Our God is a covenanting God; He wants to enter into a covenant with man, and through this covenant, His heart’s desire is revealed to man. There’s no obligation from God’s side to enter into a covenant with us, but for our sake, He wants to assure us and cause us to be at peace; so He entered into a covenant with us.
God’s covenant with man – His new covenant – is the revelation of God’s highest grace to man. The previous five major covenants – God’s covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, and the law – are all leading to and pointing toward the new covenant which was enacted by the Lord’s blood before He was crucified; this new covenant is the reality of all the previous covenants.
The new covenant is the better covenant, the eternal covenant, and it is a continuation and a further development of the covenant God made with Abraham (which is of promise, made by faith).
The covenant of the law given on Mount Sinai was used by God to expose the failures, weakness, and impotence of man; it was not intended for man to keep the law, but it was to expose how incapable, how weak, and how impotent we are. The more we see how incapable and weak we are in keeping the law, the more we will treasure the new covenant.
Jeremiah prophesied concerning the new covenant, and the Lord Jesus enacted that covenant with His blood, giving us a foretaste of the new covenant; now we have the boldness to enter into this new covenant. The old covenant refers to the portion of the Bible from Exo. 19 to the Lord’s death on the cross; the Lord’s death enacted te new covenant, and now in our spiritual life and experience we are inheriting and enjoying all that God has covenanted to us!
The new covenant unveils to us what is God’s heart’s desire and God’s eternal purpose, and it is the basis for us to enjoy, participate, and experience all that God has for us. We need to see what the new covenant is and enter into the full enjoyment of the new covenant God made with us.
Christ Himself is the New Covenant, the New Testament, Given to us by God
Because Jeremiah prophesies concerning the new covenant, the book of Jeremiah – even though it is a book in the Old Testament – may be considered like a New Testament book (see Jer. 2:13; 17:9; 13:23; 23:5-6; 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12).
Before we get into what the contents of the new covenant are, we need to see what is the new covenant. According to Isa. 42:6 and 49:8, the new covenant is Christ Himself; God gave Christ to be the new covenant for the people. The new covenant is not merely a document, an agreement, embodying some matters of concern; God gave Christ as a covenant, and the wonderful person of the all-inclusive Christ is the reality of the new covenant.
In the word of God there are many promises given by God in which He promises to do things for us in the future (He will keep us, give us this or that); a covenant is when God’s promise is enforced with an oath, and it is therefore like a contract, legal and binding. Through His covenant with man God s bound to do certain things for man.
In Greek the word for covenant is the same as for testament; the difference it is that a covenant is made by a person while he is living, and after he dies the covenant becomes a testament (a will).
God promised something to us in His covenant with us, and He even enforced it with an oath to become a covenant; Christ came to fulfill and become God’s covenant, and through His death He enacted the covenant, making the covenant a testament bequeathing all these to us. All the items in the new testament have been accomplished by God in Christ and are today our bequests to enjoy.
The Lord Jesus said that the cup at the Lord’s table was a symbol of the new covenant in His blood (1 Cor. 11:25); He died for us according to God’s righteous requirements, and the blood He shed was used to form and enact the covenant. This new covenant is Christ Himself; God promises us Christ as the covenant and He gives us His all-inclusive Christ to be everything to us.
Christ is the centrality and universality as the reality of the new testament; God gives us Christ, and whenever we exercise our spirit – the realm in which the new covenant is – we enjoy all the blessings of the new covenant. The reality of the hundreds of bequests and promises in the Bible are Christ (see Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14; 1 Cor. 1:30; 15:45b; Eph. 1:3); without Christ, the Bible is empty, but when we enjoy Christ and take Him as the reality of all God promised to us, we enjoy the reality.
This One who is all-inclusive and all-embracing is ours – He was given to us by God as a covenant. When we have Christ we have forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, and all the blessings. Christ is our “title-deed” to all God promised to us; just as when we get the whole house with all that’s in it when we get the title-deed of the house, so when we enjoy Christ in our spirit we enjoy the title-deed to all God has bequeathed to us.
