Confessional Foundation
The Westminster Confession frames the New Covenant not as a replacement of everything that preceded it, but as the final and fullest administration of the one covenant of grace:
“Under the gospel, when Christ the substance was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity and less outward glory, yet, in them it is held forth in more fulness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the New Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.”
Westminster Confession of Faith, 7.6
Key Texts
- Isaiah 54, esp. vv. 4–10
- Jeremiah 31:31–34
- Ezekiel 36:22–39; 37:15–28
- Luke 22:14–23; cf. Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; 1 Cor. 11:23–26
- Acts 2:29–41
- Romans 8:1–17
- 2 Corinthians 3:4–18
- Galatians 3:15–29
- Hebrews 8–10 (see Heb. 9:11–15; 10:1–4)
The New Covenant in the Old Testament
Before Jesus takes the cup in the upper room, the prophets have already announced what God will do. Three major texts establish the content, character, and scope of the New Covenant. Each rewards careful attention to its historical context, the specific promise it makes, its continuity with what came before, and the genuine newness of what is coming.
Isaiah 54
The Context
Isaiah 54 comes immediately after the fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13–53:12). The servant has borne the sins of the many; the atoning work has been announced. Chapter 54 is the consequence: with the servant’s suffering complete, the barren city is commanded to sing. Chapters 40–55 address Israel in the shadow of exile and its aftermath. The “barren woman” (v. 1) is Israel stripped, scattered, and apparently abandoned — the covenant curse of exile having fallen in full. But this passage opens on the far side of that judgment, as God announces the reversal that the servant’s work has made possible.
Isaiah 54, esp. vv. 4–10
“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer.
“For this is like the days of Noah to me: as I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you. For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:4–10 (ESV)The Promise
God promises the reversal of exile’s shame: “you will forget the shame of your youth” (v. 4). He will gather Israel with “great compassion” and “everlasting love” (vv. 7–8). He seals this promise with the most solemn oath available — the same divine commitment that underlies the Noahic covenant. As God swore never again to flood the earth, so he swears that his steadfast love will not depart and his “covenant of peace” will not be removed (vv. 9–10). The barren woman’s tent will be enlarged and her children will fill the nations (vv. 1–3). And “all your children shall be taught by the Lord” (v. 13) — anticipating Jeremiah’s promise that universal, direct knowledge of God will characterize the New Covenant community.
The Continuity
The same God who was “husband” to Israel is renewing his covenant commitment. The brief hiding of his face has not annulled the relationship; it has suspended it. The “covenant of peace” is the Covenant of Grace by another name — continuous with everything Jeremiah and Ezekiel also announce, framed here as the restoration of a marriage rather than the writing of a new constitution. God does not begin again with a different people; he restores the one covenant with the same people on the far side of the servant’s atoning work.
The Newness
What is new is the irrevocability. Under the old covenant, exile was the ultimate covenant curse — and Israel experienced it fully. This “covenant of peace” is sworn on oath to be permanent: the mountains may move, but this will not. Paul cites Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians 4:27 to identify the New Covenant community as the children of the “Jerusalem above” — the free woman whose offspring are counted according to promise, not flesh. The scope is not one nation in one land; it is the nations filled with children who are all, without exception, “taught by the Lord.”
Jeremiah 31:31–34
The Context
Jeremiah prophesies in Jerusalem from approximately 626 to 587 BC, during the decades in which the Babylonian empire closes in, the city falls, and the temple is destroyed. The Mosaic covenant is in terminal failure. The northern kingdom has already gone into Assyrian exile. Now the southern kingdom faces the same fate, as the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28 are executed in full. It is precisely within this collapse that the most important Old Testament prophecy of the New Covenant is made. The passage is so significant that the author of Hebrews quotes it in full — making it the longest single quotation of any Old Testament passage in the New Testament (Hebrews 8:8–12).
The New Covenant Promised
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (ESV)The Promise
Four features define what God promises. The law will be internalized — written on hearts rather than stone tablets. The covenant formula will be fulfilled: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” There will be universal direct knowledge of God within the covenant community — no mediating teacher needed, because all covenant members will know the Lord personally. And sins will be definitively forgiven: “I will remember their sin no more” — not partial or temporary forgiveness but final, comprehensive, and permanent.
