Princeton Presbyterian Church Sermon # 1604
September 10, 2023
Jeremiah 31.31-34 Click here for audio worship!
Dr. Ed Pettus
"A New Covenant"
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, 32not 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. 33For 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. 34And 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.”
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To Pluck Up, To Break Down, To Destroy, To Overthrow
If you have been with us since we started in the book of the prophet Jeremiah, you know that a large portion of Jeremiah is filled with judgment upon Israel. It is part of the charge given to Jeremiah to pluck up, to break down, to destroy, and to overthrow. These terms are fleshed out in all the indictments against Israel. In Jeremiah 2 it was about the 2 evils they had committed, 13for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Those broken cisterns in our modern world are all the things people put their faith in apart from God. No ideology, no “ism”, no American idols can hold water. That is, there is no truth in the things of the world that people pursue apart from God in Jesus Christ.
In Jeremiah 5 the list of offenses is long:
utterly treacherous to me - 11
spoken falsely of the Lord - 12
forsaken me and served foreign gods - 19
this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. - 23
do not say in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the Lord - 24
wicked men are found among my people - 26
appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: - 30.
Then in Jeremiah 6.15 we discover that Israel had no shame for the evils they had done. 15Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. It is bad enough to sin against God; it is even worse to have absolutely no shame with it. We see this all over our culture and society, a people who are not at all embarrassed by their sin, even seeking to have it affirmed rather than corrected.
All of these things deserved judgment in the form of plucking up, breaking down, destroying, and overthrowing. It was Jeremiah’s call, purpose, and prophetic proclamation. Israel would be plucked up and overthrown, cast into exile and Jerusalem destroyed.
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To Build, To Plant
This is how God works, a theme of Scripture, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow. But this breaking down is followed by what God does on the other side of judgment, building up and planting something new. This is what it means to be a part of the New Covenant, built and planted in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We see this same theme throughout the New Testament as well.
Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12.24). The seed is broken down and dies in order that something new can come of it, namely much fruit, built anew. Broken down in order to build up! The same is said of us when we come to Christ, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it” (Mark 8.34-35). Denial of self and losing our life is the overthrow of sin and the old nature so that in following Christ we might build up a gospel centered life that is saved by Christ.
It is a theme of the gospel, suffering and death (breaking down) to resurrection (building something new). It is how Paul comes to understand what Christ has done in our lives as believers.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5.17). The old is passed, that is, it is destroyed, crucified and the new has come, built upon the cornerstone which is Christ, so that we are made a new creation.
Jeremiah’s story is about getting rid of Israel’s sin through a New Covenant in Christ!
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A New Covenant
In Christ – These words (in Christ) are not expressed in Jeremiah, but what is expressed is that the New Covenant is not like the old covenant made with Israel’s fathers. It is new! It is fresh. It is complete and final. It is near, as in the kingdom of heaven is near. Look at the good news in Jeremiah’s words in verses 33-34:
This is what God will do, not our doing, God’s doing! Verse 33 – He will put His law in us and write it on our hearts. What might be a corresponding text in the New Testament? Maybe this, Romans 10.8, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim). Granted, that is a quote from Deuteronomy, but Paul brings it into the New Testament, into the New Covenant, into the Church. There is this cool verse in 2 Corinthians 3.3 that speaks of Christ written on the heart, “And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” Jesus has given us His Word of life and it is written on our hearts.
The New Covenant description in Jeremiah 31.33 then says, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” In the New Testament it is known this way, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2.10).
Then Jeremiah speaks of the New Covenant in terms of knowing God because God forgives sin. 34And 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.”
That, my friends, is Jesus Christ on the cross. That is Jesus Christ the image of the invisible God. We know God by knowing Jesus. Jesus is our New Covenant according to Hebrews 7.22, “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”
I tried to figure out a way to talk about a New Testament passage that perfectly shows how Jeremiah 31 is a foreshadowing of the Covenant in Jesus Christ without reading the entire passage. It is Hebrews 8. But I just have to read the whole thing!
Hebrews 8 8.1Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. 3For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” 6But 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. 7For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8For he finds fault with them when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9not 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. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
13In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
According to Hebrews the New Covenant is not dependent on us following the Law as was the Old Covenant. The Law is still good to follow, but it is not our salvation. Jesus has fulfilled, on our behalf, what the New Covenant requires and the Old Covenant required. Salvation does not depend on our ability to keep the Law. Salvation is in what Christ has done for us enabling our keeping covenant by faith in Him, a faith which is also a gift from God. Jesus Christ is everything! He is our salvation, our life, our hope, our wisdom, our righteousness, all things in and through Him. 2 Cor 3.4-6, 4Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
All of this is a cornerstone of Reformed theology, that we cannot claim anything coming from us, but all is from God, who by His Spirit, gives life. By the person and work of Jesus Christ we are now rightly related to God in a New Covenant, foretold long ago in the mouth of Jeremiah. Thank God that our sufficiency is from God. It is why we offer our thanks, why we offer our devotion, why we offer our lives to God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Give thanks to God today for His sufficiency to bring us into a New Covenant and seek to do all that is required of us, not for our salvation, but to do what is required out of gratitude for what has been done for us already and as a way of bringing glory to God. In our witness through obedience, through word, through goods deeds, we can show the way for others to find forgiveness in Jesus and entry into the New Covenant of life and peace. Amen.
