My Sermon on Jeremiah 31:31

This sermon was my final project for my preaching class in seminary school. In it, I explain Jeremiah 31 and answer rabbinical objections to it.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Let’s go back in history to a time when ancient Israel was still around. God had made his covenant with Moses at Sinai. He promised that if Israel obeyed the commands of God, there would be blessings. Israel would be prosperous, and her enemies would be crushed underfoot. However, if Israel was disobedient, she would experience disease, plague, hunger, famine, and strife. Israel’s enemies would come in and harass, and kill God’s people. If they did not repent still, then they would be taken from the land.

There is a scene in Lord of the Rings, the heroes were shown a vision of what would happen if they failed to defeat their enemy Sauron. The innocent Hobbits would be made slaves to Sauron, with their villages burned and the survivors taken away in chains to the evil land of Mordor. That is precisely what happened to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In 720 B.C. the Assyrians under Tiglath-Pilesar deported all the survivors to Assyrian enslavement. The Northern Kingdom was wiped out forever.

Fast forward about 120 years. The Kingdom of Judah has been threatened, first by the Assyrians, and now by the Babylonian Empire. Israel had already been besieged and attacked once by the Babylonians, who were threatening to do it again. The first stages of the exile to Babylon had begun. Daniel and his friends, for example, had already been taken to Babylon. It would be 70 years before they would be able to return from that exile. The current king of Judah, Zedekiah was about to rebel against Nebudchanezzar, the ruler of Babylon. If that happened, the Babylonians might completely annihilate Judah, the way the Assyrians did with the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

In this situation, Jeremiah rebukes Judah for her sinful and idolatrous ways. But then, he gives them hope. Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” comes in the middle of one of the darkest passages in Jeremiah. It is not a promise to us of prosperity. It is a promise that God’s people will survive, even though they will suffer agony and humiliation. They must remain hopeful even in their punishment.

Then, something even bigger happens in Jeremiah 31:31-34. The translation is my own.
Behold, the coming days, declares Yahweh. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I make with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke. I was a husband to them, declares Yahweh. For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares Yahweh. I will put my law inside of them, and write it on their hearts. To them, I will become their God. To me, they will become my people. No man will again teach his neighbor or his brother saying know Yahweh. For all will know, from the least to the greatest declares Yahweh. For I will forgive their iniquities and their sins. I will remember them no more.

God is declaring that in the future, he will make a new covenant with both the living house of Judah and the dead house of Israel. It will be a different covenant than the one he made with Moses on Sinai. No matter how hard that the rabbis try to explain away this verse, they have to face the fact that God will make a new covenant beyond the one made at Sinai. This means that the Sinai covenant is not the last covenant that God made with his people.

God also declares that even though he was a husband to the people of Israel, they still broke his covenant. After God made the covenant with Moses on Sinai, Moses died and Joshua took the task of conquering the Promised Land for the sake of the God of Israel. For hundreds of years afterward, the nation was split into loosely aligned tribes, where judges ruled the families, clans, and tribes. During this period, the tribes would begin to worship idols, and God had to call a great judge to bring Israel back. Then, after a while, Israel would fall into apostasy again. This cycle happened over and over again. And as the cycle continued, it got worse and worse.

Then, one day, the people of Israel wanted unity. They wanted a king, just like all the other nations. God said “okay” to that, but then said that he would appoint the king over all of Israel. He chose Saul, who was at first a righteous king, but then started to disobey God, and tried to murder David. When Saul died, unrepentant, David took the throne. He was a man after God’s own heart, but even he fell into wickedness when he had an affair with Bathsheba, and then murdered her husband Uriah to cover it up. But David repented, and so God forgave him, and let David lead Israel into prosperity.

Then, David’s son Solomon came into power at the height of Israel’s glory. Solomon finished building the temple, and all the rulers from the surrounding lands came to Jerusalem to learn from Solomon’s great wisdom. But even Solomon took many pagan wives, and added idol worship to Israel.

After he died, the kingdom of Israel split into the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom had 19 kings. Every single one of them, without exception, was an apostate. None of them were good in the eyes of Yahweh. Within only a few hundred years, the kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians, deported, and assimilated into the Assyrian culture.

In the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the record was a little bit better. Twenty kings ruled. Eight were righteous, and twelve were apostate. As a result, the Southern Kingdom of Judah lasted a while longer. But even the kingdom of Judah could not stave off its own apostasy. Righteous kings like Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah were outnumbered by wicked kings like Manasseh and Zedekiah. The act of compromise, where the people of Judah were allowed to worship foreign gods in addition to Yahweh was becoming sealed into the culture. There was widespread ignorance of the law, for example, the time when Manasseh decided to bring back worship of Yahweh alone. The book of Chronicles states that people still offered sacrifices from the high places, but only to Yahweh, even though the Pentateuch strictly forbids such a practice.

