[On Palm Sunday I will preach the eighth sermon in the Jeremiah series, “The Word of Life, the Word of Judgment.” This devotion is expanded from part of the seventh sermon, preached July 6, on chapters 31 to 33. This complements well what we have been learning about the covenants in our present core seminar – Coty]
In Jeremiah, God promises a new covenant. Consider the text, noting, first, what was wrong with the old covenant; second, God’s four promises; and, third, the relationships among the promises.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers … my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband…. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days…: [First promise] I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. [Second promise] And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [Third promise] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest…. [Fourth promise] For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (From Jeremiah 31:31-34)
What’s Wrong with the Old Covenant
What does God say was wrong with the old covenant? Does He say anything was wrong with the Ten Commandments, or the sacrificial system, or the annual feasts?
No! The problem with the old covenant is that the people broke it! As we have seen in our Core Seminar, all biblical covenants have both promises and requirements. The people violated the requirements.
Now, realize: The problem is not sin in and of itself. Within the old covenant, there is provision for the forgiveness of sins – the sacrificial system. When the people sin, they are to confess, to repent, to return to God, and to offer the designated sacrifice. When they respond rightly to sin, they remain in the covenant.
The people become covenant breakers when they not only sin, but when they reject God, when they despise Him, when they place no value on His Word, His revelation, His promises.
The Logical Relationship Among the Four Covenant Promises
Jeremiah has emphasized the guilt of the people. So there is a need for forgiveness. Thus the fourth promise is the basis, the logical ground, for the other three promises. Without forgiveness, guilty sinners can’t be the people of God.
Thus, Jesus fulfills the old covenant insistence on sin requiring the penalty of death. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV).
So the fourth new covenant promise logically precedes the other three. Without forgiveness, sinful people cannot be in relationship with a holy God.
Which promise comes next?
God forgives us, enabling us to enter His presence, to be among His people. But what happens when we sin again?
We know from 1 John 1:9 and other texts that we are to confess. That’s how we should think of the first new covenant promise: God’s writing the law, the torah, on our hearts.
Remember, the torah includes not only statutes and requirements but also instruction. The torah tells us who God is, what He is like, how we are to have a relationship with Him. When that is written on our hearts, when we sin, we repent!
God speaks of leading the people to do this in Jeremiah 31:9: “With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back.”
Just so for us. The law being written on our hearts does not imply that we lead perfect lives. Rather it implies that we see sin for what the torah tell us it is, and we see God as the torah describes Him. We thus recognize sin, know it is the path to destruction and not to joy – so we hate it. Furthermore, we know He offers us forgiveness through Jesus, so we come to Him humbly confessing and repenting. He then cleanses us from all unrighteousness.
Thus, the requirement for staying in the new covenant is not sinless perfection; if it were, there would be no hope for any of us. The requirement is to make use of the new covenant method to restore the relationship with God.
This then leads us to the third promise of the new covenant. When the torah is written on the hearts of all God’s people, they all know Him.
The torah includes this great description of God:
“A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (From Exodus 34:6-7).
To know God, we must know of these attributes. But knowing Him implies more than knowing about Him. We must respond with joy, with worship, with delight, as God describes in the near context of Jeremiah 31:31-34:
Jeremiah 33:11 Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!
Jeremiah 31:14 My people shall be satisfied with my goodness.
So the third new covenant promise implies that we respond rightly to the truths God has told us about Himself. As Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Finally, the new covenant culminates in the fulfilment of God’s plan to create a people for Himself: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” the second new covenant promise. God’s people are in an eternal, life-giving, joyful relationship with Him, in Jesus, through Jesus, as Bride, as children, as redeemed.
This was the goal of the entire history of redemption, as hinted at in the Garden, shown a bit more clearly to Noah and Abraham, then shown yet more clearly to Moses and even more to David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and the other prophets. God’s plan has always been to fulfill the old covenant through the perfect seed of the woman, through the perfect offspring of Abraham, through the perfect Davidic king, through the perfect suffering servant – that is, through Jesus Christ. He is the only human who ever loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength every minute of every day. He is the only human who loved every person He encountered as He loved Himself. He is the faithful Israel of God.
And through His life, death, resurrection, reign, and return we can be united with Him. We can be God’s people; He can be our God – forever and ever.
Entering into and Enduring in the New Covenant
We must never think of Jesus or His work as a means to achieve a greater goal. For example: Don’t think of Jesus as a tool to cleanse you from the guilt of sin. Jesus is not a tool. Jesus is not a means to an end. Rather, Jesus is the Goal. He is the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in a field. As the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1:18, in everything Jesus must be preeminent.
So we enter into the new covenant – as pictured in baptism – by praying something like this:
Father, I gladly acknowledge that I am a sinner. I have closed my eyes to keep myself from seeing You; I have shut my mind to Your Gospel. I deserve Your judgment. But now I confess – that was the path to death, not life. That rebellion was not a pursuit of my greatest joy; rather, it was walking away from my greatest joy. Jesus is worth more than all the world has to offer. You, Father, invite me to be among your people by grace through faith in Him. I believe Jesus provided the payment for the penalty of my sins, and I believe that knowing Him is eternal life. Please accept me into His Kingdom, uniting me with Him and thus with You forever.”
Psalm 51:17 assures us, “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
If you are not in Him, God calls upon you now: Come to Him, like that. He will incorporate you into His people.
If you are in Him – How do you endure in the new covenant?
Baptism pictures our entrance into the new covenant; the Lord’s Supper pictures our enduring in the new covenant. Jesus says “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). The Lord’s Supper is God’s gift to help us endure.
Note that our Lord uses new covenant language when instituting the Lord’s Supper in Luke 22:20: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” So whenever you partake of the Lord’s Supper, consider all four new covenant promises:
- Through the new covenant, we have forgiveness – as pictured in the bread and the cup
- Through the new covenant, the law/torah is written on our hearts. As you partake, ask Him to highlight part of that torah.
- Through the new covenant, all who are in Christ Jesus know Him, from the youngest to the oldest, from the least knowledgeable about Scripture to the most knowledgeable. As you partake, ask Him to deepen and to personalize that knowledge of Him.
- Through the new covenant, we are His people and He is our God. As you partake, ask Him to satisfy you with His goodness and to delight in the relational shalom He provides to guilty rebels like yourself. And know: He rejoices to do you good.
As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we get a foretaste of the final day described in Revelation 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
Then, after reflecting on the new covenant promises while partaking of the Lord’s Supper, commit yourself to reflecting on them daily – and thus to feeding on Jesus daily. For if you are united with Jesus, all these new covenant promises are yours, now and forever. He forgives you; He writes His torah on your heart; you know Him; you are His people, and He is your God. Whatever happens in this life, whatever tragedies and sorrows, whatever triumphs and successes, these promises hold, and are far more important than all the rest.
So delight in that new covenant hope.
