A Promised New Covenant

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, ministered in the Southern Kingdom during the time of the Babylonian attack and subsequent captivity of thousands of Jews back to Babylon. His ministry was not one of joy or of peace, but of condemnation, judgment, and death. The text that I am drawing us to today comes from Jeremiah 31. That means that there have been approximately 30 straight chapters of BAD news. These chapters represented years and years of faithful and consistent ministry by Jeremiah to a people who hardened their hearts and shut their ears to his desperate call to repentance. Imagine that for a few moments. Many of us have pursued a career because we have an interest in that field and in some way there is a level of self-fulfillment. No one likes being around that person (and we all know at least one) who is ALWAYS whining, complaining, and bemoaning his job and how terrible and empty his life is. At some point it needs to be asked, “Well, why not get a new job?” Jeremiah for a very huge percentage did not have a fulfilling ministry. I mean, how could he? He knew what was coming, and his message of life was met with disinterest or in some moments even intense physical resistance. (Jeremiah’s life was threatened in Jer. 26)

Yet, even through that deluge of negativity and struggle, God shared through Jeremiah the promise that one day He would write a new law on the hearts of His people and give them a new covenant that would serve as a bond and testament to His faithful and covenantal love with His own. 

We read this promise in Jeremiah 31:31-34,

“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 on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 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, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31:31-34)

First, we see that this is a different covenant. “...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...” (vv.31-32) The old covenant made at Saini had in it an element of failure. This failure was intended, because of what it would represent, but it was a covenant that was dependent upon Israel’s faithfulness and devotion to God. God described this covenant as being “broken” by His people even though He was their Husband (i.e., provider and protector).. 

Second, this is a transformational covenant. “...I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (v.33) What is the big difference with this second aspect? Before, in a very real way, the law was written on an external tablet of stone and given to Moses. These 10 laws revealed God’s expectation for our relationship with Him and with our fellow man. As Paul will later explain, these laws were schoolmasters demonstrating that we needed something outside of ourselves in order to keep God’s law. God promised Jeremiah that He will inscribe this new covenant on our very hearts. This law will not be some external marker but truly a character transforming experience.

Finally, this is a final covenant. “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (v. 34) When Christ who is our life bore the scars at Calvary, he purchased that new covenant with His own blood. That covenant is freely extended to all who come to Christ in faith. He is our only argument and our only plea for forgiveness and life eternal. This is the covenantal promise that Jeremiah had the privilege to share. His life was one of struggle and pain, but it is by the weary road that our final victory would one day be won.  

“But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises...But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation)  he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” (Heb. 8:6; 9:11-12)

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