A New Covenant
Jeremiah 31:31-40
This prophecy of Jeremiah is one of the important prophecies of the Old Testament. It is the only prophecy of the New Covenant in it. It has been widely quoted in the New Testament, and is used in the debates concerning end-time prophecy. So it is profitable to take a look at the prophecy itself to see what it does say as well as that which it does not.
Jeremiah the prophet was born somewhere around 650 BC. He was from a priestly village names Anathoth. He is often referred to as “the weeping prophet” as he was sorrowful over the impending destruction of Jerusalem by the LORD God through the hands of the Babylonians. Most of his prophecies came to him before the fall of the city, but the book named after him records that he survived the fall of the city and was later taken to Egypt against his will by the remnant who were allowed to remain in Judah.
Jeremiah’s prophecies against Jerusalem and Judaea got him into a lot of trouble. He was even cast into a miry dungeon, presumably to die there of starvation and disease but was released. He stood alone against the prophets who said that God had made an eternal covenant with Judah and would come to their rescue. Instead, Jeremiah sees and tells the inhabitants that he saw the LORD get up from His temple and left the city to the east, towards Babylon, showing that the city was indeed going to be delivered to the enemy and the survivors would go out into exile.
The prophecies of Jeremiah are not arranged in chronological order, but it seems that the passage at hand was recorded while the city was still in possession of the Jews but under siege. The prophecies of the previous chapters switch to one of long term hope of restoration, both of Judah and Samaria. This promise of the restoration of both is continued in this prophecy.
The passage begins with the LORD directly addressing the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Even though Judah was hanging on to its national identity, the house of Israel had lost hers over one hundred years earlier when they were taken into exile by Assyrian and dispersed among their clients states far away. A few were allowed to return, to keep the land from going to the wild beasts who intermarried with pagans and became the Samaritans. Josiah’s Passover also indicated that a few had escaped and lived in Judah. In the book of Luke, it mentions that Anna was of the tribe of Asher. But for the most part, the ten tribes were lost to history because they wanted to be like the pagan nations around them, and the Lord granted them this at the expense of their identity.
Jeremiah’s prophecy promises the restoration of both houses, so in some manner, God will have to return the members of the house of Israel to their former identity. It was also a promise that God would preserve some from the house of Judah. They would go into exile, but in the future would return to the land. The prophecy goes on to state that a new covenant would have to be written. The first one was written in tables of stone and resulted in the Israelite’s having stony hearts. This time, God will write a new covenant with new laws inscribed into a fleshy heart. At this time, all Israel will know Him from the greatest to the least. The Hebrew sense of “know” indicated the knowledge of personal relationship and not just head knowledge. And this covenant will last for ever.
The word “covenant” in Hebrew has the meaning of “cut.” This could mean cut in stone, but covenants in the Ancient Near East were made in blood. When the LORD made the first covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, animals were slain and divided with their blood running into a tench. The covenant partners walked through the bloody trench to seal this covenant. However, Abraham fell into a deep sleep and the LORD walked through the blood alone. In Genesis 17, circumcision ratified the second covenant God made with Abraham. This time it was the blood of Abraham and the males in the household. What is important that the covenant was made in blood. The next thing to know about covenants made with God is that God remains absolutely faithful to the stipulations of the covenants He makes, even if His covenant partners are not. Thirdly, God never changes His mind, so a new covenant cannot annul previous covenants which were made. The only thing that can annul God’s covenant is the disobedience of the covenant partner, and only if the stipulations are written. There were no stipulations to the Genesis 15 covenant, and there are none in the new covenant either. There is an “if” in the Genesis 17 covenant.
So what eternal new covenant is to be made here can not annul the Genesis 15 covenant which is unilateral. So this “New Covenant” can only affirm the promises of the Genesis 15 covenant and cannot annul.
When we look at tis fulfillment of this new covenant, we can see that it would have to be later that the Babylonian Exile. Sometime after this point, Israel would have to be restored. But only Judah was restored from exile, and even the willingness of the Samaritans to join in rebuilding Jerusalem was rebuffed sharply in the times of Nehemiah. Plus the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD shows that if this covenant is made with ethnic Israel, it would have to be fulfilled at a later time.
In AD 1947, the modern nation of Israel was reborn. This looks at first glance as the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. However, a mosque still stands on the Temple Mount. Many of the Jewish people are atheists or agnostic. It would hard to classify this nation as ‘knowing the LORD” in any significance. Time will tell how God will use this nation, but at this point, it is hard for me to see this as a fulfillment of this promise. Finally, how are these ten lost tribes going to retain their identity?
