Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Answering another one of your questions today—is the New Covenant operative right now? Hello friend, we’re glad you’re joining us here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We’re located in North Texas and our website is faithalone.org. At that website you will find lots of information about us who we are, some hundreds of articles that we’ve published, a few free ebooks, our magazine, our seminary, and our bookstore where you can find Bob Wilkins’ latest book, The Gospel Is Still Under Siege. Find it all at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkins and Ken Yates. 

KEN: Bob, we have a question here from Tom that I hear pretty regularly in my Zoom classes and in the Seminary classes and by the way, let me put in a plug for the GES Seminary classes. If you’re interested in taking them, contact faithalone.org or call the office and we’ll get you set up. And anyway, Tom asks about the New Covenant. 

BOB: Yeah, that’s a big question. Oh, it’s a lot of questions. 

KEN: Oh yeah, we get this in our conferences and everything else. I mean, this question comes up a lot and specifically he wants to know, aren’t there verses, and we’re going to read a couple that he references here, aren’t there verses in the New Testament that indicate that the New Covenant is already being ministered in the Church today. Because he talks about the Free Grace view and we’ve talked about this in our conferences that we have taught at our conference that the New Covenant is for the nation of Israel. Right. And there’s a difference between Israel and the Church and the Church is not under the New Covenant. 

BOB: And by the way, the verses that say that the New Covenant is for Israel is Jeremiah 31:31-33, 30-33. 

KEN: Yeah, there’s about four verses there. But Tom references one verse in 1 Corinthians and one verse in 2 Corinthians. 

BOB: All right. So what verses does he hit? 

KEN: Okay, 1 Corinthians 11:25, Paul is talking about the Lord’s Supper. Right. And he says, “In the same manner”, Christ, or it says, “He also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the New Covenant in My blood.” And of course, Paul is talking to the Corinthians, about them, the way they are mistreating the Lord’s Supper or they’re not conducting it in the right manner. And he’s referencing what Christ said on the night he was betrayed when He took the cup and said, “This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. Do this in remembrance of Me.” And so Tom is saying, he’s talking to the church of Corinth. He’s saying, this is what the Lord’s Supper was based upon and the Lord refers to the cup as the cup of the New Covenant. The other verse that he references is 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6. Paul here is talking about, well, he’s going to get into the discussion of walking by the Spirit, of being transformed by the Spirit. The law couldn’t do that. And he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6, he’s talking about his own ministry. And he says, “God also made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant.” And so Paul is saying that he is a minister of the New Covenant.” He’s talking again to the church at Corinth here in 2 Corinthians. So Tom is saying, doesn’t that show that Paul is ministering to the Church as a minister under the New Covenant and therefore the Church is under the New Covenant? 

BOB: Okay. So this is a highly controversial question. But first thing I would point out is do a word study of New Covenant. What you will find is, it’s amazingly rare in the New Testament. If I remember correctly, there’s four uses. There’s these two. And then in the Synoptics, you have “This is the blood of the New Covenant”, right? 

KEN: And Hebrews,  Hebrews are first a New Covenant, right? 

BOB: Yeah. But it’s extremely rare, first of all. But secondly, there’s no verse that says the New Covenant is currently operating. When he says we’re “ministers of the New Covenant”, you have to say, what does that genitive mean “of the New Covenant”? I think it means concerning the New Covenant or in relation to the New Covenant. 

In other words, we minister in anticipation of the coming kingdom when Israel will be the dominant nation and Jesus will be ruling from Jerusalem. 

And so we know the New Covenant is going to be inaugurated. Now when the New Covenant is inaugurated, according to Jeremiah 31, He’s going to write the law on their hearts, right? And he says, and everyone will know the Lord from the least to the greatest. Of course, he’s talking about in Israel, right? 

KEN: Well, he says in Jeremiah, this is for the Jews. 

BOB: Right. So there’s two ways that dispensationalists have handled this. And you know this, right? One is there’s two New Covenants. Now how does that view work? Do you remember that? 

KEN: Sure. One would be that that view would be that yes, Jeremiah is talking about a New Covenant that he’s going to make with the nation of Israel, but there’s also a New Covenant for the Church. They’re not the same. They’re different. They’re both based upon the death of Christ, but the Church is under a New Covenant and Israel is going to be under the New Covenant when He returns. 

BOB: Okay. So that’s one. And the other view is there’s one New Covenant. And within that, some people say that it has not yet begun, but it was more or less inaugurated with the blood of Christ, but it won’t actually begin until Jesus is established as King of Israel. 

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KEN: Now related to that, there would be some who would say that the New Covenant is for the nation of Israel, but the Church receives some of the blessings now. They would say that we’re not under the New Covenant, but we’re—

BOB: Beneficiaries of it? 

KEN: Yeah, beneficiaries of it. 

BOB: Yeah, and I would not see that because we’re not Israel. We’re not the chosen people. And the promises for Israel aren’t for us. We need unique promises for us. And so I think when Paul says he’s a minister of the New Covenant, he’s saying, look, I realize God has not forgotten His people. What is Romans 9:10-11 all about, right? He knows there’s a future for Israel. In Romans 11:26, one day all Israel will be saved. Every single adult Jew will be a believer at the end of the Tribulation. 

