Regeneration: A New Covenant Blessing

Today I want to talk about the New Covenant as it relates to the doctrine of regeneration. That is, the doctrine of the new birth.

But before I can do this with clarity, I need to deal with the problem that has arisen with regard to this covenant. So that leads me to part one: Dispensationalism and the New Covenant.

For a long time the New Covenant has been a problem in dispensational theology. The problem seems to be centered in the statement of Jeremiah 31:31 where the Lord is speaking.

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

From this statement the conclusion has been drawn that the New Covenant is exclusively an arrangement between God and the nation of Israel. Many dispensationalists have feared that to say otherwise would threaten the collapse of any meaningful difference between Israel and the church.

Yet at the same time the New Testament appears to treat New Testament believers as objects of the New Covenant arrangements. A number of pivotal passages show this.

For example, the term “new covenant” appears in all three gospel accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper: Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, and Luke 22:20. I will quote from Luke.

Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

The statement of Jesus is repeated by the Apostle Paul in His discussion of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:25. Furthermore Paul describes Himself as a minister of the new covenant in 2 Corinthians 3:5 and 6 when He says,

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also has made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant.

Finally there is the book of Hebrews. The author of that book (whoever he was, Barnabas I think) makes the New Covenant a centerpiece in discussing the high priestly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact he actually quotes the passage from Jeremiah 31:31-34 in Hebrews 8:8-12.

he treats the New Covenant as fully applicable to his Christian readers. Even if the first readers of Hebrews were Jewish believers (which seems highly likely), they were nevertheless members of the Christian church. Therefore their Jewishness cannot be the reason the writer applies the New Covenant promises to them.

In the Christian church the Jew-Gentile distinction vanishes. Paul teaches us that in Galatians 3:28 as follows:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So the writer of Hebrews cannot be talking about blessings that belong only to Jewish members of the Christian church.

The problem of the New Covenant has been felt so strongly by some dispensational teachers that they have even postulated that there are two new covenants. One of these is to be made with Israel in the end times while the other is with the church. But this is so clearly a counsel of desperation that it must be decisively rejected. The New Testament offers zero support for the theory of two new covenants.

In my opinion at least, the solution to this problem is extremely simple. The New Covenant is indeed to be made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah just as Jeremiah says. And the meaning of this is that the entirety of Israel and Judah will someday receive eternal salvation.

This is plainly stated in the prophecy itself which says,

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord.

This is quite clear. Someday there will be no unconverted Israelite.

Let us also remember in this connection the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 11:25 to 27. They are relevant here even if the word “salvation” is not defined as salvation from hell. I quote:

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.

Here Paul’s quotation from the Old Testament comes mainly from Isaiah 59:20-21, which includes the words “this is My covenant with them.” But the final words of the quotation in Paul, “when I take away their sins,” are not found in this passage in Isaiah. They are apparently a reference to the New Covenant prophecy in Jeremiah 31. Thus they are Paul’s interpretation of the reference in Isaiah to “My covenant.”

The future of Israel that Paul describes in Romans 11 is predicated on the fulfillment of the New Covenant promise found in Jeremiah.

Parenthetically let me add in passing that how I understand Romans 11:26, I think Paul is referring to deliverance from God’s eschatological wrath by means of the Deliverer, Jesus Christ, who turns away ungodliness from Jacob when He comes. His people will all believe. They will be believers in Him. By His coming and personal presence with them He will teach them practical holiness. In other words His kingship and ministry to them will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. He will lead them in the paths of righteousness. But this is all based ultimately on the New Covenant.

Leaving that complication aside however, the bottom line is extremely simple. The New Covenant will someday be in force with the entire nation of Israel. But this is not the same as saying it will be in force only with them. Let me repeat that. But this is not the same as saying it will be in force only with them.

Every person who has ever been eternally saved, regardless of racial origin, has been saved under the promises of the New Covenant. That is, they have been saved on the basis of the blood of the New Covenant that Christ shed for them. They have become beneficiaries of God’s New Covenant just as will all Israel in a coming day.

Note well we celebrate our participation in the New Covenant every time we partake of the Lord’s Supper.

There is no real problem here. To say that every individual finds eternal salvation under the New Covenant is one thing. To say that the destiny of every individual who is saved is exactly the same as the destiny of every other individual who is saved is quite another.

The New Covenant does not say that. The New Covenant should be viewed as God’s universal covenant of salvation. God enters into that covenant with each individual at the moment he believes in Jesus. Under its terms Israelites can be saved and remain Israelites. Or as in the present age they can become members of the Christian church. The same is true of Gentiles as well of course.

The distinctions between Israel and the church are simply not addressed in the New Covenant. Much less are these distinctions denied by the New Covenant. Everyone is eternally saved in the same way. What happens beyond that depends on God’s purposes for them, which is by no means a plain vanilla uniformity.

In a future day, as Jeremiah predicts, God will enter into this covenant with the entire nation, both Israel and Judah.