Hallelujah, through His incarnation, living, and death Christ has accomplished the new covenant, through His blood shed on the cross He enacted the new covenant, and in His resurrection, He has become the new covenant, the new testament, for us to enjoy and partake of! Hallelujah!
Thank You Lord for entering into a covenant with us in which You are everything to us for our enjoyment. Thank You for dying on the cross and shedding Your blood to enact the new covenant, and then You became the new covenant. Lord, You are the covenant given by God to man; You are the all-inclusive One, the blessing, and everything that we need and desire. Hallelujah, we have Christ as the new covenant given to us to enjoy, partake of, and inherit by exercising our spirit to enjoy Him!
Receiving and Enjoying Christ as the Covenant by Exercising our Mingled Spirit
How can we enjoy and partake of the covenant God made with us, that is, how can we receive and enjoy Christ as God’s covenant with us? Today in the New Testament age God doesn’t promise us mainly outward things but spiritual things, which are the real things. You can have a lot of outward things, but if you don’t have peace, joy, rest, and comfort inwardly, all the other things are in vain.
The way for us to receive and enjoy Christ as the covenant of God to us by exercising our spirit, living according to our spirit, and remaining in our spirit. God created the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him (Isa. 42:5-6; Zech. 12:1); in God’s eyes, our human spirit is as important as the heavens and the earth because our spirit is the place and the realm in which we can contact God and enjoy God.
When we exercise our spirit and live according to our spirit, we enjoy Christ – who is with our spirit – and we partake of Him. The most simple way for us to enjoy Christ is to call on the name of the Lord by exercising our spirit; when we call on the Lord’s name we partake of all His riches (Rom. 8:4b; 10:13; 2 Tim. 4:22; Isa. 12:3-4).
Whenever we are in our mingled spirit, we are connected to the heavens, and Christ is being dispensed into us as the reality of the new covenant. God prepared a spiritual “stomach” – our spirit – in which we can receive and enjoy the “food” which is Christ as the covenant and light of God; whenever we exercise our spirit, live according to the spirit, and remain in our spirit, we receive and enjoy Christ as the reality of all God’s riches.
The Lord is with our spirit: grace is with us; therefore, we need to exercise our spirit and live in spirit so that all that God has covenanted to us will be made real and enjoyable to us in spirit! In our spirit we meet the Lord, contact Him, enjoy Him, and partake of Him; when we call on the name of the Lord, He is our portion of enjoyment.
Lord Jesus, we want to receive and enjoy You as the covenant given to us by God by exercising our spirit, living according to our spirit, and walking in the spirit. Thank You Lord for our mingled spirit, with which You are. Keep us enjoying You and receiving You as the reality of all of God’s riches in spirit! May we be those who call on the name of the Lord at all times to enjoy all His riches in spirit! Hallelujah! Lord Jesus, we love You!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and The Central Line of the Divine Revelation, pp. 89-90 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2) week 7 / msg 7, The Covenanting God and His Covenants (2) – The Contents of the New Covenant.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Your ministry, O Lord, / How excellent it is; / A better covenant, / And better promises; / Enacted on a better law. / Of such You are Executor. / A better covenant, / And better promises; / A better law of life / And sacrifice this is. / Redemption’s work, done long ago, / A better blood has made it so. (Hymns #1187)
# O the riches of my Savior- / Nothing less than God as all! / All His person and possessions, / Now my spirit doth enthrall. (Hymns #542)
# Jesus is the living Spirit, / Our reality; / We enjoy Him just by calling / In simplicity. / Jesus is the living Spirit, / We must now proclaim; / He is rich unto all men / That call upon His name. (Hymns #1142)
About aGodMan
Jesus Christ became a covenant to us (Isa. 42:6d; 49:8d)….Christ enacted the new covenant (which became the new testament—the will) with His blood for the redemption of the transgressions of God’s people (Matt. 26:28; Heb. 9:15)….He died for us according to God’s righteous requirements, and the blood He shed through that death was used to form a covenant. Even He Himself said that the cup of the Lord’s table was a symbol of the new covenant in His blood (1 Cor. 11:25). He redeemed us back to God and qualified us to inherit everything of God. This is the new covenant. Actually, this new covenant is Christ Himself. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Isaiah, pp. 337-338)