April 2, 2006 Jeremiah 31:31-34
"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers 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. "This is the covenant I will make with the house 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. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, `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’s words to the Israelites concentrate on two different covenants. Our society doesn’t have much of a clue as to what a “covenant” is. We prefer terms like “contracts” or “agreements”. Covenant seems to have a stronger and more personal flavor to it. A contract can be rather dry - like when you sign a contract to pay off some furniture or buy a car. An agreement usually isn’t quite as strong of a term - it doesn’t have that bonding quality or sound to it. We like to say things like, “we agree to disagree.”
The most personal agreement, contract or covenant that we get into is in the bond of marriage. Even though people who down play marriage only call it a “piece of paper,” even they know it is more than that. If it is “just a piece of paper,” then we have to ask - “why don’t you just sign that piece of paper then instead of living together?”. In spite of what the critics say, marriage is probably our strongest agreement we have. I found it rather interesting that in an interview with Howard Stern - the radio show host with seemingly no conscience - the one thing that bothered this perverted man was not the fact that he was eying naked women on his show or anything like that - but the fact that his marriage didn’t work.
It is apropos then that God uses marriage as an example to His relationship with the Israelites. Jeremiah says that God was “a husband to them.” God took on the role of the provider and the protector in their relationship. He said to the Israelites - I will take you out of slavery to the Egyptians and into the Promised Land. I promise to give you a land flowing with milk and honey. Not too long after God did this, He led them down to Mt. Sinai. This is where the groom showed His bride what He wanted her to do for Him. Moses went up on top of Mt. Sinai where God gave him the Ten Commandments and also the ceremonial and civil law. She (that being the Israelites) was supposed to submit to Him - follow His laws - do exactly as He said. This was not an easy covenant they were agreeing to. If you look through Exodus and Leviticus you will see that their lives were micro-managed down to even what kind of clothing they were to wear.
Deuteronomy 22:9-12 Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.
These laws were to be studied and learned by the Israelites so they wouldn’t unknowingly break any of them - since there were so many of them. It was meant to set them apart as a very individual people. It was also designed to drive them back to the LORD time and again with sacrifices. Inevitably, all of these laws were made to show the Israelites how sinful they were. God knew that the Law would do that, so within the law He also provided with ways to relieve their guilt, as they made specific sacrifices to “pay for” their sins - in the sense that these sacrifices they brought cost them money and effort. Ultimately, those sacrifices made under the Law were also supposed to point the people forward to the greatest sacrifice - that of the Christ.
If the Israelites of the Old Testament had lived under this covenant - studied the Law and lived by it, God promised them some great things. Listen for instance to Exodus 23:22-26
If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.
This was their husband / wife relationship. God would give them wonderful success and prosperity in the Promised Land if they continued to worship Him and follow what He told them to do. He would give them one hundred percent, and He expected the same from them.
Before the ink was even dry on this relationship, the Israelites proved themselves to be cheap prostitutes. Even before Moses got down from Mt. Sinai - with the 1st Commandment glaring out, “YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS,” the Israelites were down on the bottom of the mountain worshiping a golden calf. Joshua, who had witnessed this unfaithfulness - warned them of this wicked tendency right before he died.
Joshua 24:18-22 The LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.” Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.” But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the LORD.” Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.
Words were easy. It only took one generation for the Israelites to start going astray. Things went from bad to worse. When you read through the book of Judges, what happened under Solomon, Jeroboam and the rest - it is a sad story indeed. So Jeremiah came once again to warn this unfaithful prostitute of what was happening. A Babylonian Captivity was imminent. He reminds them in today’s text, “they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them.” God had done everything He promised to do - but THEY didn’t. This Captivity to come was exactly what they deserved for not learning His law or living by it. The old covenant was coming to an end because the Israelites cheated on God.
This covenant that God is talking about - it should not seem that foreign to us. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and throughout the Bible - as God expounds on the Law - He gets us to see that our relationship to God is supposed to be the same as the Old Testament Israelites. We realize that we are supposed to be His submissive wife - treating Him like our King and not doing anything without His permission. When Jesus talks about lusting, hating, and turning the other cheek - we blush as if we’d been caught at least flirting with another man that is not our husband. These laws come crashing into our computer screens and into our bedrooms and workplaces - and make us realize that in God’s eyes - we have been unfaithful to Him. Any promises of prosperity that He gives us - we don’t feel worthy of such gifts. What we expect from God is what we would expect from any husband who has been cheated on - we expect Him to be irate and divorce us. Why? Not because He is an overbearing husband - but because we have been an unfaithful wife.
Yet here is where we see God do something that is completely unpredictable. Jeremiah says, “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah”. Instead of breaking off His relationship with Israel, He takes it to a deeper level - and enters into an even firmer relationship with His bride - even though she has proven herself to be an unfaithful wife. This is shown as Jeremiah describes a completely different aspect to this new covenant.
"This is the covenant I will make with the house 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. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, `Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,"
Do you notice the first key aspect in the way this new relationship is established? Instead of leaving the knowledge and obedience of the law dependent in the actions of the Israelites - God said that He would put His law in their minds and write it on their hearts. He would fill them with a seeming “natural knowledge” of Him. With this new knowledge, the least and the greatest of them would naturally know God’s law in their minds and their hearts.
