March 3, Jeremiah 31
"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." - Jeremiah 31:31-32
Dreams were one method God used to speak to the prophets. In this promise-packed chapter, God showed Jeremiah a future for the beleaguered people of Israel in Judah. He described a future that must have seemed impossible. Because we modern readers are blessed with insights and understanding from the New Testament, it's easier for us to understand and appreciate some of the promises God made in Jeremiah 31.
Jeremiah wrote what God showed him in the dream. The dream and the prophet's report looked ahead to "those days," a common Old Testament way of referring to the coming times of Messiah, when God's promises to Abraham would come true. Jeremiah saw the reunification of clans and families from both the northern and southern kingdoms in a new kingdom (that would expand to include Gentiles). He described the blessings of those coming days in terms the people could understand and appreciate. These people lived close to the earth. They depended on the produce of their land and animals for their survival. So to people with that frame of reference, God characterized the blessings of God's coming new kingdom in terms of agricultural abundance. The blessings of this coming kingdom were conditional; they would belong to the faithful remnant who were brokenhearted over their sins and turned to God in humble penitence. They would accept personal responsibility for their calamity, and not blame the sins of their fathers for their hardships. These sweeping promises of mercy and new beginnings were offered, but never accepted by the nation as a whole.
This new covenant would not be like the covenant God made with Israel at Mt. Sinai. Israel had not kept that covenant. They adulterated the covenant by forsaking God, their covenant husband, and turning to idols to worship and serve them. God twice described the new covenant people as "virgin Israel." It is unthinkable that the generations who had repeatedly broken their covenant with God and prostituted themselves to idols should be called "virgin Israel." God told the old nation in Hosea that he had divorced them as an adulterous spouse, and said he would betroth another. That group would be the people of the promised new covenant. The people who received Messiah and followed him would enjoy the abundant blessings described in this chapter. They would know the joy of forgiveness, trusting that God remembered their sins against them no more. He had given them a new heart. They were forgiven through the atoning work of Messiah at the cross. This blessed privilege was not theirs because of physical birth into Abraham’s family. It was theirs because they had been born again, renewed in a new covenant relationship with God through Messiah. That was why Gentiles and Jews alike would be there. This peace, forgiveness and spiritual prosperity was for those who came to God as Abraham's descendants by faith, not flesh. That's why no one in this new kingdom would admonish his neighbor to know the Lord. Everyone in it would already know him through their own trusting faith and submission to Messiah.
Did you notice have many times the phrase "declares the LORD" occurred in this chapter? Jeremiah wasn’t proclaiming his own idea or opinion; these were not his thoughts or words. These were God’s words. He would do all the things he described through the saving work of the promised Savior.
I hope you saw and understood a beautiful picture of the Virgin Birth in this chapter. This promised Messiah's entry into the world would be by way of a new thing -- "a woman encircles a man." The God-man Jesus would be born of a virgin. He had no human father; Mary conceived Jesus in her womb by the Holy Spirit. Her body encircled and cradled the unborn child until his birth. That very night, angels would announce his birth, saying, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." God would keep all his promises and fulfill all the prophecies through that One who had been encircled within his human mother. He would grow up to be both the Shepherd and the Lamb who would die so his people could live as the new Israel. This group is described in the New Testament as the body of Christ, the church of Christ and the bride of Christ. If you and I are in Christ, we are heirs according to the promise.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—March 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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