THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL – JEREMIAH – PART 6 – Chapter 31 (Part C) – THE NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH
Jeremiah continues and we cover the prophecies of Chapter 31. This is the last Part of Chapter 31. These promises and great blessings for Israel is because the LORD loves His earthly people. Israel has had a checked history oscillating between sin and repentance and sin again. Let us continue:-
{{Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I WILL MAKE A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH,
Jeremiah 31:32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
VERSES 31-32. If we had to pick out the greatest single verse of restoration in Jeremiah, it would have to be this verse 31. “the days are coming” = to be enacted after the Second Coming. God will make a NEW COVENANT with His Jewish people. I may be wrong but I think the nation will be one, not have two identities known as “the house of Israel” and “the house of Judah”, for they are all descendants of Jacob. The question is, “What will this covenant be?”
Strong’s Concordance uses these words the most to define covenant: “treaty, pledge, alliance.” Verse 32 references the covenant made on exiting Egypt, the one we know as The Law of Moses. That will be the old covenant because a new one will be enacted. The Jews constantly broke that covenant because it was not within their fallen humanity to keep it. Christ was the only one to keep the Law and was declared righteous for doing so. The old covenant failed because man failed.
Scripture records a number of covenants. God made a covenant with Noah (the terminology is “I will establish My covenant”) and the details of that are in Genesis 9:9-17. Nothing in that covenant has been revoked including the death penalty. The next covenant was with Abram in Genesis 15:18 when God covenanted the land from the Nile to the Euphrates for his descendants forever. When Abraham was 99 years old God made a covenant with Him that promised increase of descendants, nations and the seal of circumcision. That is in Genesis 17, but one verse I wish to highlight – {{Genesis 17:19 but God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish My covenant with him FOR AN EVERLASTING COVENANT FOR HIS DESCENDANTS after him,”}}
There is no stated record of God establishing a separate covenant with Isaac or Jacob, but they are covered in what God gave to Abraham, even though the Psalmist states it this way – {{Psalm 105:8-10 “HE HAS REMEMBERED HIS COVENANT FOREVER, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations; THE COVENANT WHICH HE MADE WITH ABRAHAM, and His oath to Isaac. Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant.”}} The Jeremiah verse talks about establishing a covenant with “him” (that is the whole of Israel) and it will be an EVERLASTING COVENANT. The Law was not an everlasting covenant. The Law had effect until Calvary. This covenant that Genesis 17 verse 19 speaks of, this everlasting covenant, is the very same one that is in Jeremiah 31:31, the new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah.
The opening chapters of Exodus contain these verses – {{Exodus 2:24 “so God heard their groaning, AND GOD REMEMBERED HIS COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM, Isaac, and Jacob.”}} {{Exodus 6:4-5 “I also established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned, and furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.”}}
Both Isaiah and Ezekiel speak of this very same covenant that we are looking at in Jeremiah 31:31 and these are their verses – {{Isaiah 55:3 Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you according to the faithful mercies shown to David.}} {{Isaiah 59:21 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, . . . .”}}
{{Ezekiel 16:60 “Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I WILL ESTABLISH AN EVERLASTING COVENANT WITH YOU.”}} {{Ezekiel 37:26 “I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in their midst forever.”}}
This everlasting covenant to be made with Israel at the start of Messiah’s reign for 1000 years, will be a new one. The Church has a covenant that was sealed by blood as the Lord confirmed. {{Luke 22:20 “and in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”}} That is totally reliant on redemption at Calvary, the blood of the Lamb. Calvary was critical to ALL redemption and that includes all the believers of the Old Testament, the Church, and the new everlasting covenant to be enacted at the Millennium which covers the restored Jews. Perhaps we can consider it as another clause in the covenant, which then is applicable to the restored nation of Israel.
I can not say what will comprise the everlasting covenant with the Jews, but this I know, it will extend right beyond the Millennium and into eternity because it is an “everlasting covenant”. The writers of both Old and New Testaments, and the translators, sometime interchange the words “everlasting” and “eternal” but there is a difference. Strong’s mentions “perpetual” as translation. In the KJV, John 3:16 uses “everlasting life” whereas most translators prefer “eternal life” but I would suggest that in this case the KJV has it correct.
Most people know the terms of spatial mathematics and these three in particular, “line, ray, line segment.” A line is defined as having no beginning or end. The definition of a ray is it has a beginning but not an end (or an end but no beginning). A line segment has a beginning and an end. Now, expanding on those, the life of a monkey is a line segment because it has a fixed beginning and the end is when it dies. The life of a human being is a ray because it has a beginning but no end. The existence of God is a line because God has no beginning and no end. God is eternal which is the correct definition, no beginning and no end. We don’t say, “God is everlasting,” but we do say “God is eternal”. Human beings are not eternal because like rays, we all had a beginning.
