About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34, closing a study of O. Palmer Robertson’s The Christ of the Covenants. The Lord promises a covenant not like the one Israel broke: he will write his law on their hearts, all will know him, and he will forgive their sins. Old Testament promises often have a near and a far fulfillment, like mountain ranges that look like one peak from a distance. The return from exile, the first coming of Christ, and his second coming belong to one fulfillment in Christ.
Sermon transcript
All right. All right, so we’re going to look at the covenant of consummation. We could also say the covenant of Christ. In one sense, the covenant of Jeremiah, because it’s given to Jeremiah. Ultimately, it’s about Christ. We’re going to go to 31, starting at 31. That’s both verse and chapter. And we just have a short portion today. I’ll go ahead and read, and I think if we… We’ll just have this front row, because we’ll just go to the left of me. Is that all right? And we’ll just read those four verses.
Here now, the word of God from Jeremiah 31, 31. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Why don’t we have Marianne and then we’ll work on it. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers and the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. a covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and in their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach again, each man his neighbor.
Thank you very much. All right. Now, what’s going on here? It’s important for us to ask what’s going on so that we can kind of put ourselves in the minds of the original hearers. It’s one of the things that we do, we should do in theology. It’s also something that we do in biblical theology. preview for next week. Let’s put ourselves in the minds of the people.
What were the circumstances of the people of Jeremiah, people in Jeremiah’s day? Did they live in the time of Moses? No. Did they live in the time of David? No. They lived way after that. They lived during tumultuous times. They lived during difficult times. But they stood upon the times that had preceded.
So let’s just say for simplicity’s sake, we have Moses and the Mosaic Covenant that we’ve been talking about. And upon that, we have built other covenants, but for our sake, Let’s just think about the Davidic covenant. We are, let’s just say we are way after that this time. We’re here at the time of, we’re at the time of Jeremiah.
At the time of Jeremiah, things are beginning to get hectic. Things are beginning to get very difficult for the people of God, especially those who are the true Israel, who are believers. What’s difficult is that these covenants are being exercised in a negative way. The people of God are becoming, they’re soon to be kicked out of the land.
The, we must understand that they didn’t live in a common grace nation like we do. We live in a common grace nation where our sin does not directly affect the weather or the crops or punishments from other nations, those kinds of things. What we have in the time period of, well, all of redemptive history, especially Old Testament, we have a one-to-one correspondence between the wicked deeds of the people and how well the land treated them, or how safe they were within the land. They were to protect it. Their king was to worship the one true God, and God would have preserved the people in that land. but they weren’t doing that.
And so, as we talked about, I think it was last week, when you read the book of Kings, it seems at first very repetitive. It talks about this king comes along, And he sacrificed to these false gods and he brought about the anger of God against him. And eventually another king will come along, both in Judah at least, in the southern kingdom. is obedient to God to a certain point. A lot of times it’ll say, he didn’t fully take down all of the Baals and the Ashtara, all the false gods, all the idols. He didn’t fully take them down, but he was pleasing in God’s sight.
But for the most part, as you read it, it’s negative. The kings after David, after Solomon, the vast majority of them are sinful. They are wicked. And what’s going on, through as redemptive history, as biblical sacred history is marching along, the people are building up the sin in the land. And it is becoming more and more polluted, more and more defiled. So they’re going to be pushed out. That’s what we find in Jeremiah. If we were to Read just a couple of verses preceding. We have a couple of chapters preceding. Go to Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 29, the people have been taken.
The king of Babylon comes and takes the people of Judah. takes them away, and they’re asking, what kind of a hope do we have? This is what it says, now these are the words of the letter, this is Jeremiah 29, which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exile, the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. This was after King Jeconiah and the Queen Mother, the court officials, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the smiths, had departed from Jerusalem. The letter was sent by the hand of Alasa, the son of Shaphon, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. And pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will have welfare. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel.”
