6. According to Jeremiah chapter 31, why did God see the need to make a new covenant, and in what would it result?

⁶ Why did God want a new covenant? Jeremiah 31:31-34 explains: “‘Look! There are days coming,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and I will conclude with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant; not one like the covenant that I concluded with their forefathers in the day of my taking hold of their hand to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt, “which covenant of mine they themselves broke, although I myself had husbandly ownership of them,” is the utterance of Jehovah.’

A Better Covenant With a Better Mediator

7. Is the new covenant a renewal of the covenant that the Israelites broke, and why is it better than the Law covenant?

⁷ The new covenant is not a mere renewal of the earlier covenant that the Israelites broke. No, indeed! For the apostle Paul writes to the Christians at Rome, saying: “You are not under law but under undeserved kindness.” (Romans 6:14) It is really a new covenant, and it was to be expected that it would be a better one, for the Almighty God Jehovah is able to improve matters with regard to those whom he admits into the new covenant. For one thing, he raised up a better mediator, or go-between, in establishing the new covenant. This Mediator was no imperfect, sin-infected man like the prophet Moses.

8. (a) What does the new covenant have that makes it better than the Law covenant? (b) Who is the Mediator of the better new covenant? (c) What does Hebrews 8:6, 13 say about the new covenant and the superiority of its Mediator, and with what effect on the former covenant?

⁸ The Law covenant mediated by means of the prophet Moses was good in itself. However, that covenant provided for the sacrifice of animals whose blood could never wash away human sins. So for Jehovah God to set up a better covenant, there would have to be a better mediator with a better sacrifice. This all-necessary Mediator proved to be Jesus Christ. Pointing out the superiority of this Mediator as compared to the prophet Moses, the Bible gives us the following explanation: “But now Jesus has obtained a more excellent public service, so that he is also the mediator of a correspondingly better covenant, which has been legally established upon better promises. . . . In his saying ‘a new covenant’ he has made the former one obsolete.”​—Hebrews 8:6, 13.