The correct term to apply to our salvation is “everlasting” because it had a beginning but shall have no end. We are not eternal. We have everlasting life, and that is the better term to use. So, the everlasting covenant will have a beginning but no end.
In Jeremiah 31:32 the new covenant is described as not being like the first one which was made void because the nation broke it. God was the husband for them but like an adulterous wife, Israel departed from God in its craving for whoredom, and trampled the covenant, The Law, that was theirs. In Hosea he describes the change that will come over the nation – {{Hosea 2:7 “She will pursue her lovers but she will not overtake them, and she will seek them but will not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my first husband for it was better for me then than now.’”}} That change happens in the Tribulation when they turn back to God.
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{{Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Jeremiah 31:34 and they shall not teach again, each man his neighbour and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”}}
VERSES 33-34. A few details in a general sense are explained for the new covenant. It will be between God and Israel as was the Law. Note very carefully that “law” here is not a capital letter - “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it,” for the old Law was the old covenant and this is God’s law that will operate in their beings and in their hearts. They will never forsake it. There will be a closeness of relationship, “their God; My people.” It would be useful here to go and read the first three chapters of Hosea which speak of the marriage bond between Jehovah and Israel, and the abuse of it by the sinning nation. People will not need to teach their friends and neighbours about the Lord because every single one of them will know the Lord in that day. Israel's great catalogue of sins is forever eradicated and the very memory of them will forever be abolished. This is what true covenant relationship is all about.
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{{Jeremiah 31:35 Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The LORD of hosts is His name:
Jeremiah 31:36 “If this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares the LORD, “then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
Jeremiah 31:37 Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the LORD.}}
VERSES 35-37. There are remarkable conditional promises or guarantees stated here that will fix the existence of the Jews, the offspring of Jacob, forever. Before those promises are specified,
VERSE 35 provided the foundation for them. That foundation is locked into the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. The entire planet and universe is under the control of God and reflects His immense power. If God can create and control giant celestial bodies, then He most certainly can care for Israel. At the end of verse 35 you have the personal name for God and the nation - The LORD of hosts is His name. God confirms it all.
VERSES 36-37 give the first condition. God says that if the fixed order of the universe fails, or if it can no longer be controlled by Him, then Israel will also fail. We know it is an absolute impossibility that God’s control will fail in creation, so it is an absolute impossibility that Israel will ever cease being a nation. The second condition is very interesting. It is a challenge to human ingenuity. What are the measurements of the universe? They talk about it expanding. They disagree. I can guarantee the human mind will never calculate it. The second part connects with the earth: “the foundations of the earth searched out below.” I take that to include the exact makeup of the earth from surface to inner core and whatever tectonic movements may exist there. Many have some speculations but no affirmative evidence. God says that if those measurements can be done, then God will cast off, reject Israel and hold the nation responsible for all it has done. Of course it is implied emphatically that will never happen.
In summary, God reinforces His coming covenant with might. As He has established the celestial bodies in fixed order, so that covenant will stand. Then comes a much bolder promise. If the heavens can be measured then God will cast Israel away. Scientists can not measure the universe. The more powerful telescopes become, the more they are finding, and the further out the universe extends. (Let the atheists create something like this. Atheists are fools. The Bible says so. Psalms 14 v 1). Attenborough is a fool because he has been privileged to see so many wonders of God’s creation, but refuses to believe that there can ever be a God or mastermind of some description. If we can map out the planet Earth underneath us (that is what is meant by foundations) then God will cast Israel away. It will never happen. We know that can never happen. Israel will be secure forever more, even in spite of the efforts by Biden and Harris to cut Israel off. Praise God. ISRAEL WILL STAND FOREVER, SECURE IN THE NEW COVENANT.
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{{Jeremiah 31:38 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate,
Jeremiah 31:39 and the measuring line shall go out farther straight ahead to the hill Gareb. Then it will turn to Goah,
Jeremiah 31:40 and the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD. IT SHALL NOT BE PLUCKED UP, OR OVERTHROWN ANYMORE FOREVER.”}}
The essential part of this is what is underlined/capitalised. That sentence places it in the start of the Millennium because there is no other time in history can you use the words “anymore forever.” There are changes that will happen in the nation’s restoration and just a touch of redesigning is given here. For more, go to Zechariah and read chapter 14 for some remarkable happenings in the Millennium. Verse 40 is the valley where the forces of Gog and Magog meet their end with total destruction detailed in Ezekiel 38 and 39. God will cleanse it and make it holy and forever.
Thus ends Jeremiah 31, the most informative chapter relating to THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL.
