Jeremiah 31:31-34

E. A New Covenant Jeremiah 31:31-34

TRANSLATION

(31) Behold, days are coming (oracle of the LORD) when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. (32) It will not be like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out from the land of Egypt which covenant of mine they broke though I was lord over them (oracle of the LORD). (33) But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days (oracle of the LORD): I will place My law within them and I will write it upon their heart and I will be their God and they shall be My people. (34) No more will they teach each man his neighbor and his brother saying, Know the LORD, for all of them shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest (oracle of the LORD), for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

COMMENTS

The verses translated above are the four most important verses in the book of Jeremiah. Here Jeremiah envisions a time when the covenant between God and Israel instituted at Mt. Sinai will be replaced by a new and better covenant. After giving the promise of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-32) Jeremiah then outlines some of the provisions of that covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

1. The promise of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

The new covenant will be made with reunited Judah and Israel. In Old Testament prophecy the unification of Judah and Israel points to that day when there would be neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female but all the redeemed would be one in Christ Jesus. Both Peter (1 Peter 2:10) and Paul (Romans 9:25 f.) so interpreted the earlier prophecies of Hosea (Hosea 1:10-11) with regard to the restoration of the northern kingdom and the unification of the two kingdoms. Those interpreters who regard the covenant promised by Jeremiah to be something yet futurea covenant between God and national Israelare proved to be dead wrong by such passages as Hebrews 8:8-12 which quotes at length from Jeremiah 31 and applies it to the Christian dispensation. Paul again and again takes up the matter of the new covenant and emphasizes the distinction between it and the old Sinai covenant (e.g., 2 Corinthians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 3:14-16). Jesus alluded to this new covenant when he instituted the Lord's Supper by saying This is my blood of the new testament (covenant) which is shed for many (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24). In the prophetic view of the future the restoration of Israel reaches its climax with the institution of the new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:32 compares the old covenant to a marriage in which God was the lord or husband and Israel was the bride. God being the perfect Husband never gave His bride any cause for desiring the dissolution of the matrimonial connection. But Israel had again and again been unfaithful to the marriage vows, i.e. she had been disobedient to the covenant.[275] A new arrangement or agreement between God and His people was therefore necessary.

[275] Exodus 32; Numbers 14:16; Psalms 95:8-11; Acts 7:51-60.

2. The provisions of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

It was not given Jeremiah to see all that the new covenant would involve. All that the Holy Spirit was concerned to do at this point in time was to reveal in broad outline the basic character of that future covenant. Four statements are made with regard to the promised covenant.

a) I will place My law within them, and write it on their heart (Jeremiah 31:33 a). Here is a new spiritual dimension. Heretofore the laws of God had been written on tablets of stone; now they are to be written on the heart. Under the new covenant men will respond to the divine will from inward motivation rather than outward compulsion. Every individual born in Israel was automatically under the law of God; he had no choice in the matter. But one can enter into the new covenant Israel, the church of Christ, only by willingly submitting himself to the command ments of God.

b) I will be their God and they shall be My people (Jeremiah 31:33 b). Here is a new relationship. Those who enter into the new covenant Israel through faith and obedience will come into a special relationship with God. Peter de scribes the Christian Church as a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a people of God's own possession (1 Peter 2:9). only such as have today the law of God written upon their hearts have this unique relationship to God.

c) All will know Me from the least to the greatest (Jeremiah 31:34 a). Infants and small children were members of the old covenant Israel; but this would no longer be true under the new covenant. Every member of the new covenant Israel will know God. The word know in Hebrew has the connotation of knowledge derived from personal experience. It is not knowledge about, it is knowledge of. It is the kind of knowledge of which Jesus spoke when He said: And this is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3). To know the Lord is saving faith, that basic and indispensable prerequisite to membership in the new covenant Israel. A Christian will not need to go around to fellow Christians and exhort them to know the Lord. If they are Christians they already have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord. Thus the point of this statement is not that there shall be no longer any need of instruction in religion, but that here will be a directness of access to God for both Jew and Gentile, which did not exist under the old covenant.

d) I will forgive their sin and their iniquity will I remember no more (Jeremiah 31:34 b). It is not by self-acquired holiness or meritorious works that a man enters the new covenant Israel. It is through the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb without spot and blemish. The basic inadequacy of the old covenant was its failure to provide a perfect sacrifice for sin. The ever-repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadowed and typified that once-for-all perfect sacrifice that took place on the hill called Calvary. The Hebrew verbs in the present verse are in the imperfect state denoting that the forgiveness here predicted will take place again and again as men and women appropriate to themselves the benefits of the Saviour's sacrifice.