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Here we see the connection between the old covenant made at Sinai, and the new
covenant to be made in the future. The reference to the Exodus from Egypt is important.
Every year this deliverance was remembered by the observance of the feast of the
Passover. Israel remembered that old covenant in the very year that our Lord was
crucified. It was at the Passover that Christ instituted the memorial of another and greater
exodus, by another and greater passover Lamb, and established another and better
covenant:
"They made ready the passover . . . . . and He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave
it to them, saying . . . . . DRINK YE ALL of it; for this is My blood of the NEW
COVENANT, which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26: 19-30).
The Lord's supper is a memorial feast exactly similar to the Passover, but differing in
that the Passover was a typical memorial connected with the old covenant, whereas the
Lord's supper is connected with the New Covenant. For Gentile believers to partake of
this covenant memorial while unassociated with Israel appears to be an unwarranted
intrusion. Jer. 31: continues regarding the first covenant:
"Which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the
Lord" (verse 32).
The LXX reads `I regarded them not' instead of `I was an husband unto them'. This
reading is followed by the N.T. quotation in Heb. 8: 9 which proves that this is the
true interpretation. The Hebrew ba'al has two meanings (1) to be lord, master, or
husband; (2) to disdain, reject, or disregard. The A.V. of Jer. 31: chose the wrong
meaning. The inspired writer of Hebrews gives the true one. Israel broke the old
covenant, and they were disdained, disregarded, all hope being henceforth centred in the
Messiah:
"But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those
days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts
and will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jer. 31: 33).
It is impossible to read these words without remembering Paul's argument in
II Cor. 3::
"Written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but
in fleshy tables of the heart . . . . . God . . . . . hath made us able ministers of the NEW
COVENANT" (II Cor. 3: 3-6).
The Corinthians were already instructed regarding their connection with the New
Covenant as I Cor. 11: 25 will show. Here in the second epistle the Apostle feels under
the necessity to warn his children concerning those aspects of Judaism that would lead
them back to bondage. Therefore he institutes a comparison which it will be helpful to
observe.