To me, Jesus clearly promoted His new movement by launching the New Covenant that Jeremiah predicted in the Law and the Prophets. And His new command “to love other’s as I have loved you” was to serve as the all-encompassing ethic of His new movement. And the launching of this New Covenant carried implications for the old covenant, which clearly had a shelf life. The author of Hebrews said the old covenant became outdated and obsolete because a new and better one replaced it.
Makes no sense to me for someone who professes to be a follower of Jesus to put any of their faith in a covenant that the New Testament clearly says has already served its purpose. Paul ‘had’ been an exemplary old covenant law keeper and rule follower who…after he became a true follower of Jesus, understood better than anyone the stark contrast between what had come before, and the kingdom that Jesus said He came to introduce…and he criticized Jesus’ followers who kept hangin’ on to old covenant ways of relating to God, ways that God Himself said that He was sick and tired of.
By design, the old covenant led to the newer one. Jesus said He came to fulfill God’s promises to Israel in the old covenant and that it would disappear when everything in it was accomplished. And it did, in fact, disappear on August 6 in 70 AD when the Roman Legion completely destroyed the Jewish Temple, and the old covenant was never officially practiced again because it became impossible to do so.
The conditional and temporary old covenant that God made with the Ancient Israelites…and ‘only’ with the Ancient Israelites…is NOT the unconditional and everlasting covenant that God made with Abraham.
