Jeremiah 31:31-37 Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:… This particular portion of the chapter is the only clear evangelical declaration in the Book. It reads more like Isaiah than Jeremiah. It must have been a great gladness to that sad-hearted and sorrowful prophet to have this glimpse of coming restoration and grace for his sinful and sorely afflicted people. He was all the more glad to pour in this balsam because he had hitherto been giving them salt for their wounds and wormwood to drink. I. THE NEW PLANTATION. Hitherto it had been his sad and sorrowful duty to declare to the people God's purpose to "root out, to pull down, and to destroy and throw down"; but now the time has come to fulfil his task of declaring God's purpose to "build and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10). The devastation of the lend of Israel end Judah had been complete, the slain of the people vast in numbers; the utter taking away and dispersing of the ten tribes had left but a remnant even before the captivity of Judah. The promise of a restoration of Judah to the land would be, even when fulfilled, but the return of a mere handful of people and cattle. So small, indeed, that the land would still seem to be desolate for want of inhabitants, and in poverty for want of cattle. In view of this very discouraging outlook the prophet speaks this most comforting promise. 1. The sowing — "I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast." The same promise was made to Israel and Judah by Ezekiel 36:9-11, and by Hosea 2:23. This promise seems to include the gathering in of the Gentiles as well, just as the same covenant promise is made to them as to the returned Jews. The figure is one of the greatest encouragement. The remnant of the people and cattle are as the handful of seed for the ground, but God will so bless them that they shall increase like seed sown before s great harvest that shall fill the land. The same thought is expressed in Psalm 72:16. This prophecy was scarcely realised in the return from Babylon, but it had the beginning of its fulfilment then. There is a suggestion here of the method of multiplication of the people; as seed sown in the ground multiplies into a great harvest, so shall living Christians multiply themselves in those whom they are the means of converting to God. How Andrew multiplied himself when he found Peter, who after was the means of winning three thousand souls at one preaching! Stephen multiplied himself through Saul of Tarsus. In this latter case seed was literally sown in the ground, and out of the martyr blood sprung the apostle of the Gentiles. 2. The watching — "And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them to pluck up," &c., "so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the Lord." The growth of God's kingdom in the earth among men is not a mere process of nature. It goes on in the power of God's special and supernatural gifts of grace, and is carried forward under His watchful eye and fostering care. Not one least convert makes his appearance in the world but that God watches over him to protect and defend. His promise is that " their soul shall be as a watered garden" (ver. 12). It is comforting to know that God's promise of grace and favour is as true as His threats have proved. If sin has abounded to our ruin, let us know that grace doth much more abound to our salvation. 3. The new individual relation between God and the people. The saying which the prophet alludes to: "The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children's teeth are set on edge," shall no longer be in vogue when that day of grace of which the prophet speaks comes. He condemns the saying, as does Ezekiel 18:1-3. There was a certain truth in the saying, but it had been perverted, and the entire proverb had been quoted in such a way as to cast a reproach of injustice upon God. As a matter of fact, there is a law of heredity, both physical and moral, to which every one must submit. It is impossible to shut one s eyes to the fact; but then according to God's law, and especially according to His grace, moral responsibility does not attach to this hereditary transmission of consequences unless the heir consents to the father's sin and walks in his way. Any individual descendant may break the heredity at any point he pleases by turning to the Lord. It is also true that in former times God dealt with the nation as such, rather than with individuals. The nation's sin brought their present calamities upon them, in which many individually righteous men suffered; but in the days to come the national will give place to the individual relation. This for two reasons. First, the nation as a whole will have learned righteousness in that day, and so it will come to pass that the individual transgressor will be so conspicuously by himself, that it will be seen at a glance that his suffering or judgment will rest upon the fact of his own sin. Hitherto the individually righteous man had been so rare in the nation that he was overlooked and swept away in the tide of the nation's punishment, just as Caleb and Joshua were carried back into the wilderness for forty years with the whole unbelieving nation. But, second, there is s distinct advance in thought by the prophet in the direction of that individuality of relation which characterises the new covenant in distinction from that which was so apparent in the old. Under the law the oneness and entirety of the nation was maintained; under the Gospel the individual soul is brought before God. "Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12). Nothing could more mark the great advance in thought than this prophetic declaration. II. THE NEW COVENANT. As if to explain and justify his new doctrine, he announces the fact of a new covenant. This is the first distinct announcement of the new dispensation under this title. This covenant is to differ radically .in terms and contents from the old covenant which God made with the children of Israel when He brought them out of Egypt. Reference is clear to the New Testament dispensation, as may be seen from Hebrews 8. By a covenant is meant an appointment by God. We are not to understand that God entered into a contract with man. He appointed certain things, promised certain things, upon certain conditions which the people were to perform. But the covenant or agreement was wholly of His own making. The old covenant, so far as the blessings were concerned, had failed utterly because of the utter failure of the people to "do the things" which God commanded. Therefore He has taken it away and substituted another covenant, based upon better promises — one in which He not only proposes blessings, but undertakes to fulfil the conditions upon which they shall flow in to us. 1. Some contrasts. The old covenant was broken by the disobedience of the people, though in the administration thereof God had acted throughout as a forgiving husband who was constantly compounding the sins of an