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Question 6: How many covenants did G-d make? I have a friend who says that the New Testament is based upon the Torah and is a new covenant. Thank you, Katie
Response
Dear Katie:
1) The Hebrew Bible (Tanach) actually tells of of a number of covenants made by G-d. A covenant is essentially a deal or a relationship. G-d made a covenant with the world after the great flood in the days of Noah that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. The rainbow is the sign of that covenant (see Genesis 9:12-17).
The essential covenant that G-d made with the Jewish people was that He would be our G-d and we would be His people. The nature of our relationship would be that He would take care of us and guarantee our eternal survival, and that we would observe His instructions for us recorded in the Torah. (This covenant is described in the book of Exodus 19:5-6 and chapter 24. G-d's instructions to the Jewish people are found beginning with Exodus chapter 20 until the book of Deuteronomy).
Christians have often mistakenly asserted that their so-called "New Testament" is actually foretold in the Hebrew Bible. They claim that G-d promised that He would give the Jewish people a "new covenant" and that the Christian Bible containing the essence of Christianity is that promised "new covenant". This is a totally erroneous idea.
There is a passage in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah which does speak of a "new covenant" that G-d will make with the Jewish people - but it doesn't speak about a new Torah or a new Bible that He would give us. Let's look at that passage:
"Behold, days are coming, says the L-rd, when I will establish
a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of
Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I established with
their fathers at the time that I took them by the hand to take
them out of the land of Egypt; My covenant which they broke,
even though I was like a husband to them, says the L-rd. But
this will be the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel after those days, says the L-rd: I will place My Torah
within them and on their hearts I will write it. And I will be
their G-d and they will be My people. And no longer will
anyone teach their friend or their brother saying: Know the
L-rd! For they will all know Me, from the least of them to the
greatest of them says the L-rd, and I will forgive their sin and
remember their iniquity no more."
Jeremiah 31:30-33
There are a number of very important things to understand about this passage in Jeremiah:
a) This is a prophesy that is still waiting fulfillment - it hasn't happened yet. We can see this clearly when reading the last verse, which tells us that when this new covenant is made, every single person will know G-d. Obviously, this has not yet happened. There are still many people in the world who don't know G-d. Therefore, we are still waiting for this prophesy to be fulfilled. It wasn't fulfilled 2000 years ago with the writing of the Greek New Testament.
b) The passage does not say that G-d will give the Jewish people a new Torah or a new set of scriptures. It says that at some future time, He will make a new covenant with us - which means that there will be a new deal or a new relationship between G-d and the Jewish people. The passage contrasts this new relationship with the old one. Unfortunatley, the Jewish people never totally lived up to their end of the deal after G-d took them out of Egypt. Although they were all supposed to observe the Torah, many Jewish people broke G-d's covenant and failed to observe the Torah properly. This passage in Jeremiah tells us that at some future time, G-d will change this relationship by putting His Torah inside of us and writing it on our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah is not prophesying that at some future time G-d would give us a new Torah, but that He would put the original Torah inside of us.
What does it mean to have the Torah in our heart? Well, we know that when it wasn't written on our hearts, we were not all keeping it that well. We can understand the meaning of this phrase by looking at how it appears elsewhere in the Bible:
"I delight to do your will, my G-d, because your Torah
is in my innermost parts".
Psalm 40:8
When the Torah is planted on the inside of a person, it is part of him and he will keep it. This prophesy of Jeremiah is actually repeated elsewhere in the Bible:
"And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit
within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their
flesh and give them a heart of flesh. That they may walk
in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them; and
they shall be My people and I will be their G-d"
Ezekiel 11:19-20
"A new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out
of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I
will put a new spirit within you, and cause you to walk
in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgements and
do them".
Ezekiel 36:26-27
So, while the Bible does tell us that in the future, there will be a "new covenant" made between G-d and the Jewish people - this has nothing to do with the Christian Bible. (This is especially so, since one of the basic teachings of the Jewish scriptures is that the Torah is perfect (Psalm 19) and that we must observe it forever. The Christian scriptures totally contradicts this by claiming that the Torah isn't perfect and that it is no longer has to be observed.
I hope this is helpful - please let me know if you have any further questions.
With Torah blessings,
Rabbi Michael Skobac
Keywords: Satan,adversary,Yetzer Hara,satanic,obstruction
