The Newness of the New Covenant

I’ve been studying my Bible for 65 years yet almost daily I get excited by a new discovery. I was looking yesterday at Jeremiah 31:31 – so very familiar – “The times is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel.” I don’t know why but I caught a reference to the LXX (The Greek version of the OT). In Greek there are 2 words for “new” – “neos” – which is new in the point of time – or “kainos” which is new in quality or kind. The word “new” in Jeremiah 31:31 is “kainos.” It is new – there has been nothing like it before!

If I get a new car – it is a “neos” car – it is only new to me. There are 5.6 billion cars on the road today. If in 1880 I said I had a new car – it would be a “kainos” car – there was nothing like it in the world! (Carl Benz didn’t invent the first car until 1885).

God has made a NEW covenant with us – it isn’t a revision of the old, or an up-dating of the old – it is brand new – there has ever been anything like it before!!!! Christianity is about God’s people enjoying this new covenant.