Friday 23 January 2009

Background

'Covenant' is an important concept in the history of God'sdealings with humankind. The Covenant between the people of Israeland God at Mount Sinai is the most well-known of the Old Testamentcovenants (Exodus,chapters 19-34). There were many, and the one between God andNoah (Genesis 9)for example, embraced the whole created order - not justhumankind.

A covenant is a binding agreement or pledge. A simple 'contract' isbetween two equal parties with binding obligations on both sides,whereas a covenant is a generous reaching out from one party to theother - the initiative and the commitment is with the'covenanter'.

In this passage, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews quotesfrom the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34)as an example of how the better covenant, of which he spoke, hasnow come to pass in the person of Jesus. The term 'better' andsimilar words occur more times in the book of Hebrews than in therest of the New Testament. So the writer is saying to these JewishChristians, 'What you had under the old Covenant was good, but whatwe now have through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus isbetter.' Jesus is God's 'more', 'greater truth' and 'better thing'.This is especially true because in the new Covenant sins areforgiven.

The previous covenant, along with the Temple and the priesthood isnow out-of-date and about to disappear, so the writer urges hisJewish Christians to hold on to Jesus and not to be drawn back tothe practices of the old Covenant and the old faith.

To Ponder

The Christian Jews were being urged to acceptthat their old dispensation was true, but not the whole truth. Isthere anything that we can use from this passage to help us in ourecumenical relations at this time?

If God has a covenant with all people and thewhole of creation, what are the implications of a passage such asthis for our relations with people of other faiths?