A New Covenant With The House of Israel

Today my devotional reading took me through Hebrews Chapter 8, where the author talks about the new covenant God has with his people, and the old covenant becoming obsolete. Obsolete? Those are terrifying words to many of us. The last thing I want to hear is that my job, my productivity, my sense of style, my athletic abilities, or my choice in vehicles has become obsolete.

But this language is even stronger than that. The author of Hebrews has the audacity to suggest that everything the people of Israel have lived and died for over hundreds of years is now obsolete. This is pretty harsh language... ...whats it all mean?

I don't recommend this for everything, but Wikipedia has a very good explanation as to what the new covenant is.

The Christian view of the New Covenant is a new relationship between God and humans mediated by Jesus which necessarily includes all people,^[21] both Jews and Gentiles. The New Covenant also breaks the generational curse of the original sin on all children of Adam if they believe in Jesus Christ, after people are judged for their own sins, which is expected to happen with the second arrival of Jesus Christ (see also Eternal life).^{[citation needed]} Therefore the global missionizing of Jews (see the Gospel according to the Hebrews) or Muslims in the name of Christianity still remains an important pivotal Christian activity.

In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge. But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge. 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:—Jeremiah 31:29–31 KJV^[22]

Thus as the Apostle Paul advertises that the Old Covenant of Sinai does not in itself prevent Jews from sinning and dying,^[23] and is not given to Gentiles at all (with the notable exception of Noahide Law and the rules for proselytes in the Torah), Christians believe the New Covenant ends the original sin and death for everyone who becomes a Christian and cannot simply be a renewal of the Mosaic Covenant since it seemingly accomplishes new things.^[24] See also Types of Supersessionism.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.—(John 3:16, KJV)

Also based much on what Paul wrote, a dispensationalist Christian view of the nature of Israel is that it is primarily a spiritual nation composed of Jews who claim Jesus as their Messiah, as well as Gentile believers who through the New Covenant have been grafted into the promises made to Israelites. This spiritual Israel is based on the faith of the patriarch Abraham (before he was circumcised^[25]) who was ministered by the Melchizedek priesthood, which is understood to be a type for the Christian faith of believing Jesus to be Christ and Lord in the order of Melchizedek. The Apostle Paul says that "it is not the children of the flesh (i.e. the natural descendants of Abraham), who are the Children of God, but the children of the promise (i.e. the spiritual descendants of Abraham)."

Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they [are] not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these [are] not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.—Romans 9:6–8 KJV^[26]

When I accepted Christ as my Savior, I became part of this New Covenant. I am no longer excluded from God's chosen tribe because I am not a Jew. My inclusion or exclusion is not based on where I was born, or on how hard I work to be accepted. I am no longer slave to living a life of perfection to earn the favor of a Holy God. Instead, I find that through his Son Jesus Christ I am able to be in relationship with the Creator of the universe, because of what his Son did on the cross. That is where the New Covenant is simply amazing to me.