There is nothing new in the New Covenant. That is to say that everything in the New Covenant is a confirmation of something from the Old Covenant. It has to be that way since the Old Covenant was the Scriptures at the time the books of the New Covenant were written. Therefore, everything written by the writers of the New Covenant had to be consistent with the writings of the Old Covenant. If that were not the case, some of the messages of the New Covenant would have been false teachings being inconsistent with the Scriptures. Even more convincingly, both the Old and New Covenant writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who cannot and will not contradict Himself.

That being the case, the New Covenant doctrine of repentance must have a corollary in the Old Covenant. To repent is to turn away from your old manner of life to a life directed by Jesus Christ. In the Old Covenant, this same idea is expressed as returning to God to serve Him with all your heart.

9 “Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly [with the blessings of the covenant] in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers;

10 if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God [repent] with all your heart and soul. (Deuteronomy 30:9-10)

1 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse [of the covenant] which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in  all nations where the Lord your God has banished you,

2 and you return to the Lord your God Him with all your heart and soul and obey [repent] according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,

3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity [save you], and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. (Deuteronomy 30:1-3)

Let the wicked forsake his way [repent] and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord [repent], and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon [save]. (Isaiah 55:7)

‘Returning to the Lord’ of the Old Covenant became ‘Repentance’ in the New Covenant. However, the idea is the same in either case. God’s way for people to enter His covenant and be saved is to turn from our life of sin and return to Him and receive the blessings of the covenant.

This turning is very much a death, a death of the flesh, the body of our sinful passions and desires, i.e., our sin nature. A blood covenant cannot be made if our sin nature is not put to death. This idea was explained in the book of Hebrews.

16 For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. [This is a spiritual death.]
17 For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives.
18 Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. (Hebrews 9:16-18)

Jesus died, and we also must go to the cross and die the covenant-making death. That is repentance and that is the way into the eternal covenant.

May you be blessed in abundance,

Peter Giardina