The New Covenant

Jim ButlerJeremiah 31:31–34

Jeremiah 31:31–34 announces a new covenant that surpasses every prior administration of the covenant of grace — Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic — by guaranteeing what none of them could: an inviolable covenant secured not by human fidelity but by the covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Four defining features mark the new covenant as genuinely new: the inviolability of its bond, the internalization of God's law upon the heart, the saving knowledge of God granted to every member, and the full and permanent forgiveness of sins. Against Federal Vision teaching, the sermon insists that new covenant membership is coextensive with salvation — those who fall away demonstrate they were never true members. Entry into this covenant is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, who ratifies it in his own blood as the surety of a better covenant.