Jeremiah 31 - A New Covenant

Eternal life has already begun. Live into it!

Faithlife.com

SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF, "After chapters filled with uprooting and destruction, Jeremiah preaches God’s glorious plan to build and plant his people forevermore. Judgment needed to come first, and now we understand a redemptive motive: God judged not only out of justice, but also to bring to a close the old covenant, which was never able to overcome the power of sin. God will take the initiative to bring a new and better covenant, which will deal decisively with the reason for the old covenant’s ruin: the intractably wicked hearts of his people. In so doing, God will reverse every consequence of judgment (loss of king, of land, of joy—everything)." - Lexham Context Commentary

Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NASB95)

³¹ “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

³² not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.

³³ “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

³⁴ “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Heidelberg Catechism

Q&A 56

Q. What do you believe concerning “the forgiveness of sins”?

A. I believe that God,

because of Christ’s atonement,

will never hold against me

any of my sins

nor my sinful nature

which I need to struggle against all my life.

Rather, in his grace

God grants me the righteousness of Christ

to free me forever from judgment.

Summary

Today's Summary is a modification of one posted November 21, 2023

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This old adage has proven itself true time and time again. The pattern of God's people has been familiar and consistent: peril overtakes them and they cry out to God for rescue; God hears their prayers and delivers them to freedom; after a short interlude of faithfulness, the subsequent generations fall back into sin and God allows peril to overtake them until they once again cry out in repentance.

But this time it would be different. Not the part about Israel falling into sin and invoking judgment upon themselves... that part is just as consistent as ever. But this time God's not going to rescue and restore them to the same old thing. He's going to break the pattern. The old covenant, in which the people would fulfill their obligation to God by keeping the laws He handed down through Moses, had never really worked. Sinful people can't be made holy by following rules.

God would be faithful to His people. That part won't change either; as we'll see next starting next week as we begin reading Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, God's people would repent, return and rebuild. But things would be different this time. A new covenant would be coming, one that would fulfill the old Mosaic covenant and bring true freedom to God's people.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. God gave the same promise to Jeremiah that He gave to Adam, Abraham, Moses, David and many others. It's the same promise He gives to you: He will be your God, and we will be His people.

  Dig Deeper  

Two things stand out regarding the promise the LORD makes to His people here. First is who does what. You and I are the ones who broke the covenant. That's it; that's our only contribution. The LORD, on the other hand, is the one who made the covenant, who took His people by the hand and led them out of slavery, who husbands His people, and who has put His law within us and write it on our heart.

Theologians have a fancy word to describe this: God saves us monergistically. Maybe that seems like a mouthful, but you've likely used that word's cousin before: synergistic - that's when two or more people combine forces to make something happen. But since we don't work together with God in our salvation, we replace the syn prefix with the mon (monos / one).

Our salvation is in God's hands from start to finish. What a comfort! Our Father is our God, and we are His people! He has forgiven our iniquity, and our sin He will remember no more.

The second aspect that stands out is how intellectually based our salvation is: God promises that we will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest. Our knowledge, which was devastated in the fall, will be made complete and whole when all things are made new.

This is why Jesus said that eternal life is knowing God (John 17:3). This is also why the more you come to know God here and now, the more you can to begin to experience eternal life here and now.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who has made a new covenant with us in Christ;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will live into eternal life already by continually increasing your knowledge of God;

  ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

---