Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34

Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34

This morning I’d like to say a few words about today’s Old Testament passage from Jeremiah.

I think in order to understand this passage and see the significance of this prophecy, we need a brief over view of God’s plan of salvation as outlined in the bible.

The bible as you all know starts with the book of Genesis and God creating a perfect world with Adam and Eve to look after it and to populate it.

However it doesn’t take long for God’s perfect creation to be spoilt by the Devil who tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God.

At this point sin and death enter the world and Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Again it doesn’t take long for Cain to murder Abel and soon the world is full of wickedness.

God’s perfect world has been spoilt and the humans he created to enjoy a relationship with Him have turned their backs on him.

But fortunately God knew beforehand what would happen, and he has a plan to save and redeem mankind.

In fact we are given a hint about this plan in Genesis Chapter 3 where God tells the devil –“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

An offspring of the woman will one day crush Satan’s head.

So, God’s plan is for a saviour to be born into the world – someone to save and redeem mankind - but before he can come God has a lot of work to do in preparation.

The Saviour can’t just suddenly appear in the world out of nowhere as no one would be expecting him and no one would have a clue about his origins or his teaching.

No, the Saviour must come onto a stage that has been prepared and set for him.

So, as we read through the Old Testament, the stage is set, and God’s plan of salvation starts to unfold.

First he calls a man called Abraham who will be the father of a nation of people – a chosen nation – who God will prepare to receive the Saviour and his teaching.

Thus through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the nation of Israel is born.

However this nation must be a distinctive people who are familiar with God and his ways.

So God frees them from slavery in Egypt and then through Moses introduces the Old Covenant which we read about in today’s passage from Jeremiah.

The Old Covenant was basically a two way agreement between God and the children of Israel. 

God gave Israel 603 laws to obey, plus the Ten Commandments, with the promise that if they kept these laws they would be blessed but if they broke them things would go badly.

These laws are recorded in the Torah – the first 5 books of the bible and broadly they covered Israel’s relationship with God and the relationship between people.

The law covered every aspect of Israel’s life from what they should eat and wear, to sexual relationships, debt, hygiene, and justice. The part of the law that related to worshipping God particularly enshrined the idea of sacrifice.

In order for people to be cleansed from their sins animals were sacrificed and their blood was used to make things clean.

The Old Covenant and the Law of Moses enshrined in Jewish thinking what pleased God and what displeased Him. It emphasised the need for sacrifice to atone for sin and it was a major part of the preparation of the Jewish people to one day receive their Messiah.

There was a problem with the Old Covenant though, and this was that the law itself was unable to make people righteous. It could point them towards the behaviour that God expected but it had no power to enable people to obey it.

The law was designed to show Israel how God wanted them to live but the Children of Israel consistently broke God’s law. They intermarried with neighbouring people, forgot God and worshipped idols, and as a result God allowed them to be defeated by their enemies.

As Jeremiah says in this passage, God was a faithful husband to his side of the Covenant but the children of Israel were consistently unfaithful to their side of the Covenant.

God sent various prophets to warn the people that judgement would come if they didn’t repent and remember the Covenant but frequently Israel ignored the warnings and ended up being defeated by enemies.

They’d then reflect on their waywardness and cry out to God in repentance. God would then restore their fortunes and then when things were going well they’d start to go astray all over again, and the cycle was repeated.

One of the lowest points in Israel’s history came at around the time that Jeremiah wrote today’s Old Testament passage.

Jeremiah had prophesied that because Israel had been consistently unfaithful to God they would be overthrown by the Babylonians, and in 587BC Israel was indeed overthrown and the Babylonians destroyed the temple in Jerusalem.

Some of you may remember the Boney M song By the Rivers of Babylon which is based on Psalm 137 and which is about the Jews in exile in Babylon.

Anyway having made this prophecy about the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in the chapters before today’s passage, Jeremiah has some good news for Israel. God is going to make a New Covenant with them

And it won’t be like the Old One with its shortcomings.

This time God’s law will be written on their hearts and each person will know God for themselves.

Under the Old Covenant there was always a certain distance between the presence of God and his people.

