Jesus Came to Establish the New Covenant
Jesus came to establish the New Covenant.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. –Ezekiel 36:25-27
We love exchanging gifts at Christmas. We get a thrill out of giving gifts to loved ones. We appreciate receiving gifts, and the thought that comes with them. And despite the fact that this practice can be tainted by selfishness and consumerism, it is a wonderful expression of love and joy when done rightly. We take our cues from the wise men, who brought the newborn Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
But what Ezekiel 36 wants to show us are the gifts of the new covenant that Christ has given to us. Those gifts amount to our salvation. Ezekiel tells us that He will cleanse us from our uncleanness, that which keeps us out of God’s holy presence. He will also replace our stony hearts, the obstinate hearts which made us unfeeling and callous in rebellion against God. And He will put His Spirit within us, enabling us finally to walk in a way that is consistent with God’s righteous ways. Jesus sums this new gift up in John 3, calling it the new birth. This idea of new birth helps us to understand the wonderful nature of God’s new covenant. Just as life is a gift that is not earned, so too the new covenant. It is God’s binding promise to do these marvelous things for His people.
The Bible speaks of this gift as entirely one-sided. It is not of our own doing (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is caused entirely by God (1 Peter 1:3). 2 Corinthians 9:15 gives us the grammar of how to respond to such a gift: we give thanks! “Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!”
For what blessings, and for what gifts can you thank God today? To be sure, we should give thanks for temporal things: our jobs, our homes, our food. But we must take care that our thanksgiving expands into the eternal. Thank God that your heart is not stone. Thank Him for the inscription of the living Word on your newly pulsating heart. Thank Him for the guiding, indwelling Holy Spirit. And thank Him that this new covenant is sealed by the wonderful blood of Jesus.
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