BLOG

Jeremiah’s New Covenant, part 2

Jeremiah 31:1 says,

¹ “At that time,” declares the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”

“At that time” refers to the time of the restoration of Jacob (Jeremiah 30:18). This alludes to the time when Jacob himself was restored to the Promised Land and to his father’s house after working for Laban for 20 years. As we will see, Jeremiah 31:11 again makes this clear:

¹¹ For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of him [Esau] who was stronger than he.

In other words, Jacob’s experience was prophetic of the future, in particular his wrestling match with the angel Peniel (Genesis 32:28-30) and in his deliverance from Esau.

This was when the angel changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Years later, Jacob testified of “the angel who has redeemed me from all evil” (Genesis 48:16). This redemption is defined by Jeremiah in terms of Israel being “My people” and God being their God.

My People

When Moses appeared before Pharaoh, he demanded, “Let My people go” (Exodus 5:1). Yet when the Israelites left Egypt, they were not yet “My people” in the sense that God intended. When they arrived at the Mount, God gave them the opportunity through the Old Covenant to become “My own possession” (Exodus 19:5), but this was conditional upon fulfilling their vow of obedience.

The fact that they failed is seen 40 years later when God made a second covenant with them, this time through God’s oath. Deuteronomy 29:12, 13 says,

¹² that you may enter the covenant with the Lord your God and into His oath which the Lord your God is making with you today, ¹³ in order that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God…

If they had already been His people, why would Moses speak of another day under a second covenant—that is, the New Covenant? This shows that man’s vows are inadequate. It requires God’s oath and His work in us to make us truly His people. Therefore, when reading about “My people” in Scripture, we must discern whether it speaks of the Old Covenant potential to be His people (through man’s will and works) or if it speaks of the New Covenant reality and success of God’s promise.

The point is that it is not possible for anyone to be “My people” apart from the New Covenant. Further, because this word also refers to Jacob’s return to the land from Laban’s house, we see how Jacob, a believer, was not given the name Israel until he was much older. Jacob was not born an Israelite, though he was the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham. The title Israel was given to him as a testimony of God’s sovereignty, because Israel means “God rules.” So Dr. Bullinger tells us in his notes:

Israel. “God commands, orders, or rules.” Man attempts it but always, in the end, fails. Out of some forty Hebrew names compounded with “El” or “Jah,” God is always the doer of what the verb means (cp. Dani-el, God judges).

It is specifically the revelation of God’s sovereignty that entitles us to the name Israel. However, it is not merely one’s belief but the outworking of that belief that makes the difference. The New Covenant is God’s promise to make us Israelites and His people. This is accomplished in three phases that are set forth in the feast of Passover (justification), Pentecost (sanctification), and Tabernacles (glorification).

Jeremiah 31:1 is a promise to “all the families of Israel.” Many take this to refer exclusively to the biological children of Jacob-Israel. But in Moses’ day even the aliens were called to enter into God’s oath (Deuteronomy 29:11, 12). The promise was as much to them as to those who were physically descended from Jacob-Israel. God promised that these aliens would be Israelites, not in the sense of biology but in the same sense that Jacob himself received the name Israel.

It is important that, in reading the great New Covenant chapter, we understand its scope and how the terms are defined in a New Covenant dictionary.

Grace in the Wilderness

Jeremiah 31:2 says,

² Thus says the Lord, “The people who survived the sword found grace [hen] in the wilderness—Israel, when it went to find its rest.”

This refers primarily to Israel in the wilderness under Moses. Yet it also alludes to Jacob’s wilderness journey to Haran (Syria). Again, it was prophetic of Israel’s deportation to Assyria, which had occurred a century before Jeremiah’s ministry. In each case, they sought “rest.” (See Numbers 10:33; Deuteronomy 12:9.) There are three levels of “rest” in the law: the sabbath day, the sabbath year, and the Jubilee (God’s rest).

Many have been taught that grace is found only in the New Testament. But “Noah found favor [hen] in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8). The exiled Israelites in their Assyrian wilderness also sought a rest, though perhaps not consciously. They “found grace in the wilderness,” but the wilderness is not a place of rest (Deuteronomy 12:9). Grace for them came in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 17), who was born while Israel was yet in the wilderness.