And it goes on on. But we have the main point there. See, what has happened is Daniel is not, excuse me, Jeremiah is not taken to exile, at least yet. Jeremiah is there in the land still, but Nebuchadnezzar has come and he has taken the people, especially the higher up people, the magistrates, he’s taken the relatives of the family. He’s taken them into the land. And Jeremiah sends this letter, and he says, you’re not going anywhere, okay? Settle in, in the land that you are.
And how long were they gonna be there? 70 years. There were prophets at that time saying, hey, we are gonna be here a year, or we’re gonna be here just two years. I think we read that just the other day in Wednesday prayer slash Bible study, that some of the prophets are saying, two years, we’re going back.
That’s not the case. They are kicked out of the land. Now, let me just say that Let’s try and do this just for simplicity’s sake. So, David and Mosaic covenants, the stipulations are being exercised upon them. They were supposed to be faithful to God, or they would be kicked out. Same kind of a deal was in David, where the king, who is the son of David, who sits on the throne, is supposed to be faithful to God.
They weren’t, so they’re sent out. Now, that’s the situation in which Jeremiah writes, this time of exile. Now, it seems as though this 70 years could have been far worse for the people of God. It could have been like a Nazi concentration camp or something like that. But it wasn’t.
God was preserving a remnant, and there was grace for the people of God even in that time. There was grace for the people of God in that time in this sense. There were people who lived in Babylon who were able to raise very high in the ranks, up to some of the highest ranks of the Babylonian Empire. If we read about Daniel and his three friends, we see that they did very well there.
They’re supposed to be obedient to the king that is over them in that time. But what must have been going on in the minds of those people at that time? They’re thinking, does God not love us? Is God through with us? What are we to make of all of this?
And it’s at that point that we have Daniel giving this passage, that he’s going to give a new covenant. Days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. What we have then is, in this prophecy, a declaration of what’s going to come in the future. They’re going to come back.
But do we remember what we talked about in weeks past about fulfillment of prophecies? read about Isaiah talking about talking about the Okay, I’ll explain this in a moment. Has anyone read in Isaiah the Immanuel prophecy? Yes, what do you think about that Immanuel prophecy?
That a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and he shall be the king. Well, here, see, Israel, remember the prophecy Yes. Well, now this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We have a king from the line of David that reigns forever and ever. The prophecy in Isaiah, the one interesting thing though is the word virgin is really usually goes back to the Hebrew word for young woman. foretells the incarnation, the coming of a great king. And then we begin to see in this latter part of the Old Testament this scene running through of a messiah or a great king coming to his people. You’re right.
But notice that you skipped to something that talks about a, it’s a prophecy of Jesus Christ. But it seems as if, as you read it, there is an immediate fulfillment, because he goes to his wife, he talks with her, and he has a child with her. There seems to be this double fulfillment where it’s in the local context, it’s fulfilled for him, but then it’s fulfilled ultimately in Christ. or a similar thing going on, where a promise is made to David, you’ll always have a son. And who is that son, at least in the typological sense? Who is that? What’s that?
Solomon. Thank you, don’t be bashful. It’s Solomon. But it’s ultimately pointing to Christ. It’s ultimately pointing there. We see this a lot where there’s double fulfillment. The same kind of thing is going on in Jeremiah 31. We have a promise that God’s going to bring his people at the end of 30 years. We know that the Persians take over the Babylonians. That happens in our Bible. That’s why Esther is with the Babylonian, excuse me, with the Persian people. But ultimately, the people come back 70 years later under whom? Ezra and Nehemiah. This is what’s going on in our Bible.
So there’s an immediate localized fulfillment, but we have an eschatological fulfillment. We have the fulfillment that happens with the time of Christ. That’s what we want to see here. So God keeps his promises, he keeps his promises to the people at that time, but For more than that, he keeps his promises to the true Israel, which is those who were of faith, which the Old Testament Israel was composed of people who are of faith and also people who were not.
So any questions on that? Any thoughts at all before we move on? Yes, Mark. when you said about Ezra and Nehemiah? Yes. When you said about the Babylonian thing, when I was hanging last week, I remembered Mr. Jericho of Akshon and Ezra at 458 B.C. and Nehemiah at 425 B.C. And then after that, You’re right. Thank you for adding that. Yes, those are the specific years. What’s that? Go ahead. That was in the hymnal? Which hymn? 147. 147. The Redeemer shall come. Isaiah 59, 20. Right? Good. But yes, you’re absolutely right. You’re on the right track. Thank you.