unfaithful wife. But this new covenant is kept and secured by the performance of all its conditions by God Himself, acting in and through Christ (Hebrews 8:6). The old covenant was a faulty one, never intended indeed to be the means of their salvation, but only to remind them of their sin and show them their helplessness. Not faulty in the thing it was intended to accomplish, but in its final ability to save; whereas the new covenant, made in and with Christ for our sakes, is a perfect covenant in terms and in fulfilment, and so does secure our salvation (Hebrews 8:6-13; Hebrews 10:1-22; Romans 8:3, 4). The old covenant had a complicated and elaborate ceremonial, which could not be understood or administered except by priests and ministers, and then but imperfectly; the new covenant is simply based on the one complete offering which Jesus Christ has made for all time and for all people; He being at once tabernacle, priest, altar, offering, and minister. We simply, as sinners, go to God by Him, confess that we are stoners, acknowledge that we are helpless either to get rid of sin or maintain righteousness, and call upon Him to save us. This He does fully, freely, and eternally by His grace, without any merit of our own. Under the old covenant the provisions for the cancelling of sins were not only imperfect but utterly futile, every offering made by man through the priests being in fact but a remembrance of sin, not a removal of it; whereas in this new covenant there is perfect provision (Hebrews 10.). Therefore on its basis the forgiveness of sins is freely proclaimed (ver. 34; Hebrews 10:17, 18). 2. Chief characteristics. The prophet mentions three — (1) Inwardness. "I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." The terms of the old covenant, indeed its whole contents, were written first on tables of stone and then all its detail in external laws, which the people were compelled to bind between their eyes, on their wrists, and fix them on the door-plates of their houses and the posts of their gates. The whole relation was as between an outward law and an outward obedience. The law commanded and the subject had to obey. The law of Moses did not take account of thoughts or motives, only of actions. The action was not that of faith, but of works. But this new covenant is not so proclaimed and written. Jesus shows in the Sermon on the Mount that true righteousness extends to thoughts and motives, and so the true life of God is not in externals, but in heart relation to God. Therefore we are God's children, not by national or family relation, but by a new birth, by faith in Jesus Christ. We obey the law not because of outward pressure, but from inward conviction, not by the fear of external punishment, but by the constraint of an inward love. In the new creation which comes to believers under the new covenant (2 Corinthians 5:17), they are not bound by a multitude of statutes and minute rules, but constrained by a personal love to and for Jesus Christ. It is now an affectionate loyalty to a Divine Person; no longer a fearful obedience to an external, cold and pitiless law. An old writer says, in answer to an anxious inquiry as to what a Christian may and may not do: "Love God and do what you please." That is, if the heart is controlled by the love of God, if the law is written in the heart, then the Christian will know what is right and wrong by the instinct of the law of righteousness in him, and will only desire to do that thing which heart and conscience teach him. Christ in us the hope of Glory is the best law a Christian can have. This is to walk with God, and to walk with God is certainly to walk in paths of righteousness. (2) Knowledge. "And they shall teach no more every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." I think the sense of this passage is that, under the new covenant with the law in the inward parts and written in the heart, the system shall not be dependent on intellectual training or culture. Philosophical or scientific knowledge must be painfully taught and more painfully learned. The young child is often as enlightened in the things of the Spirit as the aged scholar. This knowledge is for the least as well as the greatest, and is dependent not so much upon teaching and learning as upon spiritual apprehension (1 Corinthians 1:13-end, 1 Corinthians 2:1-10). So also John declares that, with this law in our hearts and the Spirit of God for a teacher, we are not dependent upon anyone to teach us the essential truth of the Gospel (1 John 2:27). (3) Universality. "From the least to the greatest is an expression which carries with it the idea of universality as to the race. The old covenant was confined to the Jewish people, the new covenant, or the Gospel, is "for all people." The terms of the covenant of grace are the same to all; the masses of heathendom are to be dealt with just as the so-called Christian nations. There is no difference" now, for as all have sinned, all have been brought under the provisions of grace. Let the covenant, then, be published abroad. 3. The contents of the Covenant. These are three — (1) "I will be their God." This was a promise under the old covenant; it shall be more than confirmed under the new. They had forfeited the right of having Him for their God by their breach of His covenant, but now that which could not be theirs by law comes to be theirs by Grace. After His resurrection, Jesus sent this message to His disciples (John 20:17). This is the relation now. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the same close and blessed way He is our God and Father. (2) "They shall be My people." Not an outward and earthly people, but an heavenly and spiritual. Every one shall be born of the Spirit, and each one is so an offspring of God. This promise is often emphasised in the closing Book of Revelation (Revelation 21:3, 4). (3) The forgiveness of sin. "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Matthew 26:28). This is the great promise which the apostle held out to the people: "Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins" (Acts 13:38). We might multiply passages innumerable to show this great blessing, and how it glows in the forefront of all those of the new covenant. Not only does He forgive our iniquities, but He utterly forgets them (Psalm 32:1). III. ASSURANCES. The wonderful covenant promises are now guaranteed by such assurances as must satisfy any people or any soul. God appeals to the heavens, where He has set the sun, moon, and stars for lights by day and night, whose permanence is accepted; He appeals to the ocean, which obeys some mysterious power, and never fails. As long as they endure, so shall the terms of this covenant stand. When heaven and earth can be measured and searched out, and the ordinances of heaven and earth fail, then shall the seed of Israel fail, but not till then (vers. 36, 37). (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: |
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