Please turn to Hebrews 8.
We will read Hebrews 8:8-13.
For finding fault with them, He saith,
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;
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers
In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt;
For they continued not in My covenant,
And I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, saith the Lord;
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people:
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.
In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away.
Our God is a God of covenant. In the Bible, you find God making covenants with people from time to time.
Of course, the word covenant is the word contract that we use in our everyday life. God is a God of covenant.
Now, why do you make a contract? The reason people make contracts is because people’s words are not to be trusted. So you have to put everything in a contract, written down, stipulated, and signed, in order that it may have a legal obligation.
That is the reason why, in this world, we use contracts. But so far as God is concerned, He does not need a contract. Whatever He says, He does. His words are as true and dependable as His actions.
There is no need for God to put Himself in a contract with man. The reason why our God is a God of covenant is not because of His need; it is because of ours.
He knows how weak we are. He knows that, because we are what we are, we tend to think the same about Him. In order to increase our faith and strengthen our faith, God is willing to communicate Himself, as it were, putting Himself on our level and binding Himself.
So, brothers and sisters, when we find God making covenant with men, making a contract with them, let us remember one thing: it shows God’s great love for His people. With Himself, there is no such need.
It is because of us. He wants to bring us to where He is; therefore, He has to come down to where we are and make a covenant with us.
Here in the book of Hebrews, you find two covenants mentioned. One is called the old covenant, and the other is called the new covenant.
The old covenant refers to that which God made with the children of Israel at Mount Sinai. God heard the cry of the children of Israel. He remembered His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so He called Moses down to Egypt to deliver His people out of Egypt and into the promised land.
After God had brought them to Mount Sinai in the wilderness, you remember in Exodus 19 that God said, “I have brought you unto Myself upon eagles’ wings.”
Now therefore, if ye will indeed obey My voice, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is Mine:
And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.
There God covenanted with them. In that covenant, He was to be their King. The Ten Commandments represented the articles of that covenant which God made with the children of Israel.
It was conditional. Why? Because in that covenant He said, “If you will keep My words, then you shall be My people, and I will be your God.” You heard the word if. In case they did not keep it, then the covenant would be broken.
The children of Israel did not fulfill the condition. But when God gave this covenant to the children of Israel, God said, and they said, “We will do everything.” So the covenant was made.
It was as if God was taking their hands and trying to lead them on into His full purpose. But you know, sometimes when you are walking on the street with your child, you try to hold the hand of your child and lead him safely through the street, or lead him to a certain place.
Then something attracts that child. Sometimes you find it very difficult, because you want to lead him one way, but he tries to get out of your hand and take off after something else.
This was exactly the story of how God led the children of Israel through the wilderness. God was holding their hand, trying to lead them into His full purpose, into the promised land. But they tried to get away from God. They tempted God and provoked Him.
For forty years they were in the wilderness. They broke the covenant, and because they broke the covenant, God did not regard them.
Now, that was the old covenant. But in the book of Jeremiah, when the children of Israel were at the end of their national history and were soon to be taken captive by the Babylonians, God spoke to the children of Israel.
He told them that one day God would make a new covenant with them. It would be a better covenant. It would not be like the old covenant, which was conditional. It would not be like the old covenant, which was external—God taking their hands and trying to lead them. It would be a new covenant, something entirely different and on a higher plane.
God promised them this new covenant. Yet for hundreds of years, nothing much was heard. Had God forgotten His promise? How was it coming? Nothing was mentioned again concerning the new covenant until one day.
You remember, on the night of His betrayal, our Lord Jesus was with His own disciples. They were having the Passover feast as a family.
During the Passover feast, our Lord Jesus took bread, blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, “This is My body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
After that, He took the cup, blessed it, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you for the remission of sins. Drink ye all of it.”
After Jeremiah mentioned the new covenant, nothing was said anymore until that night, when our Lord Jesus raised the cup and said, “This is the cup of the new covenant.”
What a revelation! It is true that one day in the future God will fulfill His promise to the children of Israel in making the new covenant with them. It will come.
But even before that day, our Lord Jesus, on the last night before His crucifixion, brought what God had promised to the children of Israel in the future to His own church today.
