The New Covenant as Relationship

God has offered us a covenant, which is summarized in Heb 8.10-12:

¹⁰ This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
¹¹ And they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
¹² For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

When I compare this New Covenant with the Old Covenant, which is written in the Torah [Gen-Deut], one of the things I notice is that the difference in focus. The Old Covenant focused a lot on specific activities that God would do and what Israel would do, while the New Covenant has a greater focus on the relationship between God and his disciples. In fact the phrase in verse 11, “all shall know me,” could easily have been translated “all shall have a relationship with me.” Verse 11 also says, “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” This is also about relationship. This  one sentence is very brief has often left me wondering what it means, and how is it to be lived out--being God's people. I have found Jesus' discourse in John 13.31–17.26 to be very helpful in understanding this verse. In this discourse, which is located in John's gospel between the Last Supper and Jesus' arrest, Jesus talks to his disciples about the relationship that he wants to have with them after he leaves.

Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” At first glance it might appear that the focus here on loving each other is a focus on activity, but it is really about relationship with Jesus. Our loving others is an outworking of our relationship with Jesus, and evidence that we are his disciples. How he loves me is how he wants me to love others. I am to love others as his representative.

Jesus also said,

I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, ...[John 14.16-17] ²⁶ the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. [John 14.26] he will guide you into all truth, [John 16.13]

This is all about relationship. Jesus prays, the Father gives, the Spirit teaches and guides, and the disciple receives. God's relationship with me is an extension of the preexisting relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In John 15, Jesus talks a lot about the relationship he wants with his disciples, and uses the metaphor of a vine. He said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” [John 15.5]. Abide is an interesting word. It is what you do in an abode or house--you live there. You do your daily activities like cooking, eating and sleeping there. That is what Jesus wants, he wants you and me to live in his presence. He wants to be part of our daily lives. And if we do that, we will bear fruit. The question is, “What fruit?” That's up to Jesus. If we abide in Jesus and his word, and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will bear the fruit that Jesus wants. I have always wondered, who is actually producing the fruit? Me or Jesus? I think it is a joint effort between Jesus and me, the vine and the branches. It is a relationship.

There is a statement that Jesus says over and over in this discourse, and that is “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it.” He says this in various different ways 6 times over three chapters. [John 14.13,14; 15.16; 16.23,24,26] Jesus wants us to do what he does. He asked the Father to do something audacious, like sending the Holy Spirit to us, and he wants us act in a similar fashion. Jesus wants me, as his representative, to ask the Father to do audacious things that are relevant to what Jesus is doing.

In John 15.16, Jesus says, “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” Bearing fruit that lasts and praying in Jesus' name are tied together. Since Jesus appointed us to bear fruit, he expects us to boldly go to the father under his authority to ask for things pertaining to fruit bearing. If I don't pray like that, I might not bear much fruit.

I have barely scratched the surface of this discourse in John's gospel, but just from the little that we have looked at so far, the New Covenant is an invitation to join Jesus in his relationship with His Father and the Holy Spirit to do what Jesus is doing.