Jer 31:31,
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
I'm very aware of the tradition, but verse says nothing about a new covenant with Gentiles. The question becomes; truth or tradition? I just decided to throw my hat in the truth ring.
Which tradition?
You mean biblical tradition?
Do you mean HOW the covenants were studied and taught?
Do you believe the NC began after the cross...which actually IS when it began since a person must die first before their testimony becomes valid.....
Do you believe the NC was NEVER mentioned in any of the early Covenants?
IOW....do you believe that the NC was a culmination of all the other Covenants?
Sounds like you don't.
That's not at all my sentiment. I love Christians. Nonetheless, Jesus said the sheep he was talking about were not members of the flock to whom he was speaking. i,e, Israel. It was about the future, specifically Pentecost.
Are you not Christian? Are you Jewish?
I ask because you said you love Christians so maybe you're not Christian?
Jesus said He had other sheep and that they were to join the flock.
It was one flock and Jesus is the shepherd.
I think you're reading too much into my words.
John 10:16,
And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold (the time Jesus spoke these words): them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall (future) be one fold, [and] one shepherd.
Totally fits with:
Col 3:11,
Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond [nor] free: but Christ [is] all, and in all.
It fits because the NC was in God's mind from the beginning.
With whom will God make a New Covenant? Let scripture give the answer:
Jer 31:31,
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
I can't help it if tradition has muddied the waters,. Nonetheless, these words in Jeremiah have been there for some 2,500 years now.
Did God make the NC with Israel and Judah?
Weren't they both detroyed by invasion?
Israel by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.....
Judah by the Romans when Jerusalem was totally destroyed in 70AD
It could be debated that Jeremiah meant far into the future.
At the precise time to which you're stating when the New Covenant would take force.
Deuteronomy 28:49-52 and Lamentations 2:8-9 are interesting:
Deuteronomy looks forward:
49“The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, 50a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51“Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. 52“It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you.
Lamentations looks back:
7The Lord has rejected His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has delivered into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces.
They have made a noise in the house of the LORD
As in the day of an appointed feast.
8The LORD determined to destroy
The wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out a line,
He has not restrained His hand from destroying,
And He has caused rampart and wall to lament;
They have languished together.
9Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The law is no more.
Also, her prophets find
No vision from the LORD.
I can only say, that the message for the Church of the body of Christ was not revealed, to Moses, to David,
I won't be doing the arguing because I'm not scholarly enough...
But Jeremiah might have been speaking about something that did happen...
the fall of Jerusalem.....
not even to Jesus. It was a mystery that was kept secret until God revealed it to Paul (Rom 16:25-26, et.al). That is Paul's gospel and it is meant specifically for Christians. Our deal is much better than the Old Testament and even better than the New Covenant which will come to fruition when Jesus returns for the second time, when the New Jerusalem descends from heaven (Rev 20-21).
Good discussion. Great example of iron sharpening iron. Thanks!
The New Covenant is right now.
Why do you think it's for the future?
At the Last Supper Jesus said THIS IS THE BLOOD OF HE NEW COVENANT (my words).
Jesus was instituting the New Covenant.
He did not say that it was for the future.
He said it was the everlasting Covenant.
Everlasting has no time...
In the Abrahamic Covenant God wanted to call a people to Himself from which all nations would be blessed.
Genesis 12:1-3
3And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”