Jeremiah 3:15-22

D. The Blessings of Repentance Jeremiah 3:15-22 a

TRANSLATION

(15) And I will give you shepherds according to My heart who shall feed you with knowledge and wisdom. (16) And it shall come to pass when you have multi plied and grown numerous in the land in those days (oracle of the LORD) they will no longer say, The Ark of the Covenant of the LORD! It will not enter the mind; they will neither remember it nor miss it, nor shall one be made again. (17) In that time they shall call Jerusalem The throne of the LORD and all nations shall be gathered unto it, to the Name of the LORD and to Jerusalem; and they shall not go any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. (18) In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel and they shall come together from the land of the north unto the land which I caused your fathers to inherit. (19) But I said, How can I put you among the sons, and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of the nations? Then I said, You must call me my Father and you must not turn back from after Me. (20) Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband thus you have dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel (oracle of the LORD). (21) A voice is heard upon the bare heights, weeping supplications of the children of Israel; because they have perverted their ways, they have forsaken the LORD their God. (22) Return, O backsliding sons, I will heal your backsliding.

COMMENTS

If individuals of the ten northern tribes truly repent and are brought by God into spiritual Zion they will experience many wonderful blessings. First, they will be blessed with a new leadership (Jeremiah 3:15). After evangelism must come education and conservation. God is not just concerned to win back His people but also to preserve them in the faith. Thus He will provide for them shepherds, spiritual leaders who will be in harmony with His will and who will impart to the converts wisdom and knowledge of God. One thinks of Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 6:35-63), and the faithful men of God who have fed the flock through the centuries.

The second blessing is that of prosperity and growth. The rapid increase of the spiritual Israel of God is one of the characteristic traits of Messianic prophecy.[148] The Book of Acts contains the record of the thrilling fulfillment of this prediction. The number of the New Israel of God grew from 120 souls (Acts 1:15) to 3,000 souls (Acts 2:41) to 5,000 souls (Acts 4:4). And that was only the beginning! Surely God has kept His promise and blessed the New Israel numerically.

[148] See Genesis 15:5-6; Genesis 17:2; Genesis 28:14; Jeremiah 23:3; Ezekiel 36:11; Hosea 1:10; Hosea 2:23.

In the Messianic age a new covenant will replace the cherished Ark of the Covenant (Jeremiah 3:16). The Ark of the Covenant was vital to the religious life in Old Testament times. It must have come as a shock to even the most devout Jew to hear for the first time the announcement that the Ark would not play any role whatsoever in the New Israel. After all, the God-ordained worship of the Old Testament centered around the Sanctuary and around the Ark. The Ark is represented in the law of Moses as the throne of the Lord. It was the tangible, visible symbol of God's presence. But worship of the New Israel would be internalized and spiritual. A symbol of God's presence would no longer be needed when God Himself in the person of His Son would dwell in the midst of His people. The once for all time sacrifice on Calvary would make unnecessary and superfluous the mercy seat upon which blood was sprinkled annually for the sins of the people. The Ark will disappear, says the prophet. So it did. When the Jews returned from Babylon to rebuild their Temple they had no Ark to place in the Holy of Holies. The absence of that Ark was an evident token to those who were spiritually wise that the Old Covenant was ready to vanish away and make way for the New.

In years to come a new city would replace earthly Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17). The throne of God will no longer be the Ark of the Covenant[149] but rather the holy city, the new Jerusalem. The New Covenant Jerusalem is none other than the New Testament Church. The Apostle Paul calls it the Jerusalem which is above i.e., spiritual Jerusalem of which all believers are citizens (Galatians 4:24-31). Jesus Christ sits on the throne of God and rules over His church and in the midst of His church (Ephesians 1:20-23). Ezekiel speaks of that same city when he says the name of the city from that day shall be, -the LORD is there-' (Ezekiel 48:35).

[149] The Ark of the Covenant is never called in the Old Testament the throne of God, yet it was in fact no less than that.

In the Messianic age Jerusalem will be blessed with a new attractiveness. Jerusalem shall become the spiritual center of the world and all nations shall gather there. The gathering of Gentiles into the Church of Christ is another frequent theme in Messianic prophecy (e.g., Isaiah 60; Isaiah 62). Because they have experienced genuine conversion these Gentiles no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. But what is it that attracts these Gentiles to the New Covenant Jerusalem, the Church? The verse seems to suggest that it is the Name of the Lord which attracts them. The name of God in the Old Testament was very significant. It revealed something of the character and nature of God. The Name of God in this verse is not an abstract idea or even a personification but a person.[150] It is the Lord Jesus Christ who came into the world to reveal to men the character and nature of God. The Name here is virtually equivalent to the Logos or Word of John 1.

[150] Note the language of Isaiah 30:27; Isaiah 26:8; Isaiah 59:19 where the name of God is personalized.

A new fellowship shall characterize the Israel of the future. Israel and Judah shall be reunited for the first time since the great schism of 931 B.C. The reunion of these two estranged sister nations is also a major theme in the Messianic prophecy of the Old Testament.[151] The Israelites and Jews are depicted returning together from the land of the north, i.e., Assyria and Babylonia, to the land of Canaan which God had given to their fathers centuries earlier. The Apostle Paul quotes a similar reunion passage from Hosea and applies it to the unity of believers that exists in the Church of Christ (Romans 9:25-26). Therefore while the present passage may have had a prefillment in the days of the restoration from Babylon, its fulfillment came in the Messianic age.

[151] Jeremiah 2:4; Isaiah 11:12; Ezekiel 37:16 ff.; Hosea 2:2; Hosea 1:11.

In Jeremiah 3:19 a God asks,[152] in effect, How shall I give you this wonderful heritage of which I have been speaking in view of the fact that you have rejected Me? God then answers His own question, I can thus bless you if you will call Me -my Father-' and not turn away from Me. The most wonderful inheritance that can befall a man is to be part of the kingdom of heaven. That, says Jeremiah, is the most beautiful inheritance of the nations. One is only entitled to that inheritance when he is able by virtue of the New Birth to call God my Father. One can only claim that inheritance when he has been faithful unto death.

[152] The American Standard Version and a number of commentators prefer to render the first half of Jeremiah 3:19 as an exclamation instead of a question. Either rendering is possible.

From an idealistic view of the distant future the prophet returns in Jeremiah 3:20 to a realistic view of the present. As God looks upon the nation all he presently sees in the whole house of Israel i.e., the whole nation, is unfaithfulness and apostasy. Just as a faithless wife departs from her husband so has the covenant nation departed from the divine Husband (Jeremiah 3:20). The sad description of the present state of affairs ends abruptly and the prophet moves on to a graphic description of the repentance for which God yearns. Like a father listening for the faintest cry of a lost child, so God listens for some sign that the long apostasy has ended. Finally, He hears it. On the high places where once their boisterous idolatrous festivities were conducted now comes forth lamentation and mourning, and prayers pleading for forgiveness for having perverted their ways and having forsaken the Lord (Jeremiah 3:21). Lest they feel that their sin is too grievous and their repentance futile the Lord immediately offers them words of encouragement. He addresses them as sons and calls upon them to return to Him. He, the Great physician, will heal them of their spiritual maladies and restore them to spiritual health if they will but come unto Him (Jeremiah 3:22 a).