The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide this week might seem to say that the only thing new about the New Covenant was the label "New." Was Jeremiah, like the detergent marketing executive (p. 80), deceptively adding "New" to the label in order to get the people to "buy," to enter into the covenant relation? When the Study Guide says, "In a sense, one could say that the new covenant is like that" (ibid.), it implies that in another sense there really is something new about the New Covenant. In what sense is there something really new in the New Covenant?

God offered Abraham a covenant, promising him as many descendants as the stars in the sky and a home for his descendants in the Promised Land. Abraham "believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6).1 Paul used this passage to teach righteousness by faith (Rom. 4:1–16). Faith is a special kind of believing that not only recognizes the truthfulness of the content of faith, but also makes a commitment that appropriates that content. This appropriating commitment receives transforming grace that empowers obedience.

Sometimes people think that God gives true faith only when a person appropriates information about Jesus Christ. When Abraham made his believing commitment, he was not aware of and did not exercise faith in a messiah who would live a sinless life, die, and be resurrected. When Abraham committed himself on divine instruction about the covenant, he exercised genuine faith. Even though this was genuine faith, he did not realize he was receiving the gift of transforming grace.

In the account of the renewal of this covenant, Isaac was told, "I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and will give to your offspring all these lands; and all the nations of the earth shall gain blessings for themselves through your offspring, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, and my commandments, my statutes, and my laws" (Gen. 26:4–5). Most of the descendents of Abraham, not realizing that he had received a divine gift of grace, thought he had earned the promised reward of the covenant by producing works of the law, by producing outward conformity to the law. They felt secure when their words and their outward conformity corresponded with the divine instruction.

When a beautiful young woman says she loves a wealthy old man and is outwardly nice to him in order win his wealth when he dies, her niceness is a work of the law because her heart is not in it. Jeremiah was very concerned about the Children of Israel because they were outwardly circumcised but "uncircumcised in heart" (9:26). When Hosea bought unfaithful Gomer back and nursed her to health, his actions were "faith working through love" (Gal. 5:6).

When a number of the features of divine law were clearly spelled out at the renewal of the covenant at Sinai, the people responded with what Adventist church historian George Knight has called "verbal faith."2 They said, "Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do" (Exod. 19:8). A few days after verbally promising not to bow down to worship any idol, however, they made and worshiped a golden calf. Verbal faith recognizes the truthfulness of the content of faith but does not appropriate that content in such a way that God transforms the heart, thus empowering obedience. Verbal faith gives outward expressions of conformity without accepting transformation of the heart.

Jesus condemned verbal faith when he said, "Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). Jesus was not recommending salvation by works. When there is genuine commitment from the heart to appropriate some aspect of the divine instruction, God graciously gives faith that transforms the heart and empowers obedience. Paul wrote, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12–13). Paul explained that one of the major purposes of his preaching and writing was to "bring about the obedience of faith" (Rom. 1:4; 16:26).

In the account of Abraham’s true faith commitment in relation to the covenant, there seems to be no consciousness that the gift of grace writes the law on the heart, transforms the heart, and empowers obedience. By saying, "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts," Jeremiah made his hearers conscious of the need for divine transformation (31:33). Bringing this need to consciousness would help those who were practicing verbal faith to repent and practice genuine faith.

The consciousness of divine transformation is what is new in the New Covenant. Ezekiel also wrote about this gracious transformation with a heart metaphor. He spoke for God saying, "I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them" (Ezek. 11:19–20; cf. 36:26–27).

God does not impose this heart transformation against the will; he waits for a choice to accept the gracious gift. Ezekiel pled with sinful Israel, "Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (18:31–32). The repentant psalmist prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me" (Ps. 51:10). When God answered this prayer he created new biochemical conditions on neurons that produced better thoughts, feelings, and actions.

The writing of God’s law on the heart, the reception of a new heart by faith, is not a single event completed in the first exercise of faith. Paul encouraged ongoing heart transformation, saying "Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him" (Col. 2:6). "Our inner nature is being renewed every day" (2 Cor. 4:18), so that we "are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor. 3:18). We get a new heart when through faith we accept transforming grace.

Some aspect of divine instruction is in consciousness when we exercise faith. When Abraham exercised faith, he was conscious of God’s instruction about the covenant. When Paul made his most important faith commitment, what he had learned about Jesus Christ was in his consciousness. Jesus said, "I am the…the truth" (John 14:6). He is the living embodiment of the totality of divine instruction. Each day we may learn some new aspect of that divine instruction and by faith receive that truth written on our hearts.

Notes and References

1. Unless otherwise indicated, the biblical quotations in this essay are taken from the New Revised Standard Version.
2. George R. Knight, Walking with Paul through the Book of Romans (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald, 2002), 50.

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