God’s presence lived in the temple in a place called the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies and come into the presence of God, once a year.

He could only do this after having made extensive animal sacrifices to atone for his own sins and the sins of the people, and sprinkling just about everything with blood.

And the Holy of Holies itself was hidden from people’s view by a curtain, so the Jewish people had to look on from afar.

However under the New Covenant God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit will come to live within the Christian believer and as Jeremiah says, write his laws on their heart, and forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

There won’t be any need for the complex temple sacrificial rituals any more because Christian believers themselves will become temples of the Holy Spirit.

This is why the curtain in the temple hiding the Holy of Holies from view was torn in two when Jesus died on the cross.

The curtain that separated people from God’s presence was done away with.

And it was at this point that the Old Covenant became obsolete as the writer to the Hebrews puts it.

Access into God’s presence became available to all who put their faith in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross.

As the writer to the Hebrews says; Therefore brothers and sisters, 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.”

Under the New Covenant, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the blood that he spilt for us, we are made clean in God’s sight as we put our faith in Him.

If you’re a Christian sitting here today, know that the Holy One of Israel lives within you by His spirit so how can you think you are not holy?

As a Christian you carry God’s presence within your heart wherever you go.

Under the Old Covenant anyone who tried to get near the Holy of Holies without the necessary sacrifices would have died immediately.

But if you are a Christian who has put your faith in Jesus, his blood has made you clean and the evidence of that is the fact that God’s spirit is living in you.

If your iniquity had not been forgiven God would not be living in you now.

So rejoice because God has blessed and saved you. You are accepted by him.

And realise that God’s presence is here today – it is within us and among us.

The Old Covenant was a two sided deal based on how well the Children of Israel managed to keep God’s law, and as I’ve said by and large they failed spectacularly.

But the New Covenant is based on what God has done for us in Jesus. Jesus lead a perfect life and fulfilled the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant perfectly. He did for us what we could never do ourselves.

Where we sinned and fell short – he measured up.

As we put our faith in Him, under the New Covenant, God no longer sees us in the light of our failure but in the light of what Jesus has accomplished for us.

Our failure to reach the holy standard God requires is no longer held against us, because God remembers instead his son’s perfect sacrifice on our behalf.

As Jeremiah says “I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”

So the new Covenant is based on the One in whom we believe – Jesus Christ – the promised Messiah and Saviour, and what he has done.

Our part in the new Covenant is simply to believe and put our faith and trust in what Jesus did for us on the cross.

As Jesus himself puts it in John’s gospel, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Isn’t that amazing – all God’s asks of us to enter into the new Covenant is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is why Paul says to the jailer in Acts chapter 16 when he asks him what he must do to be saved –

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved – you and your household.”

Of course lots of Christians don’t like this. They want it to be harder – more difficult. They want to earn their salvation – to measure up in some way – to deserve it – to strive for it.

But this is not God’s way.

We can never earn the right or deserve to be saved. We can never be good enough as a result of our own efforts.

Our salvation is entirely down to what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross.

All we can do is to gratefully accept it and then in gratitude to God for what he has done for us 

seek to live in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Of course like the children of Israel we can start to go astray and we will find that just as their lives got more difficult- so will ours.

The bible makes it quite clear that we will reap what we sow and that God will discipline those of his children who go astray.

Just as a loving parent will discipline his own child – so God will discipline us to bring us back on track.

But when we truly recognise the love God has for us and the gift of salvation that we can receive under the New Covenant our desire is to love God and to reach out to others.

The Old Covenant was for the Jews but the New Covenant is for all people – and that includes you sitting here today.

Do you want your sins forgiven and forgotten? Do you want to be pardoned? Do you want the assurance that God has accepted you because His spirit lives within you? Do you want to know God?

If you do, the work God requires of you is to believe in the one he has sent - the Lord Jesus Christ

Let’s pray

If you would like to come under the New Covenant first of all ask God’s forgiveness for those things you’ve done wrong in your life – however seemingly bad they may be.

Now thank Jesus for dying for you on the cross so you can be forgiven and made clean.

And finally in your own words invite God into your life so that you may know Him personally. 

Amen.