A New Covenant

The word “covenant” in the Bible covers a lot of Israel’s history. Beginning, in order, with the Edenic Covenant, then the Adamic Covenant, and the Noahic, then Abrahamic, Mosaic, Palestinian, Davidic, and then the New Covenant. These all are explanations and promises of God to Israel. There should be NO disagreements that Israel is still the core of all God’s dealings with the human race. If we could take Israel out of history, the whole Bible falls apart. Likewise, if we could take the Apostle Paul out of the picture, then we as Gentiles revert back to what Paul said in Eph. 2:12...

That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are brought close by the blood of Christ.

The difference between the Old and New Covenants is the Blood of Christ, which because the Jews rejected, has ushered us (Gentiles) in, and then too, by the direct intervention of the risen Lord in ordaining Paul as the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Jer. 31:31-37 says, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Can that be any plainer? ...with the house of Israel... a NEW covenant.
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus says the Lord, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.*
Thus says the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.

*That will never happen! But rather...
Behold, I will gather them out of all countries where I have driven them in My anger, in My fury, and in great wrath; I will bring them back to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. They shall be My people, and I will be their God; then I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. 41 I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul. Jer. 32:37-41

Deut. 6:1-9, This is the “Old” Mosaic covenant... “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you—a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

But the Jews rejected all of this.

Now over to 2 Cor. 3:5-17 ...God... made us (Apostles) sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter (“letter” meaning the written commandments of the Word of God, in contrast to the inward operation of the Holy Spirit under the New Covenant) but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.  But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

And Heb. 8:6-13 says,  But now ...He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. In that He says, “a new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Because He was rejected, the promises of the New Covenant are extended to everyone. Why? Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but now justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Rom. 3:23-30.

In the Old Testament God said, “If YOU will” whereas the New Testament He says, “I will”