Excellent teaching, Phil. I would add one little thing. Many of the new “Christians” will say that the old covenant was done away with. That is not what the book says. It says that the new is grafted in to the old, not REPLACED. As Paul said in Romans 11:24, “For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.” Funny how people believe that we have a whimsical god that changes his mind. HE is unchangeable. If you believe that he has done away with the old covenant, and replaced it with a new covenant, then what makes you think that he won’t do away with the new covenant and replace it with the ‘newer’ covenant? That is what Muslims believe. They believe that their covenant is the “Last Covenant”. Do Replacement theologists really want to be replaced by Muslims? The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob has never changed. And never will. In my humble opinion. He has done all in this world to preserve ‘free will’ and choice. Ours, not His.
“The terms or substance of the New Covenant are the same as that of the Old Covenant, obedience to the Ten Commandments. However, the New Covenant is a better promise, a promise by God to write His laws into the hearts and minds of the people of Israel, and to remember their sins no more.”
Yes, we as Christians (Gentiles) are grafted into the vine and heirs to God’s promises made to Abraham. The terms of the New Covenant are based on the terms of the Old Covenant, that being God’s 10 commandment law and obedience. In the New Covenant, he made the Old Covenant “better”.