The Continuity
The same God makes this covenant with the same people. The same law is in view — not abolished, but now written on hearts rather than stone. The same relational formula — “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” — is the covenant’s goal. This is the Abrahamic covenant arriving at its destination: “those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9).
The Newness
What is explicitly called “new” is contrasted point by point with the Mosaic covenant that Israel broke. The old was external; the new is internal. The old required constant mediation (“Know the Lord”); the new grants direct knowledge to every covenant member. The old provided annual atonement; the new provides permanent forgiveness. The author of Hebrews draws the decisive conclusion: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13). The announcement of a new covenant is itself the declaration that the old was insufficient for the ultimate task it anticipated.
Ezekiel 36:22–39; 37:15–28
The Context
Ezekiel prophesies to the exiles in Babylon from approximately 593 to 571 BC. The temple has been defiled and will be destroyed. God’s name has been profaned among the nations because his people have been scattered (36:20–21). What follows in chapter 36 is driven not by Israel’s merit but by God’s determination to vindicate his own holy name. In chapter 37, the vision of the two sticks — representing the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah — being joined into one anticipates the reunification of God’s people under one Davidic king with one everlasting covenant of peace.
The New Heart and the Indwelling Spirit — Ezekiel 36
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
Ezekiel 36:25–27 (ESV, from vv. 22–39)The Everlasting Covenant of Peace — Ezekiel 37
“I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Ezekiel 37:26–27 (ESV, from vv. 15–28)The Promise
Ezekiel 36 promises cleansing from all uncleanness (v. 25), a new heart replacing the heart of stone (v. 26), and God’s own Spirit placed permanently within the covenant people, causing them to walk in his statutes (v. 27). This is not a promise to assist obedience; it is a promise to produce it. Ezekiel 37 extends this: the divided people will be gathered into one nation under one Davidic king (vv. 21–24), and God will establish “an everlasting covenant of peace” with his sanctuary set “in their midst forevermore” (vv. 26–27) — the covenant formula fulfilled in permanent, unmediated divine presence.
The Continuity
The goal is identical to the Mosaic covenant’s goal: God’s people walking in God’s ways, keeping his statutes. The covenant formula appears explicitly: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (37:27). The same law, the same God, the same people — and the Davidic promise intact: “My servant David shall be king over them” (37:24). The New Covenant does not replace God’s purposes; it is the covenant of grace arriving at its ordained completion.
The Newness
The decisive word in Ezekiel 36 is “I will cause” — not “I will help you.” Under the old covenant, God gave his law externally and called his people to obey. Under the New Covenant, he transplants the heart and causes obedience by his own Spirit. Paul identifies this as the “ministry of the Spirit” that far surpasses the “ministry of death, carved in letters on stone” (2 Corinthians 3:7–8). And the scope of Ezekiel 37’s vision extends beyond reunited Israel to a sanctuary dwelling among the people “forevermore” — language that points past any earthly restoration to the new creation itself.
The New Covenant in the Old Testament
Drawing these three prophecies together, six themes emerge that establish the theological framework of the New Covenant. These are not predictions to be merely noted; they are promises that define what the New Covenant will accomplish and what everything before it was anticipating.
Isaiah’s “covenant of peace” explicitly echoes the Noahic oath. Jeremiah’s covenant formula runs through every administration from Abraham forward. Ezekiel’s Davidic king and permanent sanctuary draw on the promises of 2 Samuel 7. The New Covenant is not a new idea; it is the covenant of grace arriving at its appointed destination. Every prior covenant was a preparation and a pointer.
Jeremiah promises that God will “forgive their iniquity” and “remember their sin no more” (31:34). This is not the temporary, annually-renewed atonement of the Levitical system. It is permanent, definitive forgiveness — the kind the sacrificial system could anticipate but never accomplish. The New Covenant removes what the old could only cover (Hebrews 10:1–4).
