New Covenant Promises

1. What is a covenant?

“A covenant is a relationship of ‘oaths and bonds’ and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitment” (Michael Horton).

2. What is new (and better) about the new covenant?


a. “… Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second” (Hebrews 8:6-7).

b. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord” (Hebrews 8:8-9; cf. Jer 31:31-32).

c. “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13).

3. What are the promises of the new covenant?

a. Gift of complete forgiveness

i. “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Hebrews 8:12)

ii. “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).

iii. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:12, 14).

b. Gift of a new Heart

i. “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10; cf. Jeremiah 31:33)

ii. “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

 iii. “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40).

c. Gift of knowing the LORD

i. “And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:11; cf. Jeremiah 31:34).