All right, now, looking at the specifics of this prophecy, Let’s see what is going on. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when he will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Now, let’s just stop right there. The house of Israel and the house of Judah. What are we to make of this when we think of this in a and an eschatological fulfillment. Is this literally made, the fulfillment made to Israel and to Judah? Anybody? Yes, Chris. I should say, obviously not. is made to the true Israel, the true descendants of Abraham, those who believe in Christ. You are absolutely correct, yes. What is happening is, oftentimes the Old Testament prophets write in such a way that their local context will understand things.
He doesn’t come out and say, At least here, he doesn’t come out and say, there’s going to be a replacement in a sort of your national status. He doesn’t say it in that way. If we comb through all of scripture, then it really ends up saying that. Because if we think about the way that God works and the way that God speaks, he is not looking simply for a people who are of a certain genealogy. He’s not looking for people who do certain religious exercises. God doesn’t want anything to do with that if the heart is not invested in these things.
So we have, in a typological sense, a prophecy, really, that there is going to be a new Israel, or a new Judah. And he says, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them. There he says, the covenant, this future one, is not going to be like the past.
Now, where is the fault with the past? Is it with the covenant? Was there something wrong with the covenant that it needs to be replaced? Chris? No, the problem was not with the covenant. The problem was with the covenant keepers. Yes, exactly. The covenant was good in and of itself. You’re absolutely right. The people were the covenant breakers, and that is in here. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which, Chris, they broke, you’re absolutely right, although I was a husband to them. But see, this is faultless, his law, his covenant is faultless.
Now, don’t misunderstand me, it’s not, we wouldn’t say that that old covenant was sufficient unto itself, because it was, if we go back to the Bosnian biblical theology tree that we’ve talked about, you start with a seed or an acorn, and the tree is growing and growing and growing. At any point on these covenants, these old covenants, at any point on those, the tree is not fully grown. It’s not until we get to this point, it’s not until we get to the time of Christ that it is where it always intended to go. But we would not fault God at all for, by saying that there was insufficiency It was, I mean, the gospel was there in the Old Testament, the old covenant.
Our Westminster standards make that very clear, that the gospel was preached to them through the promises, the types, the sacrifices, the prophecies, all of those things. Then it begins to talk about this new covenant, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days. declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
So, he’s saying the past covenant is, the previous covenant is passing away. Though it was good, it wasn’t sufficient. He doesn’t speak against the passcode. In fact, there’s something that is continuing, and that is we have the two tablets, right, with the 10 commandments. Sufficient for that time, but this time, There’s a difference. A difference is that those are going to be on the heart of the people.
The Ten Commandments were not on the heart of the people of the Old Covenant. On a few, they were, but on the vast majority of Not that we’ve got a census or anything like that, but you read the broad strokes of the Old Testament, they were unfaithful. That’s why they were sent out. That’s why they needed this anticipatory prophecy that says, okay, you’re going to be gone in 70 years, but ultimately, something amazingly new is going to happen.
I’m going to put the law of God upon the heart. Now, about the idea, about the issue of these people and the law of God that is upon heart in this time, and this is ultimately talking about you and I, our consciences, knowing the law of God, our consciences, bearing witness to the law of God, our conscience is accusing us. This is talking about our time, and it’s really speaking especially of the people who are ultimately going to be in heaven, those who are of the new heaven and the new earth. But what are we to make, though, of this idea that the new covenant will have the law of God upon our hearts, which it does.
Did David not have the law of God on his heart? Did Moses, did the other of the covenant people? Good, I’m glad. But then, if they did, then why is this prophecy here? That is, if they had the law of God on their hearts, David and some other people, then why is it, or let me just ask, how is it that this prophecy adds anything?
