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Yes, we have a New Covenant, but that does not mean that YHWH abolished the Torah!
Quesion: Is the "New Covenant" of Jeremiah 31:31-34 really new, or is it the Sinai Covenant "renewed"?
The answer is easy:
There has really only been ONE OVERARCHING COVENANT BETWEEN YHWH AND MAN, WORKING ITS WAY OUT BASED ON CONTINGENCIES IT SETS DOWN, BLESSING AND CURSING, LIFE AND DEATH. We see most, if not all, of Sinai's main precepts in evidence certainly by Abraham's time, and that is the same point made in Galatians, that Sinai did not abrogate the original revelation, but what Sinai did do was CODIFY IT AS A COHERENT SACRED NATION.
Still, it's the same covenant around the same people for the same purpose.
We speak of RENEWING the Sinai Covenant then as in a way of renewing the Abrahamic, Noahide and even Adamic covenants too. They are all tied to one another. And, in each case, as with covenants with David and others that follow, the failure of the people to obey resulted in bad consequences for them. At each step though, YHWH is giving them another chance to get it right. What he did before through patriarchs, kings and prophets He simply shifted to using His Son to do the SAME THING:
Matthew 21:33-46
33 "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard.
He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. 35 "The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. 'They will respect my son,' he said. 38 "But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir.
Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.' 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 "Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" 41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time." 42 Y'shua said to them, "Have you never read in the
Scriptures: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; YHWH has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? 43 "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of Elohim will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed." 45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Y'shua's parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
But to be honest, I don't spend a whole lot of time on whether NEW or RENEW is the better reading. It's fine semanitcs to me, because when something is RENEWED it is NEW AGAIN. In other words, the end result is NEW-NESS. Then the only question comes is if all these things were taught before, and the answer is OF COURSE! If man stumbles and BREAKS his covenant with YHWH (Jeremaian 31:31-34), then YES it MUST be renewed, but it is not new in the sense that the requirement is the same: Obedience to YHWH. From that view, nothing NEW about that. But I do think going with RENEWED solves more problems than it creates. We just have to remain vigilant in being as detailed and accurate in the way we define either.
ROCK!
Law can mean Brit (covenant) or Torah (teaching). In Jer. 31:33 both meanings occur. "But this is the Brit which I will make ... I will put My Torah within them..." (NASB)
The Brit has changed, the Torah has not. Torah has abiding relevance and authority (Malachi 4:4). In Matthew 5:17-18 Yeshua says, "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets: I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished."
By contrast, the New Covenant is one of grace (Jer. 31:34). Because of it we have been redeemed from the curse (Gal. 3:13).
What has changed in the New Covenant?
(1) The lawgiver has changed.
Moses is no longer the steward. "For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our King (Isaiah 33:22)." (See also I Corinthians 9:21.)
(2)The priesthood has changed.
Instead of an Aaronic high priest there is one after the order of Melchizedek -- Yeshua, the Son of God (Psalm 110:4).
Heb. 7:28 says, "For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever."
(3)The sacrifice has changed.
Under the Sinai Covenant animal sacrifices were offered; under the New Covenant Messiah offered Himself (Ps. 40:6-8 and Heb. 10:11-12).
(4)The administration has changed.
The Torah is administered under a new Brit. It is no longer written on stone tablets but on the tablets of the heart, by the Ruach haKodesh (II Cor. 3:3). This is what God means in Jer. 31:31-34.
The First Covenant given at Sinai made way for the Second (New) Covenant as blossoms give way to fruit. The precept in Deut. 10:16, for example, is transmuted into promise in Deut. 30:6.
In the same way with the other conditions, God gives in the New Covenant what He required in the Old, as Heb. 7:19 says, "(for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope."
Some things have not changed in the New Covenant
(1)Torah has not changed.
"Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. (Ps. 119:89)"
(2)God's provisions have not changed.
We still need a sacrifice, a high priest to mediate on our behalf, an altar, a sanctuary, a covenant.
(3)The penalty for disobedience has not changed.
Transgression of the New Covenant is more severely punished than transgression of the Old, according to Heb. 10:28-29.
New Covenant in embryo
(4)The promises have not changed.
The Law, which came 430 years after God's covenant of promise with Abraham, cannot annul that covenant.
This was the New Covenant in embryo; and it was unilateral, as described in Genesis 15:17-18, where only God took upon Himself all the terms and conditions. (See Gal. 3:20)
The Sinai Covenant was temporary and was abrogated to make way for the New. Both cannot coexist.
As it says in Gal. 5:1, Messiah set us free so that we could have freedom.
(Elie Nessim leads Kehillath Tsion, as daughter ministry of Zion Messianic Fellowship in Vancouver, B.C.)
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