Jesus and the covenant

When Jesus came to earth, His message and behavior “surprised” people — and for the Jews of His day, that surprise was genuinely shocking. Why, and what does any of this have to do with the covenant?

The expectation of the Day of the Lord

At the time of Jesus, the Jews were awaiting the Day of the Lord, but they disagreed sharply on how it would actually arrive. Qumran expected a (partial) withdrawal from society paired with increased observance of the law. The Pharisees pushed for increased observance of the law within society as it stood. The Jewish historian Josephus concluded that Israel had been rejected and that God had instead chosen the Romans. The Sadducees favored increased observance of the law alongside submission to and cooperation with Roman leadership. And the Zealots wanted increased observance of the law combined with active resistance against Rome.

The challenge

Reading how the New Testament actually presents Jesus is genuinely challenging against that backdrop. Take the beginning of the gospel of Mark: the Greek word for “gospel” there is evangeliou, a term normally used to announce the birth of a new emperor. That word choice alone was already a political challenge aimed at the emperor in Rome — the real king, Mark is saying, is Jesus.

And Mark doesn’t stop there. Immediately afterward he quotes Isaiah, at the exact point where the Day of the Lord is announced. From there, Jesus does a whole series of things tied directly to Israel’s history and its promises:

• The calling of the 12 disciples to a mountain recalls the new creation of Israel (from 12 tribes) where the covenant was made on Mount Sinai.
• The 40 days of temptation of Jesus in the desert are reminiscent of the temptations that Israel faced in the desert during the Exodus and failed (provision of water and bread, miracles, idolatry) and therefore had to wander in the desert for 40 years (after Israel believed the spies who wandered for 40 days) — interestingly 40 years after Jesus completed his mission in 30 AD the temple was destroyed.
• The healings of Jesus are a sign of the coming kingdom.
• The casting out of demons (which did not happen in the Old Testament) describes God’s restorative action against Israel’s enemies.
• The multiplication of bread recalls the manna in the desert.
• The calming of the storm recalls the Exodus.
• The meal with the sinners anticipates the final banquet of God with His people.

The teachings of Jesus

Jesus’s teaching was also deeply confrontational toward Israel. He picks up Isaiah’s parable of the vineyard that bears no fruit, itself a picture of Israel being pruned, but Jesus reuses this parable with the judgment to completely destroy Israel if they reject him — raising the stakes far beyond pruning.

In the same vein, the Day of the Lord Jesus announces will not bring the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple pictured in Ezekiel 40–48, but rather the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

Yet the coming of the Kingdom — Israel reigning as the Day of the Lord arrives — comes in a deliberately hidden way, and Jesus returns to this theme repeatedly: in the parable of the sower; in the weeds in the field and the parable of the fish net; in the growth of the seed; and in the parable of the mustard seed, where a seed roughly a millimeter across grows into a tree two to three meters tall. Since a tree is a picture for God's kingdom elsewhere in Scripture, the parable is saying that the smallest thing becomes the biggest — a reversal that should be known to Israel already, from its own election as the smallest of nations. The same hiddenness appears in the image of yeast, which changes the whole dough — notable because yeast was never used in the Old Testament as a picture for God’s kingdom — where a small, hidden amount unstoppably becomes a large one, and in the hidden treasure and the pearl, where the treasure must first be sought, and once found, demands that everything else be given up for it.

The beatitudes carry the same confrontational edge. They challenge Israel to become true Israel, since every promise in them belongs only to those faithful to Jesus:

• The poor in spirit will receive the kingdom.
• Those who mourn shall be comforted (with national rebirth).
• The meek shall inherit the land.
• The pure in heart shall see God.
• Peacemakers are those who are called children of God (title for Israel).

A new thinking

When Jesus came, people did not recognize His coming. They expected something else. After the Day of the Lord, he will

• come to destroy the enemies of Israel and
• to restore the remnant of Israel so that
• be rulers over the unbelieving nations.

There were some misconceptions

• Israel thought that the enemies were the oppressing nations.
• That the remnant were the religious people like the Pharisees.
• To rule means to rule over others as the other nations did.

First, Jesus presented a very different concept of rulership.

Second, Jesus was very clear that the enemies were not the Romans who were oppressing Israel at that time, but the enemies were the demons that He drove out on many occasions. Driving them out is a sign that the Day of the Lord has come. This was especially true at His death.

Finally, the remnant are not the religious people, but those who keep the covenant of God, which is only Jesus Himself. All others do not belong to the remnant and would be subject of the judgment, which is also Israel.

Already but not yet

He says that the Day of the Lord has come (the Kingdom of God). The Gospel of Mark begins with the vision that introduces the second part of Isaiah which describes the restoration of Israel. In his preaching He cites the fulfillment of the prophecy of chapter 61 : “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

But if you compare it with the passage of Isaiah you will see that he stopped in the middle of the sentence: “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God”

Jesus did not come to judge because He would have to judge everyone at this time, so He divided the Day of the Lord into two parts.