It was a bit like the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr, Hyde. In the novel, Dr. Henry Jekyll, tired of experiencing this inner conflict between his good and evil inclinations, develops a potion to separate the two. When he takes it, he turns into the wicked Mr. Edward Hyde, who was free to indulge in his wickedest fantasies without any feeling of guilt.

As time went on, Mr. Hyde began to take over Dr. Jekyll. Jekyll would fall asleep, and wake up as Mr. Hyde. Jekyll had to take more and more of the potion to maintain his identity, until he ran out. In his last few moments before turning into Hyde for the rest of his life, Jekyll writes his last letter. He says “God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”

Like Dr. Jekyll, Israel’s whole history was one downward spiral. The prophets could see that like Jekyll, it would only be a matter of time before Judah would fall permanently into apostasy. Judah would never again be the mighty power that she was in the glory days under David, at least not under the old covenant. However, there was hope under the new covenant.

The author of Hebrews quotes this passage from Jeremiah in the 8th chapter. Jesus offers a better covenant than the one God made with Moses at Sinai. If the covenant with Moses had been perfect, there would be no need for another. Does this mean that there was something wrong with the first covenant? I think the answer is in this passage. The problem with this covenant is that the Israelites broke it. Since they did not have the regenerating power of the atonement of Jesus, and did not have the Holy Spirit writing the commands of God on their hearts, they failed to keep the covenant.

Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant is a hotly disputed passage between Christians and Jews. The Rabbis insist that this passage has nothing to do with God offering a new covenant between himself, since the covenant at Sinai was meant to stand for all of time. The rabbis reject the interpretation of the author of Hebrews, because the passage states that the covenant will be made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It doesn’t mention throwing away the original covenant.

The law was written on the hearts of people like Abraham. The difference with this covenant is that it will be written on their hearts. Ezekiel 36:26-27 reads “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Clearly, this covenant is reaffirming the Old Testament law, and cannot be about abolishing things like the dietary laws, right? Deuteronomy 30 says that the people of Israel, once they return from exile, will return to upholding the same commandments.

The rabbis will also say that there is no way Jesus could have fulfilled this command because we need to teach each other about God, yet this passage states that we will not need to be told about God because they all shall know him!

Instead, they will say that Jeremiah 31 was fulfilled at the return from the Babylonian exile. The rabbis believe that the people of Judah were suffering for their own sins plus for the unatoned sins of their ancestors. The rabbis argue that the exile will bring atonement for the sins of the parents. That way, the returning generation can have a fresh start without any of the baggage of previous generations. They believe that the new covenant is a renewal, just as God renewed the covenant with Josiah and of Hezekiah, and even in Moab in Deuteronomy 29.

Whenever the people of Israel return to God, he makes a reaffirmed covenant with them. The people of Israel will understand why they are chosen, and their willingness to follow God will not be because of punishment or reward, but because of an internal identity. God said that his relationship with Israel is as fixed as the laws of nature.

So how strong are these arguments? Notice how none of these rabbinical objections address the central point of the passage. God said that he will give Israel a new covenant. Just in case you think it is just a reaffirmation of the original covenant, he goes on to say that this covenant is not like the one given at Sinai. I don’t see how God could be any clearer that this is not the Mosaic covenant.

Ezekiel 36 says nothing about a new covenant, nor does it say anything about people following the Mosaic Law. In order to interpret Ezekiel that way, you have to already assume that walking in God’s ways and obeying his laws is equivalent to following the commands of the Mosaic Law. In other words, it already assumes that there will not be a greater covenant. But this is what the rabbis are trying to prove!

There is an old ethical question: would you lie to the Nazis in order to save someone’s life. Most people say they would. But this does not mean that morality is relative. Instead, it means that there is a hierarchy of moral values and duties. When confronted with an ethical dilemma, you choose the greater good, and are released from lesser, conflicting obligations. Let’s apply this to the covenant. Does the fact that the New Covenant allows us to eat non-kosher foods mean that the old covenant has ceased to exist? Not at all. It just means that the new covenant is superior to the old one, and that by following the new covenant, you are released from the punishment of failing to uphold the old covenant.

What about the objection that we still need to teach each other about God? Well, think with me for a second. In the time of Jeremiah, how many people knew about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Only the people of Judah, and perhaps a few merchants who traded with them. It was a very small percentage of the world’s population. Then, when Jesus died, rose again, and gave the Holy Spirit to his followers, something amazing happened. Knowledge of the God of Abraham started spreading, and for the first time in history, started spreading outside of Judaism, so that of the people who know of the God of Israel, Jews would be in the vast minority.

