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When we examine the clear New Covenant passage in Jeremiah 31:31ff, we see that verses 31 and 32 name Israel and Judah as parties. We see also that it concerns the future (“the days are coming”), and that the NC will supersede in some way the Sinai Covenant. It is crucial to ask what the main promise of this covenant is, which is not difficult to ascertain. The New Covenant in the chapter concerns an internal or spiritual change in the elect of Israel.
I have been thinking for a while that it might be a good idea to write about the New Covenant. Although there seems to be little confusion about it in the minds of Jeremiah, Paul, or the author of Hebrews, it has become something of a bugbear among Dispensationalists. In this series I want to interact a little with their issues, but I also want to provide my understanding of the New Covenant, which, as it happens, adds one more alternative to the dizzying list already occupying the thought of many good men and women.
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There is without any doubt an eeriness about the two visions of Zechariah 5. The flying scroll he sees first (Zech. 5:1-4) is thirty feet long (which is somewhat out of the ordinary), and fifteen feet wide (which definitely is).1 Unger comments,
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But the scene changes when three visitors from Babylon leave a gift of silver and gold (Zech. 6:9-10).1 From these precious materials he is told to make a crown, and then do an odd thing with it; place it on the head of Joshua the high priest (Zech. 6:11).2 Then he is to utter certain words, words which cannot pertain to Joshua himself, but of which he plays a symbolic part in illustrating.
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The structure of Ezekiel reaches its crescendo in the theme of the returning Glory to the Temple in Ezekiel 43:1-7.1 This return must be linked with the abandonment of Solomon’s Temple by the Glory-cloud in chapter 11. There is a narrative-theological arc extending from Ezekiel 8 and 11 over to Ezekiel 43.
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The first vision in Ezekiel 37 is the best known in the book. If people are ignorant of everything else in the book, they are often aware of the valley of dry bones, though frequently they have no idea what it means. It surely doesn’t help when commentators apply the whole passage to the Christian church.