So, dear friends, the covenant that God gave to the children of Israel for the future is now our possession in Christ. We are today living under the new covenant.
God has made a covenant with us through Christ Jesus. This covenant which God has made with His church—that is, with us today—is the very new covenant that God promised.
A covenant defines a relationship: our relationship with God today, and God’s relationship with us today.
God’s way of dealing with us and our way of dealing with God today are all based upon the covenant.
It is therefore of great importance for us to know what the new covenant is. If we do not know what God has covenanted with us, we do not know how to deal with God, and we do not know how God deals with us.
If we want to maintain a right relationship with God, we have to have a good understanding of this covenant.
You know, sometimes, whether you are renting a house, buying a place, buying a business, or doing something else, you find there is a contract, and you have to sign the contract.
Often you find one page, two pages, or perhaps more—many stipulations and articles in that contract. Sometimes it tells you what you must do, and sometimes it promises what will be done for you.
But very often men put something in very fine print, and you do not read it. You read the big items and skip all the fine print. Then something happens, and it is the fine print that really binds you. Because it is in the contract, and you have signed it, you suffer for it.
Now, of course, God never puts anything in fine print. He gives it to us in bold letters. But it behooves us to know what is in the new covenant.
What are the articles there? What has God covenanted with us? What has God covenanted to do for us? What rights do we have as the people of God? Are there any conditions we must fulfill before God will fulfill His promise?
We need to know what the new covenant is. We often say today that we are living in the days of the new covenant. What is the difference between the new covenant and the old covenant?
As a matter of fact, many of God’s children today are still living under the old covenant. You would be surprised how many of God’s people, even though they know they are under the new covenant, still live in the old covenant. Why? Because they do not know the difference between the new and the old covenant.
What are the characteristics of the old covenant?
First, it is conditional. You must do this; you must do that. You must not do this; you must not do that. If you keep the commandments, then you are My people and I am your God.
God says, “You do this.” The responsibility is upon you. After you have done it, then I will do My part. It is written; you read it, try to memorize it, try to tell yourself not to forget it, and try by yourself to keep it.
These are the characteristics of the old covenant. The commandments are holy and spiritual, but we are carnal. It is through the weakness of the flesh that the law cannot fulfill its purpose.
But the characteristics of the new covenant are these:
God says, “I will take the whole responsibility.” All you need to do is believe.
Now, having said this, let us go into Hebrews 8:10-12. You find there are three provisions in the new covenant. Let us read them, and then we will go over them one by one.
I will put My laws into their mind,
And on their heart also will I write them:
And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to Me a people.
The first provision is the law of life.
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
The second provision is spiritual knowledge.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more.
The third provision is forgiveness of sins—and even the forgetting of them.
This is the order in Hebrews. But when you come to our experience, probably it is easier to understand if we begin with the last one. So far as our experience is concerned, it seems as if the last one is the first one to which we are really awakened.
God has made a covenant with us today in Christ Jesus. This covenant, this contract, is sealed by the blood of our Lord Jesus. It cannot be broken.
The relationship of God with us today is based upon His covenant. God deals with us today according to His covenant. The same thing is true if we want to approach God: this is our approach.
The first thing is this: God says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins and their lawlessnesses I will remember no more.” God promises to forgive our sins and to forget our sins.
We realize that we are sinners. The moment we know that we have sinned, when we are under conviction by the Holy Spirit, our natural reaction is, “What should I do? How can I wash away my sins? How can I appease God?”
Immediately, you say, “Let me try to do something. If I can accumulate some good merit, that may be able to cover all my past sins and, in some way, appease the wrath of God.”
It is upon this natural reasoning that all natural religion is built. If you really know that you have sinned, you are convicted, and you try to do something good to balance your account.
The more you try, the more you are amazed. If you are honest with yourself, you know that it is impossible. Even our righteousnesses, the things we consider good and righteous, are as filthy rags before God. They not only cannot cover your nakedness, but they are filthy too.
How can a righteous God forgive sin without compromising His righteousness?