The task of world evangelism is shrinking rapidly. In the year 100, there were about 360 non-Christians to every practicing Christian. In the year 1000, that number dropped to 270. In the year 1500, it was 85. In the year 1900, there were only 21 non-Christians to every Christian. In 1970, it was down to 13. The most recent figures from 2010 set that number at only 7 non-Christians for every Christian. If Jeremiah were here in the modern world, he would be amazed at the number of people who know about the God of Israel. He would say something like: “This is amazing. In my day, no one outside Israel knew who God was. We always had to tell them about the great God who brought Moses out of Egypt. In this time, I do not even need to tell anyone about the God of Abraham, because everyone already knows who he is”

Nothing like this happened during Israel’s return from exile! They returned, as in Ezra and Nehemiah, and they built a new temple. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate any sort of a new covenant taking place during any time in the Old Testament. Furthermore, the exile did not bring about a fresh start for the people of Judah. Malachi is one of the last prophets, who lived after the exile, but his whole letter was a scathing rebuke to the people of Judah, who were still profaning the covenant and robbing God. Judah had not been healed, but was building up divine wrath against herself all over again.

Like the ancient nation of Israel, we all face a struggle between the good and evil inclinations. We know we cannot win on our own. Just like Israel, that internal fight between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rages on, and over time, we will slowly lose ground. This was the sad reality for Israel under the old covenant. They were losing the fight, and they were dying because of it. God responded by saying that he would make a new and different covenant, but not with the nations of Israel and Judah directly. Instead, he made the covenant with Jesus the Messiah, who acted as a representative of the two nations, like an ambassador or an Olympic athlete. Jesus made the covenant with God and obeyed the old Law perfectly, so that when he died, he received our sin, and we received his righteousness.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, the law of God is no longer “out there,” requiring legions of legal scholars to decode it. Instead, it is written in the conscience of each of us. Because we have the Holy Spirit, we have a personal relationship with Yahweh that we live out on a daily basis. And when we really listen to the Holy Spirit, he can instruct us in the ways of right and wrong.

This is different than the old covenant. Modern Rabbinical Judaism believes that true obedience and knowledge of God can only come through following a very detailed set of commandments. For example, according to the rabbis, Jews cannot eat milk and meat together. This means that if you eat milk, you have to cleanse the palate with water before eating meat. However, if you eat meat, you have to wait six hours before having any sort of dairy product, and you have to make sure your teeth to not have any remains of meat in them. If you have only one set of cookware, there is a whole plethora of regulations on what you can and cannot cook in them, as well as how to purify the set between using the cookware for dairy and for meat. Foods like chicken and fish are in a different category altogether, and have different laws that apply to them. This is why Orthodox Jews need to be in contact with a rabbi to deal with issues that take an entire lifetime to study.

Under the new covenant, that burden has been lifted. Even peasants in the third world, who do not have access to scholarship, and might not even be able to read, can still know the God of Israel through personal experience. They are not bound to the details of the law, where not doing the rituals properly makes them worthless. How much better is the good news of Romans 10:9. If you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your hearts God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That’s great for us, what about everyone else? It is great that we have the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the Mr. Hyde in all of us. But Jesus did not just call us to focus on living holy and righteous lives. On the Simpsons TV show, the character Ned Flanders represents what happens to Christians who focus on personal piety to the expense of everything else. Flanders is sort of a stereotypical fundamentalist, who seeks very strongly to limit the influence of the non-Christian world on his life and the life of his family. As a result, his children grow up very sheltered and naïve.

As a result, he and his family are completely ineffective at making any real impact on the surrounding world. Yet this is not what we are called to do. We are not called to protect our children from apostasy at any price, and how dare we attempt to do so. We need to reach out and put not only our lives, but also our ideologies at risk in order to spread the Gospel.

Jerry Pipes and Victor Lee wrote the book Family to Family to help inspire Christian families to evangelize, not as individuals, but as a unit. I recommend reading this book. There are not many books on family evangelism out there. There are so many ways your family can help out others and spread the Gospel, even in your local communities.

Do you know your neighbors? Do you know who lives next-door and across the street? If not, how do you expect to have an influence on them? What are their needs? One family managed to spread the love of Christ simply by handing out batteries for their neighbors’ smoke detectors.

Also, evangelism usually requires asking interesting questions. I have found in my experience that non-Christians are actually pretty open to talking about spiritual matters so long as they are not lectured or bullied on the subject. As long as we keep a respectful tone and seek first to understand just what it is they believe before we share our faith. Otherwise, we are like doctors trying to sell someone a cure before we even hear about what disease they have.

In conclusion, then; because of the new covenant and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, no longer does God have to endure a strained relationship with his nation, who is at times like Dr. Jekyll, and at times like Mr. Hyde. No, the atonement of Jesus broke that cycle and set us free from it, so that we can tell the world about his redemption and life-transforming power of Jesus. What are you doing to spread the Gospel to others?

Shalom Aleichem.