But not only that, all of the unbelieving children are going to be saved too because salvation in Romans 11:26, refers to deliverance from Gentile domination and from the army surrounding Jerusalem, right? 

And so when Paul ministers enlightened the New Covenant, he doesn’t see the Church as independent of Israel. Well, I maybe should say that differently. It is independent in one sense, but we are ultimately for the benefit of Israel. God says, I’m going to bless those who bless you, to Abraham. 

KEN: Would you feel comfortable or uncomfortable saying something like this? Again, I’m just talking off the top of my head. Okay, Christ’s death and resurrection is making the New Covenant, which is Jeremiah talking about from the nation of Israel. That is the basis for it. That’s why the New Covenant is coming. But when Paul, for example, in 2 Corinthians 3 is talking about, we are ministers of a New Covenant. He’s not saying that the Church is under that New Covenant, but with the coming of Christ, which is the basis for the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31, this way of living, this walking by the Spirit, it was made possible through the death of Christ as well. It’s not the law. And so he’s talking in those terms. 

BOB: Yeah, it could be. And I’ve been rueing over me saying that the death of Christ, the blood of Christ, initiated the New Covenant. Some people would say that. I think probably that would be an inaccurate statement because that would then say the New Covenant is currently operating. So probably, “initiate” is wrong, “anticipates” it would be right. But ultimately, the New Covenant won’t come until the Messiah of Israel comes again. And so the New Covenant won’t even be operative during the 75 days between the end of the Tribulation and the beginning of the Millennium. The New Covenant will begin with the Millennium. 

KEN: So what would you say about a—like a grace person, for example, who would make the distinction, because I’ve heard this before, that there’s a difference between the New Covenant and a New Covenant. 

BOB: I’ve not heard that one. Give me that one. 

KEN: Well, if I remember right, I don’t have the Greek text in front of me. But when Paul says, we are the ministers of a New Covenant. I don’t think the article is there. He’s just saying, we’re ministers of a new agreement where we’re not under the law anymore. In other words, he’s not really talking about Jeremiah 31. I’ve heard it said this way. Okay. We’re not talking about Jeremiah 31. But the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life and we’re ministers of a New Covenant here. 

BOB: Okay. That would be possible. But if he only uses the expression New Covenant twice and he uses it once in 1 Corinthians 11 and then once in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, it would seem likely that they both would be talking about the same New Covenant. Of course, in in 1 Corinthians 11:26, it does have the definite article, I think, doesn’t it? When he says that this is the New Covenant in my blood? 

KEN: Yeah, I’m just looking right, right now, I’m looking at 2 Corinthians 3:6, the article’s not there. We are ministers of a New Covenant. The article’s not there. 

BOB: But you don’t, in Greek you don’t have to have the definite article for something to be definite.

KEN: Right. You know, my point there would be could Paul just be,  he’s just comparing the old covenant of the law with the New Covenant or a New Covenant under a Spirit. We don’t live by the law because that’s what he’s talking about in 2 Corinthians 3. But this is something new. It’s not the New Covenant. I’m just saying I’ve heard that before.

BOB: Okay. And that’s a possibility. I suppose it would be kind of a form of saying there’s one New Covenant for Israel and one New Covenant for the Church, right? 1 Corinthians 11:26? 

KEN: Yeah. In 1 Corinthians 11:25, it is the New Covenant. Yeah. But of course, in that case, Paul’s quoting from Jesus’s words on the night he was betrayed. He’s talking to the Jews there. On the night he was was betrayed, this is the blood of the New Covenant or the cup of the New Covenant in My blood. 

BOb: Yeah. And look, I would encourage all of you, if I seem like I’ve stumbled around here, Ken’s more definitive than I am. But look, I’m confident the New Covenant is not operating. The New Covenant is not operating. 

KEN: And we agree. Yeah. 

BOB: Yeah. Maybe there’s a New Covenant, but I’m not so inclined at this point. I’m open. But what I encourage all of you to do is study this out. But the other thing to keep in mind is that the expression doesn’t occur much. And if this was some really key crucial theological aspect, don’t you think there’d be some passage that clearly laid this out? We don’t have that. 

So I would say, you know, that it’s dangerous to go there because it often leads people into legalism. And they somehow, because the New Covenant, when it comes in, the law of Moses is going to be operative again. 

KEN: And you helped me with this one time, Bob, when you said, when the New Covenant will have the law written on our heart, we don’t have the law of Moses on our heart. So wait a second. 

BOB: We don’t even have God’s laws. We don’t have the New Testament commands written on our heart. 

KEN: That’s right. So we’re not under that. 

BOB: The only way we get them there is by hearing the word of God taught, right? 

KEN: And then the Spirit transforming us. Well, that was a great question. We hope this helped and remember—keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: are we chosen to persevere in holiness? Come back and join us. Until then, let’s keep grace in focus.