; `When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners’. Jesus came into the world to be the new decree the new covenant and His death alone would be the sacrifice to save us from the power of sin and separation from God and not just a cover up solution. Praise His Name. This alone is wonderful but fast forward for a minute to the Garden of Gethsemane and picture the scene; Your beloved son is down on His knees pleading with you to save Him from the awful humiliation, death and the weight of the whole world's sin that is just about to land on His shoulders. You love your son, He is part of yourself and after all you are God so all you have to do to save Him from what you know He is about to face is for you to say; ‘Ok, no problem I’ll just change the rules, I can do that I`m God. I can let Jesus off the hook and just decide to forgive anyone who asks me for forgiveness, and then Jesus will be ok and everything will be fine’. Who would have blamed God for doing that? There is only one problem though, God had made a decree that only the shedding of blood could bring about forgiveness. The blood of animal sacrifice had frankly only been a temporary solution and was not working, as it was only a covering up for sin. A more substantial, a more perfect, a more permanent sacrifice was needed if people were ever going to be freed from sin completely and obtain complete freedom. Jesus had to die, anything less would have allowed Satan to say to God ‘you broke your word, your decrees are worthless, you changed the rules I will never free them, there is no binding agreement, no visible sacrifice no New Covenant. The people will be as bound and hopeless as they have ever been’. Jesus had to die, God had to allow it and Jesus had to accept it. The weight of the words; ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will’ (Matthew 26:39) only become evident when you realise how God never allowed himself to `bend` the rules. We should be so grateful every day that He is a truly worthy King and that Jesus was a truly worthy sacrifice, anything less would leave us too vulnerable to the devil and sin.

I`m going to keep these thoughts in my mind the next time I take communion and hear the words; `This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me’. Be blessed.

Author: Jan Pearson

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