A will, a covenant, and a testament are synonymous terms. Each describes a binding agreement, and a testament goes into effect through death. A last will and testament is only activated when the one who made it dies.

The New Covenant was first prophesied in the Book of Jeremiah, pointing to a time when God would write His law on hearts instead of stone. Why was it needed? Because God found fault — not with His covenant, but with the people (Hebrews 8:8). They were spiritually dead, incapable of truly obeying.

Through Jesus Christ, God ushered in a better covenant, one that supersedes the old. And like a testament, it was put into effect through His death. It brings forgiveness, transformation, and life through the Spirit. We are no longer under the old covenant of law and sacrifice — we now live in the new, empowered by grace, marked by the Spirit, and reconciled through Jesus.

Deuteronomy 28:1–6 – “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

Deuteronomy 28:15–19 -“However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.”

Exodus 19:5–8 — “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession… The people all responded together, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said.’ So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.”

Exodus 24:3 — “When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do.’”

Exodus 24:7 — “Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.’”

Exodus 32:7–8 – Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf.”

Exodus 32:19–20 – “When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.“

Exodus 32:30 – “The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”

Ezekiel 36:26–27  – “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

Jeremiah 31:31–34 — “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… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Isaiah 55:3 — “Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.”

Luke 22:20 — “In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.’”

Matthew 26:28 — “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

John 1:17 – “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Romans 5:1–2 –“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

Romans 6:14 – “For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.”

Romans 7:4–6 – “So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”

Romans 8:1–4 – “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Romans 10:4 – “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

Romans 11:27 — “And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

Ephesians 2:15 – “By setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations, that he might create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace.”

Colossians 2:13–14 – “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

2 Corinthians 3:6–16 — “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts! Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.”

Galatians 2:16 – “Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”

Galatians 3:10–14 – “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, ‘The man who does these things will live by them.’ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”

Galatians 3:24–25 – “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under the law”

Galatians 4:4–7 – “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’ So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.”

Galatians 4:24–26 — “These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar… But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.”

Hebrews 7:18–22 – “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever.” Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.”

Hebrews 8:6–8 — “But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: ‘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.’”

Hebrews 8:10–12 –“This is the covenant I will make with the house 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 a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘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.”

When Scripture says the law is written on our hearts, it does not mean we are still under the Mosaic Law system. It means:

• The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us (Romans 8:4).

• We serve “in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6).

• Obedience flows from a changed nature, not from fear of condemnation

Hebrews 8:13 — “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”

Hebrews 9:11–12 – “When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Hebrews 9:15 – “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”

Hebrews 9:16–17 — “In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.”

Hebrews 9:24–26 – “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Hebrews 10:1 – “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”

Hebrews 10:4 – “…because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Hebrews 10:8-9 – First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. ⁹ Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second.

Hebrews 10:10–14 – “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

Hebrews 10:16–17 — “‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time,’ says the Lord. ‘I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’ Then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’”

Hebrews 10:19–22 – “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

Hebrews 12:24 – “To Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”