What's New about the New Covenant?

I got into a discussion today with my pal and associate pastor about what exactly makes the New Covenant “new.” By way of an attempted answer I’d like to suggest something that may be controversial, but once you understand what I’m NOT saying, it may be easier to swallow.

What makes the New Covenant new is the gift of regeneration.

Here’s what you’re thinking: “Wait a sec, are you saying that OT saints weren’t regenerate? If not, how could they ever have savingly embraced God’s promises?”

Before I address that, let’s remind ourselves of what the Bible says about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to those who lived under the Old Covenant. Perhaps the most important passage in this regard is found in John’s gospel, where we are told:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (7:37-39).

Did you catch that? The Spirit was not given until after Jesus’ glorification, which certainly refers to his resurrection and ascension. This leads us to Acts 2 and the Day of Pentecost, on which the Spirit is poured out upon the infant church, leading Peter to refer in his sermon to Joel’s prophecy about the Spirit being given to “all flesh” in the “last days.” Clearly there was some new spiritual dynamic that began on that day, one which did not exist in prior times.

What is this new spiritual dynamic? I would suggest that it is regeneration, and NOT what we sometimes call “effectual calling,” of which the Larger Catechism says:

Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his Word and Spirit; savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein (67).

That which the above paragraph describes was undoubtedly true of OT saints. But here’s my question: What if regeneration were understood as something different, something narrower and specific to NT saints only?

Jesus only used the term “regeneration” once, and he did so in reference to the age to come. In other words, “the regeneration” was a future place. But then in reference to baptism, Paul says that we have received “the washing of regeneration,” which indicates that the age to come—which Jesus called “the regeneration”—has somehow become the present possession of the baptized believer.

So putting all this together, is it legitimate to say that the OC saints, despite being given whatever was necessary to enable them to internally embrace God’s saving promises, did not enjoy the greater gift of regeneration, according to which the Spirit of the risen Christ actually becomes the possession of the believer, functioning for him as an engagement ring assuring him of his future inheritance?

When we look at it this way, the New Covenant actually looks like it provides something, well, new.