(7) For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. (8) For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: (9) Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. (10) 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 write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: (11) And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. (12) For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (13) In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
In order to have a clear apprehension of what is here said, it will be necessary to attend to the words of scripture, simply as they are. When the Holy Ghost speaks, as in this place, of a first covenant, and a second; and of a new covenant, and an old; the Reader must not suppose is meant, that the one differed from the other in substance, or that any change had taken place in the mind of God. Not so. There hath been from everlasting in reality but one and the same covenant, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the sole covenant of the people. Neither can his Gospel be called a new revelation, differing from the Old Testament in sum and substance, for the Gospel was preached to Abraham, Galatians 3:8. I have shewn this, I hope, very clearly, in the Preface to this Poor Man's Commentary. But the meaning of this most beautiful passage (which is taken from the prophecy of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 31:31-34), is the spiritual illustration of God's covenant in Christ, in which the several agencies of each glorious person of the Godhead, are blessedly shewn In the Father's electing, pardoning, justifying, accepting love; God the Son's betrothing, redeeming grace; and God the Spirit's quickening, sanctifying, sealing mercy. And the blessed effects arising from the whole are also here displayed, in the spiritual knowledge which the whole Church of God in Christ shall derive from the latter-day dispensation. So much of divine light, and divine knowledge, shall be diffused by the openly tabernacling of the Son of God in our nature, that from the highest to the lowest, and from the least to the greatest, all the children shall know the Lord; and that not in an hearsay or speculative apprehension of God, but a personal, spiritual, soul-enjoyment of Him. God shall be known in his threefold character of Person, in the Father's love, the Son's grace, and the Spirit's fellowship, and in such a blessed way and manner, as shall refresh the whole Church, and raise up a revenue of glory to the Lord, Isaiah 54:13; John 14:23-27