Not like the covenant which I made with them, their fathers in the day I took them by the hand, but this is the covenant I will make with them. I will put my law within them and on their heart. I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Now, I agree with you. David had it. Some of the other people had it. But if they had it, then what makes the new covenant special? Why is the promise if it’s already there? Go. Go for it. That’s true, but David was circumcised, and he had the law of God on his heart.
I am, and I’m saying, what does the new covenant add that the old covenant didn’t, because we believe in this time, we have the law of God written on our hearts, and we all agreed that certain people seem to have the law of God written on their hearts in the Old Testament.
You see, we kind of, I wonder if we’re getting bound up in a sense. There’s something interesting going on. We want to say that the covenant of Jeremiah adds something, which it does, but then we say, what does it add? The law of God in the heart. But certain people already had that. So why do we need this covenant? We had two hands raised, and this is good. We’re thinking. Mr. Notarangelo. Holy Spirit is part of what? That’s right.
And you’re on to something because after the cross, we have Pentecost, which is a once for all act of God. to give the Spirit to the people. Yes, there’s a major change that happens in the church, what we understand, what we know. The Holy Spirit comes down upon us, but we wouldn’t wanna say that the Holy Spirit was not active in the Old Testament, right? David says, don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. The Holy Spirit falls on certain people, Samson. Yeah, so the Holy Spirit’s active during this time.
So, yes, you’re on the right track. Anyone else? Yes, Ceil. Well, without Christ shedding his blood, the other was a shadow of a type, but there never could have been the law written on our hearts Yes. Okay. Very good. On the right track. Let’s go a little bit further. Up the… Oh, go ahead.
There is no center, it’s all over the world, Christ, I mean, the people of God are now. I think when Jesus said, wherever two or three of you are gathered in my name, I am in your midst. It doesn’t have these confined walls, or we don’t have a center to come to, to see what people see as back then. Yes, you’re right, and I very much appreciate that answer. You’re right because the Old Covenant was centered in a geopolitical, geographical area, and the New Covenant is not centered in a physical area. It is in a spiritual area. It’s situated where? In heaven. It’s situated in the Jerusalem that is above, that is free. Galatians chapter 4. But the question is, though, before us, what does the new covenant add concerning the heart? If we have the law of God written on our hearts, and so does David, let’s go even further,
34. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. He’s saying that the new covenant’s going to come along, and it’s going to be such that A teacher is not needed. A teacher is not necessary. That’s what the new covenant is going to bring.
Because everybody’s going to have the law of God written on their hearts. Now, I ask again, what does the new covenant add that they didn’t have? Because we have teachers. And we have the law of God written on our heart. Pastor Dan’s a teacher, I am. We have many people who are teaching right now in different morning instruction classes. We have Mr. Vivaldi here, he’s going to preach, he’s a teacher. But they had teachers back then. So what are we to do with verse 34 that says, ultimately, we’re not going to need any teachers anymore? The Some people have had a number of different answers to this. What is it that it adds? What does it bring?
I don’t think anyone was it. with excuse back then. They wouldn’t be able to say, you know, someone is on judgment day, they’re, you know, an Edomite from the Old Testament, and they say, I’m not accountable to this because I didn’t have the law right. Universal culpability hadn’t been invested yet, so. I’m not sure that would work, but I think we’re all on the right track.
Some would say, and Robertson talks about someone who brings out the idea that no one is going to teach his own ideas anymore. He’s not going to teach really from his own resources anymore. Yeah, it’s just kind of strange. I don’t get that from, no man will need a teacher, no one will need to say, know the Lord, for they’ll all know me. I don’t think that seems, does not seem to be talking about that. It’s a little bit strange.
What about, ultimately what we want to see is this, David, excuse me, Jeremiah is talking about the new covenant in very large terms. The word is not coming to me, but basically that he’s speaking about it in a superlative way. He’s speaking about it, not in a literal way, not that we’re ultimately going to need no teacher, but he’s using stronger language maybe than is necessary, at least for our time, because we should understand, if I had more room, or if I could turn this this way, understand it, let’s just say that this, this is eternal, Sideways eight this is this is the already And this is the not yet, this is and this is the second coming Right we should understand our age is kind of a two-age structure that the Old Testament prophets spoke about, and it spans from the time of 2,000 years ago all the way into eternity. Sometimes they speak in such a way that they are talking about the already. They’re talking about that which is during or after the first coming of Christ, but is not pertaining specifically to that which comes after he comes. But understand that this is one age in the biblical understanding of it, in the Old Testament understanding of things.