Jeremiah promises the law written on hearts. Ezekiel promises a new heart and a Spirit that causes obedience. The New Covenant does not merely declare its people righteous; it transforms them. The obedience the Mosaic covenant demanded externally, the New Covenant produces internally by the Spirit’s permanent indwelling (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Isaiah’s promise of enlargement (“enlarge the place of your tent,” 54:2) and Ezekiel’s permanent habitation in the land point to an inheritance greater than Canaan. The New Covenant delivers what Abraham was looking for: “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). The inheritance is eternal, and it required the death of the covenant Mediator to unlock it (Hebrews 9:15).
Isaiah 54 envisions a community whose children fill the nations (vv. 1–3). Ezekiel 37 pictures the gathered people under one Davidic king whose reign, the New Testament makes clear, extends to all peoples. What God promised to Abraham — “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3) — the New Covenant brings to full reality in Christ (Galatians 3:8).
Ezekiel’s vision of God’s sanctuary “in their midst forevermore” (37:27) and Isaiah’s city built with precious stones (54:11–12) point beyond any historical restoration to the new creation. The covenant formula reaches its ultimate expression not in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem but in the new heavens and new earth, where God “will dwell with them” forever (Revelation 21:3).
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:33 (ESV)
Jesus and the New Covenant
What Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel announced, Jesus accomplishes. He is not one more installment in an ongoing series; he is the one to whom every installment pointed. “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
The New Covenant in the Old Testament
The five major promises of the New Covenant prophecies are not background information — they are the framework Jesus fulfills:
- The New Covenant grants forgiveness of sins. Jeremiah’s promise (“I will remember their sin no more”) is realized in Jesus’ shed blood: “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). What the annual sacrifices could only remind Israel of, the cross definitively accomplishes (Hebrews 10:1–4).
- The New Covenant perfects the people of God. Ezekiel’s “I will cause you to walk in my statutes” is fulfilled by the Spirit whom Jesus pours out at Pentecost. Those who are “led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Romans 8:14), and “we all… are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
- The New Covenant secures the inheritance promised to Abraham. Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, “so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15). The inheritance is no longer a land type but an eternal reality, secured by the death of the covenant Mediator himself.
- The New Covenant realizes the blessing offered to the nations through Abraham. The gospel going to the nations is covenant fulfillment: “The Scripture… preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8). The Great Commission is the mandate to execute this gathering (Matthew 28:19).
- The New Covenant promises realities that are available at the consummation. These realities are inaugurated in Christ’s resurrection and available now by the Spirit, but their full arrival awaits the new creation. The Spirit is “the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Ephesians 1:14) — already given, not yet fully received.
John the Baptist and the New Covenant
The New Covenant does not arrive without announcement. God first sends the herald who was himself foretold by the prophets.
- John the Baptist is the messenger who comes before to prepare the way of the Lord (Mark 1:2–3; cf. Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1). He stands at the threshold of the New Covenant as its final preparatory voice — the “messenger of the covenant” who goes before the Lord who will inaugurate it.
- He preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). His baptism of repentance anticipates the covenant reality without yet delivering it — he points to the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). He is the last prophet of the old era, not the first minister of the new.
- He is Elijah who anticipates the day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5–6). Jesus himself identifies John in this role (Matthew 11:14) — not a literal reincarnation but a ministry in the spirit and power of Elijah, calling Israel to repentance on the threshold of covenant fulfillment. And yet, “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11): every New Covenant member has a fuller share of what John could only announce.
Luke 22:14–23; cf. Matt. 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; 1 Cor. 11:23–26
The New Covenant is inaugurated in an upper room in Jerusalem, on the night of Passover. Three theological realities converge in this moment.
The Institution of the New Covenant
“And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’… And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’”
Luke 22:14–15, 19–20 (ESV)- The New Covenant begins with the shed blood of Jesus. As Moses sprinkled blood on the people at Sinai and said “Behold the blood of the covenant” (Exodus 24:8), Jesus ratifies the New Covenant with his own blood — fulfilling what Isaiah anticipated: the servant “poured out his soul to death” and “bore the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:12). The cross is the covenant-ratifying sacrifice on which the whole New Covenant rests (Hebrews 9:18–22).
