The passage that we read today starts with the words: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the LORD’. Every time the Bible says ‘behold’, we better put a close attention to what comes after. It is almost like God’s way to underline that what comes next is of extreme importance. It says: ‘the days come’. That means it is a prophecy that at the time when this was written was yet to be fulfilled (B.C. 606). Prophet Jeremiah also puts the words: ‘saith the LORD’ – the purpose of this is to ensure the reader takes the verses for what they are: the words of God.
What we learn next is that God is giving a promise to make a new covenant: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah”. This is what we study today: we will learn what this new covenant is and what it means for us. But before we speak about this new covenant, we have to understand what the old covenant was.
God wants us to see and know that this new covenant is something very new. He makes this distinction very clear in the next verse: “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” The old covenant made in the day when God brought His people out of the land of Egypt was made through Moses on Mount Sinai. God gave the law to the people of Israel. It was a covenant of promise: Obey God’s law and you will receive God’s blessing. It was a covenant that required people’s works, faithfulness and obedience to the law.
It was not God who broke the old covenant. It was the people. “Which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord”. God is faithful to this old covenant and God’s promises stand unchanged. That means that if you can perfectly obey God’s law, you will receive eternal life in heaven. If you can hold all of the commandments you will receive God’s blessings. But the reality of human heart is that absolutely none of us can stay faithful to the commandments of God even for one minute or second. The purpose of the old covenant was to teach us about sin and that we may seek that better promise of God’s grace. It was made also for us so that we learn that we cannot be saved by the law and to open the only way for us human to come to God.
What is this new covenant then? We read in verse 34: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Before the new covenant, law was the way by which people tried to come to God. It was through submission and obedience to the law. Law was something external, almost like a burden to carry. But with the new covenant, God promises something wonderful. He says that He would put the law in people’s inward parts and write it in their hearts. Law is no longer something external, something to carry. It becomes an integral part of the new heart that is given to all them who believe in the gospel. Yes, the gospel: for this new covenant was done through our Lord Jesus Christ and was confirmed by His blood shed for our sins.
The law is now inside of us. It is the good conscience that God is giving us that we can know what is good and what is wrong. We can know what is God’s will for us. And because we are no longer behind that curtain of law and sin, God is no longer hidden from our sight. He is our God, just as He promised. “And will be their God, and they shall be my people”.
What we read in the first verse: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord” was fulfilled on the Calvary, when Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. These are the days to come that this text is referring to. When our Lord cried out on the cross “It is finished”, He meant exactly that. The new covenant is now completed. It is available to all who repent and turn to Him in faith.
What a great and merciful God we have. The old covenant was a covenant of works. It required people to obey the law. But the new covenant is a covenant of grace. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). We are saved by faith in the gospel and trusting in Jesus Christ.
“And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord”. The least of them should know the Lord. What does it mean? These words speak about the moment when you are born again. It is then you receive the Holy Spirit. It is the moment when you believe that the gospel is truth and that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God who died for your sins and was resurrected on the third day. In that very moment: you know the Lord. You have made acquaintance of Jesus and can now claim your salvation through the knowledge of Him. You may not know him very well yet, in fact you will only know him as much as he allows you to learn. But you do know him, if you believe in him.
If you are a Christian, nobody needs to teach you. You no longer require another man for a teacher to guide you and teach you about God. All you need is your Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit that is within you will teach you and show you everything. God is willing to reveal Himself to all who seek Him diligently. Apostle John writes in his first epistle: “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” 1 J. 2:20-21. You know God through that Holy Spirit dwelling in you, which is the earnest of your salvation. It is God’s seal in you. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” J. 14:26
The promise of the new covenant goes further to its spectacular crescendo: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” The reason why they can now know the Lord is this: for God has forgiven their sins. The righteousness of God is now fulfilled. The wrath of God was taken away in the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“I will remember their sin no more”. This are the words that are directed to them who believe! This wonderful promise that all your sins done in the past, present and future are paid for! You are cleansed by the blood of Christ. You can receive all the blessings that God has promised to the people of Israel, all promises given through the Word of God belong to you now. How can one not rejoice in such a wonderful salvation that God has prepared for his people!
All that God requires from us to become partakers of this new covenant is that we come to him and confess our sins. So I urge you today, repent and turn to Christ. How are you going to escape God’s wrath if you are not found in Jesus? Why would you reject such a wonderful salvation prepared for you by God? Come to Him, for all is finished and ready.