I remember many years ago, during wartime, I was talking to a lady. Her father was a Methodist minister, as my father was. She was brought up in a Christian family, came to this country to study, and then went back.
One day we were talking, and she said to me, “Mr. Kong, how can God send anyone to hell? Surely God would forgive everybody.”
God is not only love, but God is righteous. God cannot love at the expense of compromising His righteousness. God loves sinners, yes, but God hates sin. So we must see this: how can a just God justify the unjust? There is no way—except one.
God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. It is because our Lord Jesus, the Just, has died for the unjust that there is forgiveness of sins for the unjust.
If we try to come to God and present Him with all our merits, all these merits which we consider worthy will be completely rejected.
Our offering will be like the offering of Cain. He brought the best of the fruit of his labor from the earth and tried to present it to God, saying, “Now, will You accept this and forgive me?”
You know the story. God rejected his offering. It was only his brother Abel who offered a more excellent sacrifice: the blood of the lamb. Because of that, God accepted him on the basis of that sacrifice.
So, dear friends, when we come to God today, there is only one way. This is the new covenant: we come to God through Jesus Christ, through His shed blood. And God says, “I will forgive your sins, and I will remember them no more.”
Oftentimes when we talk with people, we say, “Now, confess your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus. Accept Him as your Savior, because He has shed His blood for you. God will forgive you.”
To their minds, this seems too simple. “I have just come to God, trusting the Lord Jesus, and God will forgive me? It is too good to be true.”
But God says, “Let him come. I will forgive. I will not remember anymore.” God has put His word in the covenant. Because God has put His word in the covenant, and it is unconditional, He says, “I will.” He does not say, “You do certain things, and then I will.” He says, “I will.”
So anyone who comes to God through Christ Jesus shall be pardoned—not only forgiven, but forgiven and forgotten.
In 1 John 1:9, it says:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God is faithful and righteous. We might say God is merciful and loving, but here you find that God is faithful and righteous. Faithful to what? Faithful to His covenant. Righteous to His covenant.
He will do whatever He has said, everything He has promised, and whatever He has put in the covenant. He is faithful and righteous. That gives us great assurance.
Many people come to the Lord and pray that God will forgive them, but their whole approach is, “Lord, if You show mercy to me, then You will forgive me.” Now suppose God said, “I am not going to show mercy.” What then?
Before Christ died on the cross, it was mercy and love that gave Christ to us. But after Christ has died on the cross, it is more than mercy and love; it is faithfulness and righteousness.
We can go to the Lord and say, “God, You have said it. It is here in the covenant. Fulfill the covenant.” We can approach the throne of grace with boldness.
You do not need to be in fear and trembling. You can come to God with assurance, knowing that because Christ has already died, your sins are forgiven. It is sure.
Not only forgiven—forgotten. Sometimes our problem is that we come to the Lord and ask for forgiveness, and we think we are forgiven. But tomorrow, or the next day, we begin to remember it, and we come again to the Lord and say, “Lord, forgive.” Perhaps in the afternoon we remember it again and say, “Lord, forgive.”
God has a wonderful memory. He remembers all that needs to be remembered, and forgets all that needs to be forgotten. Our minds are so imperfect: we remember what we should forget, and forget what we should remember.
But, dear brothers and sisters, thank God, all our sins are forgiven—not only forgiven, but forgotten. God says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” He has cast them behind His back, into the depths of the sea. He remembers them no more—completely.
We may go forward. We do not need to look backward anymore. Brothers and sisters, all old things are passed away. If we believe in Him, He forgives and forgets, so we can go on.
One of the tricks of the devil, of the enemy, is to try to bring back the past to us. By doing that, he is the accuser. He tries to accuse us of things already under the blood.
Dear brothers and sisters, if we do not know the new covenant, our faith sometimes will be shaken. We wonder whether our sins are really forgiven.
But if we know the new covenant, we can answer our adversary, “The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has cleansed us from all our sins.”
How blessed it is! Martin Luther, the great reformer, while he was doing the work of reformation, was challenged one day by Satan. Satan brought to him a scroll called “The Sins of Martin Luther,” written within and without.