Think about this. If you were hiking and you were looking, you look at a mountain and you say, I’m going to hike to that mountain. You hike to that mountain, you get to it, understand that now I see there’s another mountain that was right behind it. And these two mountains, when I was way back here, they came together. Think of yourself as an Old Testament, put your Old Testament prophet hats on. That’s what they were seeing. They’re seeing these two mountains. They’re seeing the first coming and the second coming. And they’re seeing a man who’s a How do they make these up?
Some people emphasize one, some emphasize another to the expense of each other. But ultimately what we ought to see is that the prophets talk about the age to come and they don’t specify which mountain that they’re talking about. Ultimately I think what he’s saying is that Jeremiah is pointing even past this time even to the time, the not yet, this is the eternal state, the time after Christ comes. Now the question is though, we still have that nagging question, four minutes left, Mark, four minutes. We have the nagging question of what does it add? What does it add if David already had the law of God written on his heart? What does it add? Well, it adds this.
Ultimately, this is the fullness of time. This is the time that all the prophets spoke about, Peter says, when he’s preaching. Acts 3, I think it’s 24, it might be 28, but he says, all the prophets foretold these days. And if you read the first epistle of Peter, 10 through 12, he says that all the prophets were looking ahead, trying to discern, trying to understand what manner of man would come, what was going to happen.
They were talking about these days. So understand that we who are in the New Testament, we who are in the New Covenant era, it’s not as if we are getting gypped. There are some people who would read their Old Testament and say, I wish I had been able to see the Red Sea parted. We ought not to think that because those things are all pointing to the kingdom that we are in right now. And what we understand is that this kingdom that we are in is what all the prophets were speaking of and how is it then David and the others had the word, the law written on their hearts.
What we see is, what we ought to see, I think, we’d be open to other understandings, but I think we haven’t, is that that which happens in this time is applied to people somewhat backwards. We could say retroactively applied to David, Esther to Mordecai to, I mean, name your Old Testament saint. It’s retroactively applied to those people. And when we talk about biblical theology, it’s helpful for us to talk about what is called an intrusion.
An intrusion is, just for our purposes, something from another time that comes in upon the people. In the same way that when we read our Old Testament, God sometimes brings Judgment Day down upon people like the two sons of Aaron, sons of Levi, in Leviticus chapter 10, they offer strange fire and God just zaps them there. Judgment Day has intruded upon them. Instead of God just letting them get away with it, he brings Judgment Day to… The intrusion, we could say, is transepochal. It goes from one epoch to another epoch and just brings judgment down upon them. That’s an intrusion.
Intrusion’s not only a bad thing, it is also a good thing, because we see Robertson, other biblical theologians, that this time period that we live in, the high point of revelation, because we’re in the fullness of time, all the other times were the partialness of time, the fullness of time, Christ died, Christ comes, born of a woman, and The application of this is given to the Old Testament saints.
So it was not there, ultimately. Insofar as it was there, it was our time, the time between the comings of Christ being showered down upon them in their grace, in the grace of God. Now, it is 1040, so we ought to end. We still have, I’ll just say this, we still have one copy of Christ of the Covenants that may make its way into the library over there for someone to still to buy those books that are out there by the bathroom.
But I hope you have enjoyed this. I certainly have. It’s amazing when we see the way that God has structured his word. He has structured it in time periods and he has structured it in terms of covenants. And all of these covenants are just marching forward until they get to the time of Christ, the Christ of the covenants. It’s just remarkable. I’ve enjoyed this book, I hope Those who have read it have as well. Also, I hope that those who didn’t have time to read it weren’t able, that you enjoyed the discussions and the lectures. I’m also very excited about Gerhardus Voss reading that. Let’s pray and let’s prepare our hearts for worship and for the Lord’s Supper. Let’s pray.
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