I am excited about the series we are starting today because it is so foundational to our
relationship with God and will catapult your relationship with God to a different level if
you pay attention and grasp it.
Today we are starting a series on the journey from the Old Covenant to the New
Covenant.
Our relationship with the Trinity-God the Father; God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is
bound by our understanding of the historical and doctrinal differences between the Old
and the New Covenants. Due to our religious backgrounds, most of us do not
understand that there are major differences between the two Covenants and as a result
are not living in the freedom, power and authority we ought to be living in.
So in the next several episodes of our journey, we are going to trace the history and the
distinctions between God’s Covenant relationships. We shall take time to examine
God’s purposes, plans and intentions for His people under the OC and under the NC.
We are going to examine how the Old Covenant foreshadows the New Covenant. In
other words, we would learn that the OC is a shadow; a copy of the NC which is the real
thing; the substance. And we are going to see how the prophesies and promises of the
Old Covenant are fulfilled in the New Covenant. This study is critical because unless
you understand the workings and the purposes of these two Covenants, you would
never really be clear about how to relate with God and more importantly how to pray
and what to pray for. While we live under the NC many still model their prayers after the
prayers of the OC.
Let’s start by briefly reviewing what we already know, and filling in gaps that we have
not bothered to fill in before now. God’s relationship with man is regulated by two
Covenants, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And the Bible is also divided into
two sections. The Old Testament is a recording of the history of the nation of Israel and
also the OC which was the law that regulated God’s relationship with Israel. The OC
covers the Law of Moses which was established between God and the people of Israel
through the Ten Commandments and many other laws and regulations which God gave
to Moses on Mount Sinai. So the OC is also referred to as the Law of Moses. It was a
long list of what the people were expected to do and what they were forbidden from
doing. The OC was written by hand on a tablet of stone.
The New Testament records the New Covenant which regulates God’s relationship with
His Children redeemed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. The New Covenant is written on
the heart. The New Covenant and not the Old regulates God’s relationship with us.
The Old Testament gives an account of the creation of the world; It describes how God
placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and gave them dominion over the earth;
how they fell, how He banished them from the Garden of Eden. It reveals how the sin of
Adam and Eve contaminated the whole world and how God devised a plan to save man
by sending a messaiah to the world.

The Old Testament also gives the account of God establishing the Old Covenant
between Himself and the people of Israel after He freed them from slavery in Egypt.
Like I said, the Old Covenant includes the Ten Commandments and about 613 laws
listed in the Book of Leviticus which provides for every aspect of human behaviour.
These laws are so comprehensive that they include even rules about diet, social life and
hygiene. For instance, there are rules about what type of fabric to use to make clothes,
specific rules for personal hygiene, what to do when one falls sick, etc. The OC
provided that if you break only one of the laws, you would be punished for breaking all.
To take care of the sins of the Israelites, God made provision under the Old Covenant
for animal sacrifices. The People had to shed the blood of animals to sacrifice for their
sins and also once every year to cover all other unknown sins and their sins for the
coming year.
In the New Testament, God introduced a New Covenant to guide His relationship with
His children. Jesus Christ sacrificed His whose blood once, washed away the sin of the
world and grants the children of God redemption and eternal life. The Blood of animals
could cover the sins of the people for one year only. But the Blood of Jesus was a one
time sacrifice that provided eternal salvation.
God’s plan to institute the New Covenant commenced even while the Old Covenant was
in force.
Prophet Jeremiah prophesied:
"The time is coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with
the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the
covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them
out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,"
declares the Lord”. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after
that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their
hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man
teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they
will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I
will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more". Jeremiah
31:31-34
The Old Covenant could not change man’s conduct because it tried to control the
actions of man mechanically from the outside. It could not change man from the inside.
God said through Prophet Jeremiah that under the New Covenant, He would change
the heart of man. He would change man from the inside so that man would love and
desire to obey Him. God’s intention was that when He changed the heart of man, then
man would not feel compelled to obey Him.
Jesus fulfilled the prophesies of the Law regarding Himself by His death on the Cross.
He fulfilled the demands of the Law which provided for perfect obedience in order to

avoid punishment. When He cried “It is finished," in John 19:30, Jesus meant, not only
that He had completed the task of redeeming the people of God and taken the
punishment for their sins, but that He had also fulfilled the demands of the Law of
Moses on behalf of those who believed in Him.
The Bible has one central message. That central message is the good news of salvation
in Jesus Christ. While the Old Testament prophesied the good news of the coming of
the Messiah, the New Testament revealed the good news that the Messaiah had come.
Most of the Old Testament prophecies have been fulfilled in the New.
In a nutshell, the Old Testament is the story of God’s promise and the New Testament
is the fulfillment of God’s promise and His blessings. The Old Testament predicts the
Messiah and the New Testament reveals the Messiah. The Old Testament chronicles
the history of a people; the New Testament focuses on a Person. The Old Testament
records the giving of the Law of Moses, and the New Testament shows how Jesus the
Messiah fulfilled that Law of Moses. The Old Testament reveals the wrath of God
against sin. The New Testament shows the grace of God toward sinners.
I encourage you to pay close attention and follow this series religiously. If you pay
attention, by the time we conclude, you would have gained a lot of insight into your
relationship with God as His NC child. And when this happens, your Christian life
especially your prayer life would be revolutionized.