"This is my blood of the (new) covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

(Matthew 26:28)

This post is part of a series from a teaching day, entitled "Israel, The Bible and You".

Above is Jesus' claim at the Last Supper that His blood would seal a "new" covenant, which would procure forgiveness of since for "many" (including us gentile believers)! So let's look at the background to the New Covenant through two Bible passages: 

• Jeremiah 31
• Ephesians 2
  

(I always try and use blocks of scripture in cases like this as it is very easy to read our own interpretations into a single verse without seeing and taking account of the context it sits in).

Jeremiah 31

You can read this well-known chapter for yourself and compare it with the breakdown of verses here. The context is that the nation is in exile and God is bringing a message of hope for the future, including a renewal of His covenant relationship with Israel by introducing a "new covenant"

Verses 31-34

This "new covenant" in reality is a "renewed" one, as it is intended to augment the original covenant with Moses. One sign of this purpose is God repeating the formula that defines the original, "I will be their God,and they will be my people." (v33).

But the ultimate aim of the covenant is seen in v34 as God says He will enable forgiveness of sins at an individual level, not a corporate level. Remember that the High Priest offered an annual sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole nation, while now this forgiveness will be at an individual level. This enables the covenant to be expanded to provide forgiveness of sins to all people, drawing them into the people of God.

Ephesians 2

Look at this diagrammatic representation of Paul's teaching in Ephesians 2 :

The "old covenant" created a people of God. Outside this group is all other gentiles, who are under no covenant. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:12, we were "separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise!"

The new covenant has created a "sub-set" of God's people, primarily for the Jewish people but open to including Gentiles as well because of the provision of individual forgiveness through Jesus' once for all sacrifice on the Cross!

NOW look (below)! Read Ephesians 2:14-22 to get an overview of how amazing this covenant is for both Jews and Gentiles. In Christ, Jew and Gentile are BOTH part of God's people; BOTH inheritors of the covenants and promises of God. Moses and Abraham are part of the heritage of Christians as well as Jews: Jewish heritage by birth; ours by faith.

It is so sad that the Western Church largely fails to see that the Jews are our "elder brothers" in God. We should be respecting them, supporting them, loving them and making them jealous of our participation in God's plans and purposes. Instead, the increasingly Gentile Western Church enforced an anti-semitic separation of hatred between Jew and Gentile and produced a history of ghettos, pogroms, the holocaust and now support of Israel's enemies instead of support of the people of God restored to the Land of God.

Shame on us!