Old Covenant, New Covenant – Law Matters: The Law and the Scriptures (6)

Old Covenant, New Covenant

Law Matters: The Law and the Scriptures (6)

The New Covenant brings the Old to completion.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people…to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” Luke 1:68, 72-75

Zechariah, foreseeing in the birth of John the Baptist the work of Christ’s redemption, reached back to the earliest days of God’s Covenant and brought forward the promises (to Abraham), the commandments (through Moses), and the Kingdom (from David) into the New Covenant which Christ would inaugurate.

The Old Covenant, God had foretold, would give way to a New Covenant, in which the Spirit of God worked from the inside-out to bring the promises and commandments of God to lived reality in His Kingdom people (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:26, 27; Is. 9:6, 7).

Thus the New Covenant should not be understood as replacing the Old Covenant but as bringing it to fulfillment. The promises remain (Rom. 4; 2 Pet. 1:4). The commandments continue (Rom. 7:12). And the Kingdom has come and is coming (Matt. 12:22-29; 6:10, 33). The New Covenant came not to do away with the Old but to bring the Old to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The New Covenant makes no sense without the Old, and the Old has no staying power apart from the New. They are two aspects of God’s one overarching Covenant of Promise (Eph. 2:12) and must always be kept together.

We are the people of God’s Covenant, and in that Covenant His Law and promises come to fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Matt. 5:17-19; 2 Cor. 1:20), and we, His chosen people (1 Pet. 2:9, 10), realize all our fulfillment in Him (Col. 2:9, 10).

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.