As we consider the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, several contrasts stand out. One is the number of laws or commands. Through Moses, God gives hundreds of very specific rules to the Israelites. By comparison, Christ and His apostles give relatively few detailed commands. They emphasize principles more than regulations. While the Old Covenant shows the importance of the heart, much of its detail has to do with physical, external things. By comparison, the New Covenant calls things of the old law “shadows” as compared with the spiritual realities of the New Testament. John draws the contrast in this way:
The Word [God’s Son] became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14, 17)
Are we open to the “grace and truth” our Lord reveals? Then we should listen in on a lively conversation between Jesus and a woman of Samaria (John 4:5-26). The woman realizes that Jesus speaks with the insight of a true prophet. Like us, she has questions. She asks about the correct place of worship, which is a pressing dispute between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus shows that the Jews have the correct place, which is their temple in Jerusalem. Then Jesus looks ahead to the change that will come with His new order.
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:21-24)
What an earth-shaking announcement! From David until Jesus—nearly 1,000 years—Jerusalem stands at the center of Jewish worship. The temple is Israel’s greatest monument, its only shrine. Yet Jesus sees all that about to be overturned. Instead of the physical place (the temple) on a physical mountain (Mount Zion) in a physical city (Jerusalem), the place of worship becomes spiritual: “in spirit and truth.”