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"And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria .
. . . because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord
their God, but transgressed His covenant" (2 Kings 18: 11, 12).
This desolation and affliction of the land of promise is reversed under the application of the new
covenant:
"0 thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy
foundations with sapphires" (Isa. 54: 11).
Such large sections of Isaiah would have to be quoted to justly present this aspect of their glorious
restoration that we trust the reader will read through Isa. 40:-Ixvi. in order to apprehend the full effect of
these passages.
The new covenant.
While the new covenant is very plainly in view in Isaiah, inasmuch as the Messiah Himself is
given as the covenant for the people, it is not so called in Isaiah. Jeremiah very definitely gives
expression to this fact:
"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I
commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, , . . the house of Israel and the house
of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers" (Jer, 11: 1-10).
Immediately following the reference quoted in the previous paper where the Lord declares that He
will watch over Israel in blessing, even as He had watched over them in judgment, the basis of the new
covenant is revealed:
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a now covenant with the house of Israel, and with the
house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the
Lord" (Jer. 31: 31, 32).
The new covenant of Jeremiah is evidently in view in Isaiah, for there we have a, "new song," a
"new name," and a "new heavens and a new earth" (Isa. 42: 10; 62: 2; and 65: 17). These items are
repeated in the Apocalypse, to which we may add the "new Jerusalem" (Rev. 21: 2). The new covenant
also is in view in Ezekiel, for there we have a "new spirit," and a " new heart" (Ezek. 11: 19 and 36:
26). Without pursuing this feature further and multiplying examples, the reader may remember the
prayer of Daniel 9:, and the close of the prophet Micah:
"Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham which Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from days of
old" (Micah 7: 20).
The song of Zechariah at the circumcision of John the Baptist:
"'The mercy promised to our fathers, and remember His holy covenant: The oath which He sware to our father
Abraham" (Luke 1: 72, 73),
carries this hope of restoration on into the N.T. The Lord on the eve of His death on the cross took the
cup connected with the Passover, and said, "This is My blood of the new covenant" (Matt. 26: 28). We
can understand the believer who has never questioned traditional teaching accepting without demur that
the new covenant is the basis of the Christian church, but it is difficult to understand how students of the
Word, with all the evidence from Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel before them, cannot see that the new
covenant is essentially associated with Israel's hope and restoration.
We hope that readers will realise the fact that the law of Moses can be better understood in the light
of the prophets who enforce its claims, denounce those who break it, and who see afar off its realization
in the blood and righteousness of Him Who was given as a covenant for the people, and that this series
on the Prophets may be read together with the series on Fundamentals of Dispensational Truth with
profit.