Of course, many of the things were true, and many were worse. The adversary challenged Martin Luther, saying, “Dare you do the work of reformation? Who are you to do the work of reformation? You are not qualified, full of sins as you are.”
Thank God, Martin Luther knew the blood of the Lord Jesus. He knew the new covenant. He took a red pen and wrote upon it, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth me from all my sins,” and Satan disappeared.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is where we stand: on the blood of our Lord Jesus. All our sins are forgiven, and not only forgiven, but forgotten.
This is not only for the past; it is our everyday experience. We confess our sins to the Lord, and we trust in the blood of our Lord Jesus.
Many Christians today always go back to their past failures, to the same things for which they have already been sorry. Yes, you need to be sorry, but your sorrow does not cleanse you from your sins. It is the blood.
Therefore, it is good to trust in the blood of our Lord Jesus. The past is past. Whatever is under the blood, God will never bring out again.
Even one day when we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ, anything that is under the blood is forgotten. Thank God.
But the new covenant is much more than this. Here we find the second article:
They shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.
You know, with the children of Israel, how did they know the Lord? The only way they could come to know the Lord was that they had to be taught. They had to be instructed.
That was the reason why God set up the Levites and the priests: to study the law and teach the people. If you did not know anything, you went to them, and they taught you, told you, and instructed you as to what the law required.
Suppose you came to a place where you did not know where you should go or what you should do. For instance, Saul’s father lost the asses, and Saul went out to try to find them, but he could not find them. What should he do? Should he continue looking for them, or go back because his father might be worried?
In Old Testament times, you went to a seer, to a prophet. The prophet would ask God for you and tell you what to do. In other words, in Old Testament times the knowledge of God was indirect—through instruction from outside, through information.
Why? Because God was outside of you. We needed people to teach us, “Know the Lord.” The word know the Lord means outward, objective knowledge.
It is not merely that you accumulate information through instruction and then say, “Now I know.” But this is not the new covenant.
The new covenant says that you do not need to teach your brother or your fellow citizen, saying, “Know the Lord.” Why? Because everyone knows the Lord in himself.
This knowing is another kind of knowing. It is not objective knowledge; it is subjective, intuitive knowledge. It is not a knowledge accumulated through information. It is a knowledge that comes directly from God within your spirit.
You do not need to tell any of your brothers, “Know the Lord.” Why? Because every child of God knows the Lord, from the least one to the greatest one.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, do you know that this is the new covenant? After we come to the Lord, perhaps we know that if we believe in the Lord Jesus, our sins are forgiven and forgotten. Thank God, we are saved.
But then the problem comes. We say, “What shall I do? What are the requirements of being a Christian? How should I live as a Christian? What things can I do, and what things should I not do?”
With the best of intentions, we begin to inquire. We go around and ask, “Now, I have believed in the Lord Jesus, but I am very new. I do not know anything. You have to tell me what I should do and what I should not do.”
We are told, “Well, you should read the Bible, and from the Bible you will know.” But you say, “The Bible is so thick. I am just starting to read it, and if a problem comes, I cannot find it in the Bible. What should I do? Just tell me.”
Even if you do not ask, you will be told. There are so many teachers in the church today. Everyone wants to be a teacher.
After you have believed in the Lord Jesus, people may begin to pour information upon you. Or perhaps you are anxious to gather information: what you should do, what you should not do, where you should go, and where you should not go.
There is nothing wrong with asking. It is true that we should be humble enough to ask. But, brothers and sisters, there is something far more basic, and I am afraid this is something Christianity has neglected.
Where does our knowledge of God come from? Does it come from outside, through instruction, or does it come from within, in your spirit?
How do you know? Everywhere I go, people are interested in this question: “How do I know God’s will? How can I know God? I want to know, but I do not know.”
People begin to give a formula. “If you want to know God’s will, first see what the Bible says. Then pray. Then watch the circumstances.” But you watch and wait, and you are all confused.
They try to give you a formula, and the formula sometimes works and sometimes does not work. Now, how do we know God? Is it a right of every child of God to know God?
What is the new covenant? The new covenant says every one of us knows God. You do not need to be told, “Know the Lord,” from the least to the greatest.