This is again prophesied in Hosea 2:14,

¹⁴ Therefore, behold, I will allure her, bring her into the wilderness and speak kindly to her.

Though grace comes in the wilderness, rest comes at the end of the wilderness. Grace is something that God does by the power of His own will. So Jeremiah 31:3 says,

³ The Lord appeared to him [Israel] from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

Jesus Christ did not minister directly to the lost Israelites but “appeared to him from afar.” He sent His word through the apostles and other disciples who spread the gospel to distant lands. Their message presented the love of Christ as demonstrated by His willingness to die that they might live (John 3:16; Romans 5:8-10). “Therefore,” God says, “I have drawn you.” It was a sovereign act of God which He did in order to fulfill His oath.

In John 6:44 Jesus says,

⁴⁴ No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws [helkuo, “drag”] him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

This promise is consistent with the provision of the New Covenant, and it provides us with the background knowledge to understand Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Israel Rebuilt

Jeremiah 31:4 says,

⁴ Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt, O virgin of Israel! Again you will take up your tambourines, and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.

The first Kingdom of Israel had disintegrated. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom was divided between the northern 10 tribes (Israel) and the southern 2 tribes (Judah). After the division, the definition of Israel referred to the northern tribes as distinct from Judah. Judah’s citizens were called Judahites, later shortened to Jews. This distinction is made clear in Jeremiah 18 and 19. Jeremiah 18:1-10 prophesies of the 10 northern tribes who were exiled to Assyria. The rest of Jeremiah 18 and all of chapter 19 prophesy to Judah and Jerusalem.

So Jeremiah 31:4 refers to the “virgin of Israel.” Yet in Hosea Israel is presented as a harlot and an adulteress. It is only by turning to Christ and by having faith in His Sacrifice for sin that anyone can truly regain spiritual virginity. Therefore, the “virgin of Israel” is a reference to those who have accepted the Mediator of the New Covenant and who, like Paul, are “fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21).

In changing from a harlot to a virgin, God is rebuilding Israel, no longer through the Old Covenant (as under Moses) but through a better covenant that depends fully on God’s oath. By understanding that it is no longer based on works or upon man’s will, we can rejoice even before we have been perfected. The prophet expresses this in terms of tambourines and dancing. 1 John 1:4 tells us,

⁴ These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

The metaphor continues in Jeremiah 31:5,

⁵ Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria. The planters will plant and will enjoy them.

This appears to contradict Hosea 2:6,

⁶ Therefore, [because of Israel’s harlotry and exile] behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.

Israel in exile would not find her way back to the old land. Instead, God would find her and give her grace in the wilderness. The “return,” as we read so often in Isaiah, is not a return to the old land but a return to God. No one can return to God merely by immigrating to the old land. Any sinner can relocate geographically, but this does not satisfy God’s requirement. The modern Zionist movement was able to establish a Jewish state in 1948, but the vast majority of the Zionists remained unbelievers subjected to the Old Covenant.

Yet God is rebuilding a new Israel through the New Covenant. No one can be a citizen of this Kingdom apart from faith in Jesus Christ. No one is an Israelite unless God bestows that name upon him/her as an act of His sovereignty.

For this reason, it is clear that planting crops and orchards on the hills of Samaria is a metaphor, couched in the Old Testament terms but applied to the New Covenant Kingdom of the virgin of Israel. This Kingdom is not located in the old land, for we read in Hebrews 11:14-16,

¹⁴ For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. ¹⁵ And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one…

If this “better country” were the old land, the exiles of Israel in Assyria “would have had opportunity to return” there. Yet that was not the case at all. Instead, this better country that the rebuilt Israel seeks is the same as that which was promised to David when he was at the height of his kingdom. 2 Samuel 7:10 says,

¹⁰ I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly.

This was a promise of a future place, where they would no longer be removed or afflicted. That was not the old land, from which they were exiled and afflicted by wicked nations. It was the better country that Abraham sought, the place where “My people Israel,” the New Covenant nation, would be planted.