Jeremiah
31:31-34[i]
God is a
covenant God. By “Covenant God,” I mean
that He makes promises to His people. He
deals with humanity according to His covenants or promises. His promises never fail.
Jesus said,
“For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a
dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:18, ESV)
This echoes
the concept taught by Isaiah when he says, “The grass withers, the flower
fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8, ESV)
The
everlasting nature of God’s word flows naturally from God’s character. He is omnipotent. Therefore, nothing can move or shake
Him. He is all-knowing. Therefore, nothing can surprise, rattle or
catch Him off guard. There has never
been a time when God said, “I never thought of that.” He is sovereign. Therefore, nothing happens out of His
control. God is Holy. He is separate from His creation, and
pure. Therefore, He never lies. Because of these things, His word, like Him,
is everlasting.
There is
nothing more sure in this world than the word of God.
The ground
shakes underneath our feet, but God’s word is sure and unmoving.
For this
reason, I choose to stand on the promises of God. I put my trust in His covenants.
At the time
of the flood, when Noah stepped off the Ark, God made a promise, a
covenant. He said, “Yes, I am confirming
my covenant with you. Never again will
floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the
earth.” (Genesis 9:11)
A day is
coming when the earth will be destroyed by fire. (2 Peter 3:7, “And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up
for fire. They are being kept for the
day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.”) However, there has not been and there never
will be another worldwide flood.
This
covenant is called the Noahic Covenant.
After Noah,
God made a covenant with Abraham. God
said:
I will make you into a great
nation. I will bless you and make you
famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse
those who treat you with contempt. All
the families on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)
That
promise was made over 4,000 years ago to an old man without children. Today, we have a nation called Israel that is
part of the fulfillment of that promise.
This
covenant is called the Abrahamic Covenant.
After
Abraham, God used a man named Moses to deliver the descendants of Abraham from slavery
in Egypt. Moses led the people out of
Egypt to Mount Sinai, where they met with God.
There at the Mountain, God made a covenant with the children of Israel. We know the core of the covenant as the “Ten
Commandments.”
This
covenant is known as the Mosaic Covenant.
It is also known as the “Law.”
The Noahic
Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant are unilateral covenants. God unilaterally made the promises of these
covenants. However, the Mosaic Covenant
was not unilateral. The people of Israel
agreed to the conditions God laid out.
They said, “We will do everything the LORD has commanded.” (Exodus 24:3)
God clearly
laid out blessings for keeping the covenant and consequences for breaking the
covenant. Deuteronomy 28 gives a
detailed list of the consequences of breaking the Mosaic Covenant. However, a good summary of the blessings and
consequences are found in Deuteronomy 30:15-18.
15“Now
listen! Today I am giving you a choice
between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. 16For I command you this day to
love the LORD your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by
walking in his ways. If you do this, you
will live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you and the land you
are about to enter and occupy.
17“But if
your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to
serve and worship other gods, 18then I warn you now that you will
certainly be destroyed. You will not
live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.
Jeremiah
prophesied at the time in Israel’s history when this “You will certainly be destroyed,” had become a reality. Jeremiah saw the last of the nation led away
in chains as captives of the Babylonian Empire.
Jeremiah
warned the Israelites that this was coming.
Through Jeremiah, God says, “I will hand over my holy mountain—along
with all your wealth and treasures and your pagan shrines—as plunder to your
enemies, for sin runs rampant in your land.”
(Jeremiah 17:3)
The coming
judgment was bad. A time of suffering
and evil was coming, but God offered hope.
He promised a restoration.
He said:
31“The day is
coming,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of
Israel and Judah. 32This
covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them
by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them
as a husband loves his wife,” says the LORD.
33“But this
is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says
the LORD. “I will put my instructions
deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my
people. 34And they will not need to teach
their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You
should know the LORD.’ For everyone,
from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the LORD. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I
will never again remember their sins.”
(Jeremiah 31:31-34)
This
promise is known as the “New Covenant.”
This is an
unbreakable, sure promise of God.
It is not
like the Mosaic Covenant, which the people of Israel broke. There are no provisions laid out for
consequences. This is a unilateral
covenant like the Noahic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant.
This
covenant promises that everyone in the nation will know God. However, there is a problem. This has never happened. Therefore, what are we to think?
The Apostle
Paul addresses this question in Romans 9-10.
In Romans 11:1 he says, “I ask, then, has God rejected his own people,
the nation of Israel? Of course not! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of
Abraham and a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” Later on, in the same chapter,
the Apostle Paul goes on to say, “Some of the people of Israel have hard
hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to
Christ. And so all Israel will be saved. (Romans 11:25-26)
God’s
covenant with Israel still stands, and there will come a day when all Israel
will be saved. However, there is another
part of this covenant that is especially important to us in the Church.
The Apostle
Paul says, “Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation
available to the Gentiles. (Romans
11:11) And then he says, “But some of
these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been
broken off. And you Gentiles, who were
branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has
promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the
root of God’s special olive tree.”
(Romans 11:17)
My point is
that we Gentiles have been made partakers in the New Covenant.
God had
promised Abraham that all nations and families on earth would be blessed
through him. This came about through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
When Jesus
ate the Last Supper with the Apostles, He passed on to us the tradition of
Communion. When He served the Cup, He
said, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:20, Matthew 26:28, 1 Corinthians
11:25)
It is
because of this New Covenant that we have life.
The Apostle
Peter expresses it like this, “Once you had no identity as a people; now you
are God's people. Once you received no
mercy; now you have received God's mercy.”
(1 Peter 2:10)
This is
both the mystery and glory of the New Covenant.
Both Gentiles and Jews share in this covenant. Ephesians 3:6 says:
And this is God's plan: Both
Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches
inherited by God's children. Both are
part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they
belong to Christ Jesus.
According
to Romans 11, the Church age will last until the full number of Gentiles have
come to faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore,
we have no way of knowing when Jesus will return. That number of Gentiles who must come to
faith in Christ is a number set by God that no man knows.
However,
that is not our concern. Our concern
should be to occupy ourselves with doing His will until He returns.
In
Jeremiah’s day, the people of Israel hardened their hearts against God. They refused to listen to God’s messenger,
Jeremiah. They refused to listen to
God’s word, the Law of Moses. And, they
refused to acknowledge the signs of the times.
Even while the Babylonians were gathering outside the city, they would
not believe Jeremiah’s message.
These things
happened as a warning to us. Do not
harden your heart. God is offering you
the benefit of His covenant. He is
offering you all His promises and the benefits of being His child.
However,
you must call upon Him to be saved. The
Apostle John says it this way:
Whoever believes in the Son has
eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath
of God remains on him. (John 3:36, ESV)[ii]
[i]
Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New
Living Translation. Copyright © 1996,
2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Steam,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
[ii]
Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good
News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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