The moment you are saved, you have the ability. The moment you are saved, God has put something in you that you may know Him.
Is it not true that the Bible says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God? How do you know you are a child of God? You know. How do you know? You say, “I know.” Why?
Because the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, dwells in your spirit—that new spirit which has been regenerated. And even within you cries, “Abba, Father.”
You know you are a child of God. You do not need to be told. Now, brothers and sisters, this is the way to know God: it begins from within.
Remember, we do not need people to teach us because we have a Teacher already. The Holy Spirit is the Teacher, the Spirit of truth. Every child of God has the Holy Spirit.
To be filled with the Spirit is different. You may not be filled with the Spirit, but that does not mean the Holy Spirit is not in you. The moment you are saved and regenerated, the Holy Spirit dwells in your spirit.
He will never leave you nor forsake you. Why is He in you? He is there to teach you in all things.
In 1 John 2:27 it says that the anointing—the unction, which is the anointing of the Holy Spirit—that is in you shall teach you in all things: great things, small things, everything.
His teaching is true and is not a lie. If you obey the teaching of the anointing, you abide in Christ. Brothers and sisters, we all have the Holy Spirit in us.
Do not try to feel it physically. You may say, “I do not feel it.” Do not try to imagine things. It is not in your mind. How do you know it?
Deep down in your spirit, the Holy Spirit is like an anointing. He applies an ointment upon your spirit. If you have a wound and you apply some oil or ointment, very soon you feel it; you know it.
It is the same thing. As the Holy Spirit operates and begins to teach in your spirit, it is like the application of an ointment. It is not something overpowering. It is not something that frightens you.
It is a still, small voice—a very smooth sensation, not in your body, but in your spirit. You may not know how to explain it, because it is intuitive.
You may not feel it outwardly, because it is not emotional. But it is the witness of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is teaching.
Brothers and sisters, just look back. When you were first saved, you did not know very much. But sometimes, in the midst of your problems, suddenly you felt something as if it were telling you, “Now stop.”
If you continued to talk, you knew that you would sin. You may have used to speak in a certain way, but suddenly, while you were talking, you felt something there, telling you, “That is all. Do not go on.”
Brothers and sisters, do you listen to Him? If you learn to walk inwardly with God and pay attention to the leading of the Holy Spirit within you, when you stop, you feel peace.
But if you continue and do not listen to the Holy Spirit, so far as your fellowship is concerned, you have sinned. Everything is poured out. You know how you feel.
Not as before. After you have said those things, you do not feel very happy. You feel burdened, and you go to the Lord. Until you confess before the Lord, you feel that your relationship with the Lord is restored.
The Holy Spirit is speaking. He is moving. Very often, you may hear a person saying something, but somehow in your spirit the Lord is saying, “This is not the truth.” It may sound all right outwardly, but somehow you feel it.
The Holy Spirit is teaching people. God’s people today need to learn this inward way of knowing God, because the inward way of knowing God is the true way.
Oftentimes we are drawn outward. Our Christian life is lived all on the outside; it is not an inward walk. But thank God, in the covenant God says, “They shall all know Me.”
We can go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I thank You, because it is my right to know You. The Holy Spirit is there teaching me.”
Does this mean that, because we do not need people to teach us, “Know the Lord,” and because we know Him in ourselves, there should be no teachers in the church?
Well, even in the Bible, Paul was a teacher. The Bible says, “Despise not prophesyings.”
Teachers and prophecies are there to confirm and to correct what God has already spoken within. In other words, you cannot base your life merely upon another person’s teaching.
You have to be checked and confirmed, corrected by the teachers God has sent to His church, because our spirit is weak. The Holy Spirit is always right, but we may misunderstand His meaning.
That is the reason we need the Word to check us, and we need teachers and instruction. But remember: our Christian life cannot be based upon people’s instruction.
Our Christian life must be based upon a living relationship with God. Instruction can only confirm and correct; it is not basic.
So, dear brothers and sisters, we have all been given this right: to know God inwardly through the Holy Spirit.
This concludes Brother Kong’s ministry on the new covenant, November 1973.