- The New Covenant comes with new covenantal signs. The Passover meal is taken and given new meaning: the Lord’s Supper replaces the Passover as the covenant meal, commemorating a greater exodus from sin and death. Baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant entry (Colossians 2:11–12), bringing what the old sign only pointed toward.
- The New Covenant will be consummated when Jesus returns. Jesus declares he will not eat or drink this meal again “until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (Luke 22:16). Paul echoes this eschatological tension: we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Every Lord’s Supper is held in the space between inauguration and consummation — a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
What Does Jesus Do to Install the New Covenant?
The New Covenant is not inaugurated by announcement alone. Jesus undertakes a specific sequence of covenant-establishing actions:
Adam was given law, life, and the promise of confirmed blessedness on condition of obedience. He failed, bringing condemnation on all who descend from him (Romans 5:12, 18–19). Luke’s genealogy traces Jesus back to “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38), identifying him as the second Adam whose perfect obedience accomplishes what the first Adam refused — a righteousness sufficient to bring “justification and life for all men.”
Israel was called to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation but repeatedly broke the Mosaic covenant. Jesus was “born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4). He came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17) — bringing to completion in his own person and work everything Israel was called to but could not sustain.
The Servant Song of Isaiah 52:13–53:12 describes the one who bears the iniquities of many: “he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). The one who kept every covenant stipulation perfectly bore the full weight of the covenant curse on behalf of everyone who did not.
The resurrection is the Father’s public declaration that the covenant work was accepted. Paul writes that Jesus “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The risen Christ both secures covenant life (penalty paid, righteousness imputed) and dispenses it (Spirit poured out, new birth given to those the Father draws to the Son).
The Levitical high priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year with animal blood that could not take away sin (Hebrews 10:4). Christ entered “heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24) — with his own blood, securing “an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). His priestly intercession never ceases: “he always lives to make intercession” for his people (Hebrews 7:25).
The New Covenant Brings…
The New Covenant does not simply add to what preceded it; it delivers the reality of which the old was a shadow. Scripture’s catalog of what Christ brings is extensive:
- “the substance” of Old Covenant ceremonies (Col. 2:11) — what circumcision, sacrifice, and the Levitical rites pointed toward has now arrived in the body of Christ
- the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets (Rom. 3:21) — the righteousness of God “manifested apart from the law” is nonetheless the righteousness the Law and the Prophets were bearing witness to all along
- the clear manifestation of the righteousness of God (Rom. 3:21) — what was promised and partially revealed in the old administration is now fully and publicly disclosed in the gospel
- freedom from the law as a condemning power (Rom. 6:14) — “sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”
- true circumcision (Col. 2:11) — not the removal of a piece of flesh but the putting off of “the body of the flesh” in the circumcision of Christ
- the end of hostility between Jews and Gentiles (Eph. 2:14–16) — Christ “has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” to create “one new man in place of the two”
- the end of the law as the means of righteousness (Rom. 10:4) — “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes”
- maturity beyond the law’s tutelage (Gal. 3:23–24) — “the law was our guardian until Christ came”; now that faith has come, “we are no longer under a guardian”
- true Abrahamic blessing (Gal. 3:29) — “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise”
- the true Passover (1 Cor. 5:7) — “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed”; the exodus from Egypt gives way to the greater exodus from sin and death
- “redemption” (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:15) — “in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses”; the promised eternal inheritance now accessible through his death
- the perfect sacrifice (Heb. 9:11–14) — entered “once for all into the holy places” with his own blood, “securing an eternal redemption,” and purifying the conscience from dead works to serve the living God
- a holy nation and a kingdom of priests (1 Pet. 2:9) — “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” — what Israel was called to be but could not sustain, the New Covenant community now is in Christ
“Nothing of the Old Testament is lost in the New, but everything is fulfilled, matured, has reached its full growth, and now, out of the temporary husk, produces the eternal core. It is not the case that in Israel there was a true temple and sacrifice and priesthood and so on and that all these have now vanished. The converse, rather, is true: of all this Israel only possessed a shadow, but now the substance itself has emerged. The things we see are temporal, but the invisible things are eternal.”
