Old and New Covenant: What's the Difference?

It's always a danger that we, as Christians, use complicated terms from the Bible without really understanding what they mean, as well as being totally unintelligible for the world outside. The trap of Christian jargon is sometimes really difficult to escape from. Salvation, atonement, penal substitution... All these words mean wonderful things and yet can also be very confusing.

As I study for my Moore College Christian Worship module, I have been looking at the Old and New Covenants of the Bible. And 'covenant' is one such jargon-word. It basically means 'promise', but it does have more weight than that. In Bible times, an oral culture where the spoken word was much more meaningful and binding than in today's world, a covenant was serious business. It involved conditions. It was not easily broken.

The Old Testament relates to us how God called the people of Israel into covenant with Him (having made a covenant with Abraham, and they were his descendants). On Mount Sinai He gave them the Law, and the essence of the covenant was this:

'Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.' Deuteronomy 11:1

The conditions were that if Israel followed God's commands and stayed faithful to Him, He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and rest from all their enemies. But if they failed, then He would send famine and drought, routers, and eventually send them into exile. And sadly, this is what actually happened. After the exile, a remnant returned, but it was clear that Israel had problems with keeping the covenant because the post-exilic prophets (such as Malachi) spoke of their continued corruption and failure to obey God.

It is into this situation -a crushed people under the Roman empire, a disobedient people who had failed to keep God's law- that Jesus came. And with Him, He brought what is known as the New Covenant: a new way of relating to God.

Jesus changed:
The PLACE of worship
The MEANS of worship

Let's unpack that.

In the Old Testament, there were two important central places of worship. First, there was the Tabernacle (built under Moses in the time of being in the wilderness). This was a sort of tent, a central meeting place, where the Ark of the Covenant (a box containing the 10 Commandments and the Law) was kept. It was where God's presence dwelled- this is why Exodus ends climactically with the cloud of God's presence filling the place (Ex 40).

Once Israel had claimed the Promised Land and achieved rest from their enemies, the Temple was built (under the direction of Solomon, David's son). This was a much more permanent building, lavishly constructed, and provided the central place of worship where sacrifices were offered.

Jesus changed all of this by REPLACING the temple (place of worship), along with the sacrifices (means of worship). By offering Himself, dying an innocent death on the cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins, once for all. His blood justifies the guilty (Rom 5:8-9). There is no need now for any more sacrifices to be made. Jesus' sacrifice was enough to pay for all sins: past, present and future.

'He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him.' (Heb 7:25)

So Jesus IS the sacrifice, but Jesus is also the TEMPLE itself. The Temple represented God's rule, and God's will to bless Israel and other nations through them. In Jesus 'one greater than the temple' arrived (Mt 12:6). He embodied God's presence and authority, because He was the Son of God. In Him we find salvation and through Him all nations can be blessed (this is how God fulfilled His promise to Abraham from Genesis 12). We don't need a temple now to access God, because we have Jesus. This is why the Temple curtain was torn from top to bottom when Christ died on the cross (Mt 27:51).

True Christianity is all about presenting ourselves to God IN JESUS CHRIST. It's about coming to God, knowing you have NOTHING TO OFFER Him except a sinful soul, and asking for His forgiveness which is available to you THROUGH JESUS' SACRIFICE.

But once we have done that, we CAN offer God our lives. Romans 12:1 teaches that we are to become 'living sacrifices'- not trying to win our own salvation or our place in heaven by doing good things, but demonstrating in our LIFESTYLE that our relationship with God has been restored, and we are RIGHTEOUS in His sight (absolutely pure). Every sphere of our lives as Christians gives us the opportunity to glorify and serve God, in grateful response to the work of Jesus.

Therefore we "worship" not only in times of singing songs and reading the Bible and praying, but in obedience, loving others, showing hospitality, being faithful in marriage, witnessing to others (see Hebrews and Romans 12-15). Our worship is much more than what we do in church on a Sunday, or in our daily "quiet time" or personal devotions to God. It is our whole life.

That is not necessarily ABSENT from the Old covenant. God made it clear that He wanted His people to love Him all of the time, not just on a Sabbath day. He made it clear through the prophets that sacrifices were worthless unless they were accompanied by true repentance (1 Sam 15:22). But Jesus brought a whole new experience of worship for us, because He revealed to us in His very person the TRUTH about God, and He sent us His SPIRIT to aid us in crying out to God in our hearts (Rom 8:15). This is what Jesus meant when He said:

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24

In Jesus we see a full revelation of who God is, because Jesus is 'the exact representation of his being' (Heb 1:3). In Jesus we not only receive a new PLACE of worship (ie. in Himself, not in a physical building), and a new MEANS of worship (through His sacrifice), but we also receive a full picture of the GOD we worship. We can worship Jesus because He is God; He is part of the Trinity, the three-person God who is Father, Son and Spirit. And as Christians, our aim is to bring others to worship Christ and make Him their own Lord and Saviour.