This is a strange covenant indeed! Whoever heard of knowing God’s law without studying it? Whoever heard of being able to have God’s law in our hearts without inviting God into the heart? How can God just declare that “I will be their God and they will be my people!” Notice in all of these declarations, the Israelites have no choice in the matter. This is the way it is going to be! This is offensive to a majority of people. They want a free choice in the matter - and here God makes them out to be helpless - mere recipients in this new covenant. It makes it seem as if God forces Himself into the heart and the mind on a hapless people - like a caveman deciding to beat his future wife over the head and climb into her heart and brain. She has no choice in the matter.
Jeremiah heads off these accusations by describing the way that God establishes this new covenant. He says, "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." That word that Isaiah uses for “forgive” is from the Hebrew word “saluch” - and it is solely used for the forgiveness of God - making it completely unique to God. What makes it so unique is what Jeremiah says - that under this new covenant God would “remember our sins no more.” This is an impossible kind of forgiveness for us. We can say, “I forgive you,” and we can try to forget - but the truth is that we just don’t have the ability to forget it. How many husbands could ever forget seeing their wives cheat on them? Honestly - it would be impossible! The incredible thing about this new covenant is that God in His mercy and grace simply promises, “I am simply going to forgive you and forget that you were ever unfaithful to me.” Imagine that! Those sins that you can’t seem to forget - the premarital sex, the divorce you went through, the drunken binge, God says that He really doesn’t remember it! How could God, who has a perfect memory - not remember some of your sins? That’s what He says though! On Judgment Day - it will be as if you never committed any of those sins. It will be as if you lived a perfect life - even though you remember plenty of what you did!
How could this be? God explains how He accomplished this in Hebrews chapter 10. Verses eight through fourteen read,
First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The forgiveness of sins was accomplished in the covenant God made with Himself in Christ. Since God knew that we would fail to keep our portion of the bargain, with an unconditional love He decided to make a bargain with Himself - and put our sins on His shoulders on the cross. His covenant - His promise - is that since Jesus died for the sins of the world - God has paid for them - and forgotten about them.
God does not force this love into our hearts with a club. The writer to the Hebrews explains how God does this -
Hebrews 10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
Notice the words “sprinkled” and “washed” - obviously referring to the waters of baptism. God in His grace showers us with His mercy - by pouring Christ and His love into our hearts in baptism. This is a powerful washing - a washing of the Gospel. God reveals Himself as a faithful God - a God who sticks with His unfaithful wife and makes her clean - a God who loves with an unconditional love. When this God is poured into our hearts and revealed to our brains, it converts us and makes us say, “I am honored to be His bride.”
This new covenant is so radically different from the old covenant - that God offers it to all people - regardless of whether they are Jews, Mexicans, Americans, Germans or Africans. It is so radically given that it makes no difference to Him how faithful you have been - it has nothing to do with who you are or where you have been. Paul says in Romans 9 that not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, but only those who believe in the promise of forgiveness and mercy in Christ. Under the old covenant, God chose the Jewish race to meet up to His standards and be His wife. He demanded that they learn about Him and know Him so they could serve Him. But the nature of this covenant is radically different; instead asking for changes in the wife to meet up to the standards of the Husband; this covenant makes the wife be what God demands of it. All of the covenant is bound to the action and power and mercy of God. Instead of demanding the wife to learn about the Husband, the Husband puts Himself into the wife and permeates her brain and heart so she can’t help but know Him. Think about how awesome this is! There’s absolutely nothing we can mess up about this covenant. We can’t do anything to change it. It’s already been made and done on the cross. We can’t climb into God’s mind and change it - He’s already decided. He enters us at baptism and makes us His own. When God covers us in Jesus blood it puts us all on an equal playing field - I’m saved by Jesus and so are you. I look like Christ and so do you - through faith. The only thing we can do to mess it up is to not believe it - to walk out from under this covenant and decide to go back to the old covenant.
When God brings us to this faith - He puts the law in our hearts. We now understand what love really is. Love is found in the unconditional sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Love is found in the forgiveness of Christ. This love that God had for us permeates our brains and our hearts. Now we do everything with love in our hearts and minds. It naturally fills us from baptism on. This is all a gift of God’s grace. If you know that Jesus loves you - you know God - and you know what the Law is all about - it’s about an unconditional love. This is what the Gospel does for us - it frees our hearts from the old covenant and makes us want to serve under the new covenant of grace. When we see that our Husband has been so gracious and forgiving - it makes us never want to sleep around again.
When a man and a woman get married they vow to spend the rest of their lives together - physically, spiritually, sexually - in every way. If you look at the divorce statistics - it shows that one out of every two marriages end in divorce. Imagine that - when you get married you have a fifty percent chance of lasting until death do you part. That’s not very good odds. With financial problems, sexual temptations, different personalities, raising children, and the possibility of health problems - it may seem impossible at times - especially when two sinful people are involved.
Our marriage with God has much greater odds - not because of US - but because of Him. We have committed the greatest crime against God - we’ve been UNFAITHFUL to Him. Yet instead of divorcing us, God decided to bind Himself to us - to become us - and send His Holy Spirit into us! What a wonderful Husband we have! The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.” (13:5-6) God in His grace has vowed to love you and forgive you in Christ - and even death cannot part your from that love. This is His covenant with Himself to be your Husband in spite of who you are. You can divorce Him, but He will not divorce you. But after looking at such a wonderful Husband, who in their “right mind” would want to? Amen.