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:224
“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
Luke 22:20 (ESV) — Jesus, instituting the New Covenant on the night of Passover
Life in the New Covenant
Covenant as a Legal Relationship (Administration)
The New Covenant, like every covenant before it, has an administered form: a community with boundaries, ordinances, and members. This administrative or legal dimension of the covenant includes all who are baptized, who receive the preaching of the Word, and who participate in the life of the covenant community. These are genuine blessings — hearing the gospel, receiving the sacraments, the fellowship of God’s people, the prayers and discipline of the church. Membership in the covenant community under its administration carries real weight and real obligation.
Covenant as a Vital Relationship (Substance)
But the blessings of administration are not the same as the blessings of substance. The covenant has an inner, vital reality that does not automatically accompany outward membership:
“The central blessings of the covenant are available only to those who are united to Christ by faith. Other people find themselves in the covenant community, subject to many blessings within that community. But the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection — regeneration, justification, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification — are given only through faith. Members of the covenant who lack a living and vital union with Christ by faith do not enjoy them.”
From the Sunday School Class Notes, Parish Presbyterian Church
Paul makes the same distinction: “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Romans 9:6). Israel after the flesh was in the administrative covenant; Israel after the promise was in vital union with its substance. The same pattern holds in the New Covenant. Other ways of describing this: The Visible and Invisible Church; External and Internal members of the covenant.
The Visible Church
All who are baptized, who profess faith, and who are enrolled members of a congregation. The visible church includes both those who are savingly united to Christ and those who are not. The covenant ordinances are administered to the visible church, and its members are real beneficiaries of covenant blessings — the Word, the sacraments, the fellowship of God’s people, the care and discipline of the church. These are not trivial gifts.
The Invisible Church
All who are, in fact, savingly united to Christ by faith — known perfectly to God alone. These are those who not only receive the covenant’s administration but genuinely participate in its substance: regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification. They are the covenant’s “children of promise” (Romans 9:8).
A Word of Caution on This Distinction
This distinction must not become a reason to diminish the weight of covenant membership. To be in the visible church — to have been baptized, to receive the preaching of the Word, to sit at the Lord’s Table — is a solemn and significant reality. The warnings of Hebrews 6 and 10 are directed precisely at those who have received these blessings and turned away from them. Covenant membership apart from faith does not save, but it does obligate. The proper response to this distinction is not complacency about outward membership, but earnestness in pursuing the substance — a living and vital union with Christ by faith alone.
The Means of Grace in the New Covenant
A Covenantal View of the Means of Grace
The “means of grace” are the ordinary instruments by which God applies the benefits of the New Covenant to his people. They are not mechanical conduits of grace operating apart from faith; they are the covenantal forms through which the covenant God meets his covenant people. Reformed theology identifies three: the Word, Prayer, and the Sacraments. Together they define the shape of New Covenant life.
The Word
The preaching and reading of Scripture is the primary means of grace in the New Covenant. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The Word is not merely information about the covenant; it is the covenantal address of God to his people, through which the Spirit works regeneration, sustains faith, and brings the blessings of the New Covenant to bear on the lives of those who receive it in faith.
Prayer
Prayer is the covenant people’s covenantal speech — the means by which they exercise the access to God that the New Covenant provides. Because Christ has entered the true sanctuary on their behalf and the Spirit has been poured out within them, New Covenant members may “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Prayer is not merely a spiritual discipline; it is the enactment of the covenant relationship — the cry of adopted children to their Father, through the mediation of the Son.
Baptism (WCF 28)
Baptism is the sacrament of initiation into the New Covenant community. The Westminster Confession (28.1) defines it as “a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins.” As circumcision was the sign of covenant entry under Abraham, baptism is the sign of covenant entry under Christ, signifying union with him in his death and resurrection (Colossians 2:11–12).
The Lord’s Supper (WCF 29)
The Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of ongoing covenant communion. The Westminster Confession (29.1) describes it as a “perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death, the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him.” As the Passover was the ongoing covenant meal of the Mosaic administration, the Lord’s Supper is the ongoing covenant meal of the New Covenant — proclaiming the Lord’s death “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
Revelation 21:3 (ESV) — The covenant formula in its final and eternal form