There is another way to look at the fulfillment of this prophecy which has been declared in the New Testament. Hebrews 8:8-12 quotes Jeremiah and applies it to Jesus has the mediator of a new covenant which is better than the old one God gave to Moses. What is of particular interest is that in verse 11, it says that the Old covenant stands ready to pass away. The New Testament in Romans 10:4 says that Jesus is the end or fulfillment of the Law. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says that not a jot or tittle of the Law will pass until all is fulfilled. But Jesus has fulfilled it in His sacrificial death. The Mosaic covenant was conditional. It was everlasting so long as Israel was obedient to the LORD. It is only in Jesus Christ who Hebrews says was tempted in every way, yet without sin that that the covenant was perfectly kept. And it is only in Christ that any one has standing under this covenant. Apart from Christ, there is no longer any covenant relationship between Jew and the LORD. The New Testament clearly teaches that Jesus is the Yahweh of the Old Testament as well as the means that the Father used to create all things. If one does not believe in Jesus, they are cut off from the covenant and will remain cut off until they believe.
The Old Covenant no longer has ongoing force as its purpose has been fulfilled. This new covenant is ratified in the blood of Jesus. As God the Son, He represents the Trinity, and as fully human, he represents us. It is the Son who walked through the trench in Genesis 15 and made a unilateral, unconditional and everlasting covenant with Abraham and who promised that one of his seed would be one in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed Paul in Galatians says that it is Christ who is that seed.
So where does this place Israel? Does not Paul say in Romans 11:26 that “All Israel shall be saved?” Isn’t this the nation of Israel? Has not Paul just said that in the end times that a large number of Jews will turn to Jesus? Actually, it says all Israel shall be saved, but as we have seen, Israel had 12 tribes and ten of them were lost to history. Will they not be gathered in also? Who are they? The Mormons say that the stick of Joseph which represents the ten tribes will be reunited with the stick of Judah, and that these are the Native Americans. Ted Garner Armstrong says that the ten tribes were exiled to the Caucasus’ and are now the Caucasians. Is there another option?
It will take a little math, but it will be worth it. It has been 3600 years or so since the time of Jacob, the ancestors of the Jews lived. More than a hundred generations have passed since then. Everyone has 2 parents, 4 grandparents 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, and so on. If one goes back 100 generations one comes to 6 followed by 29 zeroes of ancestors in Jacobs generation. Even if we are extremely generous and say that 100 million people lived then, then the average person living on this earth has 6 times 10 to the 21st power connections back to Jacob. Even if Jewish bloodlines were kept 99 percent pure, this still leaves the average person with 60,000,000,000,000,000,000 different ways to trace ancestry back to Jacob. This means other than a few very isolated pockets of people, the odds are astronomically in favor of being a descendant of Jacob, and therefore of Israel. Truly all of the nations of the earth have been blessed by Abraham.
Even in the case of a very small number of isolated people, on can see that Tamar, who was certainly not a descendant of Jacob, Rahab the Canaanite, and Ruth the Moabitess were incorporated into Israel, even without bloodlines. So it is fair to say that anyone on earth who comes to Jesus is a returning Israelite, regardless of what one perceives their ethnic identity to be. And Hose says they are not all Israel who say they are Israel. It is the ones who Believe in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead and confess that Jesus is LORD who are Israel. They are the ones who confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
As far as the nation of Israel is concerned, I want to clearly say that the sovereign God who sets up nations as well as bring them down, has a purpose for the nation. It therefore has a role in end-time prophecy, but perhaps not in the way that is commonly thought. The people in Israel need to be evangelized just like every one else. But we must be careful not to exalt their privilege as those they are especially blessed over every one else, because everyone is an Israelite in the sense of physical descent and is equally entitled to the blessing of Abraham as they There are no Gibeonites in the kingdom. All come by grace and faith in Jesus, which is the free gift of God without works or pedigree.
One other thing. Every Jew is also a Gentile on the same reasoning that every one is also an Israelite. The Jews are descendants of Tamar the Canaanite. For since the blood is all mixed together, can’t we just get along? It is only the shed blood of Jesus Christ that matters, Jesus the Son of David who has at least three Gentile ancestors. Now all who believe, regardless of there they come from, can await together the coming of the greater Israel and the New Jerusalem. Marana-tha.
