WHENEVER I TEACH a seminary or university course, I first have to create what’s known as a syllabus. It’s a document that spells out what the course is about, what I expect of the students, and what they can expect of me. It functions like a contract between us; if they sign up for the class, these are the terms of agreement.

There is a difference, though: unlike a typical contract, I have the unilateral right to amend the agreement even after students have registered. But it’s expected that any changes must clearly be for the students’ benefit and not impose additional burdens. I can’t just suddenly add another 25-page term paper or require them to shell out another hundred bucks for a 400-page textbook.

That’s similar to the last thing I want to say before leaving Micah: just because God is faithful to his covenant promises doesn’t mean that the covenant can never be changed.

Especially when the changes are for the benefit of his people.

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THIS WILL BE my final post on the book of Micah. I’ve said repeatedly how the words of hope sprinkled throughout the book are grounded in the covenant mercy and faithfulness of God. Though the kingdom of Judah has lost its way, God has not. Though the people have been unfaithful and must endure invasion and exile, there is still a glorious future beyond.

As we’ve seen, Micah’s prophecy of the destruction of Samaria was fulfilled in his lifetime. The predicted destruction of Jerusalem would happen roughly a century later, and the ruler whom he prophesied would arise from Bethlehem would come still later in the person of Jesus. Other prophecies still have yet to be fulfilled. The full restoration and exaltation of Jerusalem, for example, must wait until the return of Jesus as king and for the New Jerusalem to come down from heaven, as envisioned in the book of Revelation.

We can’t know exactly what Micah foresaw, nor should we expect that he fully understood every oracle given to him. He was confident in the covenant faithfulness of God, and knew the stories of such faithfulness to previous generations. But how would that mercy and trustworthiness be expressed in the future? Before we end our study of Micah, I need to say something about the New Testament teaching on the subject. Simply put: what Micah knew and relied upon was the “old covenant” which, whether he envisioned it or not, would eventually be superseded by a “new covenant” in Jesus.

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YOU MAY ALREADY be familiar with that language from participating in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus himself used it during his final Passover meal with his disciples: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20, NIV). The apostle Paul then picks up those words when he writes to the Corinthians about the way they’re getting the Lord’s Supper all wrong. In admonishing them, he quotes Jesus: “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:25).

This is an important part of Paul’s theology. In Romans 7, for example, he teaches that although the Mosaic Law excelled at showing us our sin, it had no power to make us righteous, and thus could lead only to condemnation and death. In 2 Corinthians 3, he speaks of this as the “ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone,” and contrasts it with the “new covenant” which is “not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (vss. 6-7). Referring to the afterglow of the glory of God that showed on Moses’ face whenever the two met, he sees the old covenant as similarly glorious, even if it only brought condemnation. But the new covenant is far more glorious, because as a ministry of the Spirit, it brings righteousness instead (vss. 7-11). Indeed, Paul insists, it is by the Spirit of the Lord that we come to reflect his glory more and more (vs. 18).

But perhaps the best statement of the new covenant is found in the book of Hebrews, which some believe to have been written by Paul, or if not by Paul then in his style. In chapters 7 and 8, the author argues that the Law as mediated to the people by the priesthood couldn’t make anyone spiritually mature. What’s needed, therefore, is a new and better covenant, with Jesus as its perfect high priest. In making this argument, the author of Hebrews quotes a prophecy of Jeremiah:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
    when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
    and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
    after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
    and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.” (Heb 8:8-12; cf. also Jer 31:31-34)

The language of “new covenant” is God’s language, given through the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote dolefully about the disobedience of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Against that background of deep heartache there was still hope. The day would come when God would make a new covenant unlike the previous one, a covenant in which the law would be written on the people’s hearts. The day would come, said Jeremiah, in which God would forgive and forget the people’s wickedness and sin, a prediction that echoed Micah’s closing words.

The prophecy of Jeremiah seems to be in the back of Paul’s mind when he tells the Corinthians, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3). The Corinthians, remember, were one of the most contentious congregations Paul founded and mentored. It’s not as if he had forgotten the trouble and sorrow they had caused him. But even in such a congregation he could still see the truth of Jeremiah’s prophecy and the reality and glory of the new covenant — because he could see the activity of the Holy Spirit in their life together, despite the spiritual shenanigans.

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GOD IS STILL a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. The mercy and faithfulness Micah celebrated and upon which he built his hope still exist. They’re intrinsic to who God is, and that will never change.

But the terms of the covenant have changed, and changed for our benefit. We celebrate that new covenant whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper and remember what was done for us through the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. What Jeremiah envisioned has come to pass in the giving of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of Jesus, who writes God’s law on our hearts and makes obedience possible. Where there was slavery, there is now freedom; where there was death, there is now life.

I don’t know how much of this, if anything at all, Micah foresaw in his day. But I suspect that he would have rejoiced to see it, and would have fallen down in worship.

As should we.