Editorial January 9, 1989 Issue

New covenant: fulfilling the promise

Ann Kenrick

When we really care about something, we're willing to sacrifice much to achieve it. People today working in behalf of battered women, or for the environment, or in support of homeless children, for example, are very willing to give up something of their own in order to fulfill the promise of what they realize can and should be.

There's often a close relationship between the fulfilling of such a promise, or vision, and the discipline required to achieve one's ideal. Actually the Bible describes for us a relationship that includes both a promise and a demand for great self-sacrifice. It's God's relationship to His people, known as a covenant. At Mount Horeb, God gives the children of Israel His law to follow and a promise of blessing if they are obedient. For their part they are required to give up their trust in false gods.

Even when the Israelites strayed from the law, the prophets emphasized God's steadfast love and mercy. Jeremiah, for example, speaks of "a new covenant" of a more intimate nature that God will make with them.^{See Jer. 31:31–34 .} "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."

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