These three major promises of the new covenant are intended to drive the Christian to a life of faith a trust in the once-for-all death of Christ, to live confidently in this present evil age in the face of great opposition and struggle, and to not give up.
The author of Hebrews desires for Christians to appreciate the much better quality of the new covenant than the old covenant administered at Sinai. His lengthy citation of Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8 is intended to cheer the Christian with what the new covenant secures for believers through the coming of Christ. The covenant promises that we now enjoy in fulfillment are the same promises that Abraham looked forward to and, as Hebrews stresses, “is not like the covenant made with Israel on the day when God brought them out of Egypt, the covenant which they broke” (Heb. 8:9; Jer. 31:32).
Since many early Christians were giving up on Christ and desired to return to the Mosaic administration as a more superior revelation of God, the author stresses three promises of the new covenant that makes the arrangement superior to the old one.
These three major promises of the new covenant are intended to drive the Christian to a life of faith a trust in the once-for-all death of Christ, to live confidently in this present evil age in the face of great opposition and struggle, and to not give up.
These are the most precious promises of the covenant of grace:
1. The Law is written on our hearts.
I will put my laws into their min ds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8:10; Jer. 31:33).
The law was originally written on stones, and this is how the people related to God. Their religion was one of mere duty without love. But the summary of the law was to love to God from the heart. This is the great reasons that the Lord called for circumcised hearts–that they might love him. The new covenant promise spoke of the interior quality of true religion. True love of God, springing from the gift of faith, would be demonstrated by a people who are not characterized as always apostatizing from the Lord from the heart. Instead, out of sincere and true love for God, faith and repentance will be the defining characteristic of their lives.