Jeremiah was called as a prophet six hundred years before Christ. He is known as the weeping prophet. He pronounced judgment. The refused to listen to Jeremiah. The people from his own town were going to kill him. (Jeremiah 11:21) They put him in the stocks. They tried to sentence him to death. They threw him in a mud pit. There is tragedy and there is grief for Jeremiah.
Now in chapters 30-31 we see a different message. Jeremiah looks ahead to Jesus Christ. He speaks of the new covenant.
This prophecy is considered the high-water mark of all the Old Testament prophecies. This prophecy is quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12.
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the LORD.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
The first covenant with Moses is found in Exodus 24:1-8. The writer of Hebrews said in chapter 8 that if there had been nothing wrong with the first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.
The Old covenant collapsed. People broke it. The nation strayed. The new covenant could not fail. The new covenant will be, written not on tablets of stone, but on the hearts of man. The time is now. The new covenant is now written in our hearts.
It was this passage of scripture that Jesus alluded to at the last supper. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:28) Jesus was proclaiming that this new covenant prophecy, delivered by Jeremiah was now instituted at the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
In chapter 31 we see an important aspect of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. That is that everyone will be accountable for their own sin.
The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. 28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD. 29 “In those days people will no longer say,
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31:27-30)
No one is to blame anyone else for our own sin. We suffer because of the sins of our fathers, but we are not held accountable for them. All have sinned.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34)
In the new covenant our personal faith cannot be taught like a rule. It must be experienced to be real. We point people to Christ, and we encourage them to an experience of a relationship with God. The Lord has a pan for your life, and you must individually experience your relationship with God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
In the New Covenant, the covenant the focus is on the internal, not the external. When Jeremiah delivered this message that day was coming. For us that day has come. We live in the glorious day that Jeremiah looked forward to.
In Matthew 13 we read that Jesus was sitting in a boat and speaking to large crowds of people. Jesus told them that in him they were seeing what Jeremiah proclaimed and longed for. Not just Jeremiah, but all the prophets. They would trade places with us because we live on this side of what Jesus did on the cross. We live this side of the power of the resurrection.
For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. (Matthew 13:17)
This longing for the New Covenant was shared by all the prophets. Ezekiel spoke of this coming day in Jesus Christ. He longed for it.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:27-36)
This New Covenant was not based on outward regulation, but on the heart. In this new covenant out faith in Jesus Christ gives us new life. Because Jesus died for our sins the just for the unjust to bring us back to God. This New Covenant in which we now live is not based on outward regulation, but on the heart. We are born again.
We become a new person by faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit transforms us and conforms us to the image of Christ.
Paul articulates this in 2 Corinthians 3 of how glorious this New Covenant is. He calls this New Covenant of surpassing glory to the old covenant. The chapter is Jeremiah’s message six hundred years later after the prophecy is fulfilled. The stubborn heard hearted people of the southern kingdom of Judah would not accept the message. Even Paul would not accept it until he met Christ on the Damascus Road.
We have the Holy Spirit that gives spiritual life. Jeremiah is giving them a message of surpassing glory if only they had the ears to hear.
You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. (2 Corinthians 3:3)
What was intended for this new covenant? “’So you will be my people, and I will be your God.’” (Jeremiah 30:22)
The Old Covenant was with Israel. The new covenant is for all of us. For all the families of the earth. We can see this revealed when God called Abraham and blessed him to bless all the families of the earth. It was about the coming of Christ. It was about this New Covenant.
Jesus’ death on the cross was to make salvation available to all. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Matthew 26:28)
This is the glory of the New Covenant. This is a new freedom coming for Jeremiah and available to us right now. This gives us a new boldness to show the world the hope found only in Jesus Christ.
