In The Word
Read: Jeremiah 31:27-40
A New Covenant
27 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of mankind and the seed of animals.28 And just as I have watched over them to uproot them, tear them down, ruin, destroy, and bring disaster on them, so I will watch over them to build and to plant them,” declares the Lord.
29 “In those days they will no longer say,
‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,
But it is the children’s teeth that have become blunt.’
30 But everyone will die for his own wrongdoing; each person who eats the sour grapes, his own teeth will become blunt.
31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 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 they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “For 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 write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.34 They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one 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 wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.”
35 This is what the Lord says,
He who gives the sun for light by day
And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
The Lord of armies is His name:
36 “If this fixed order departs
From Me,” declares the Lord,
“Then the descendants of Israel also will cease
To be a nation before Me forever.”
37 This is what the Lord says:
“If the heavens above can be measured
And the foundations of the earth searched out below,
Then I will also reject all the descendants of Israel
For everything that they have done,” declares the Lord.
38 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the city will be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 The measuring line will go out farther straight ahead, to the hill Gareb; then it will turn to Goah. 40 And the entire valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord; it will not be uprooted or overthrown ever again.”
New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation
Walking In The Word
God said that He would one day restore Israel and things would be different. No longer would the children have to pay for the sins of their fathers. Instead, each person would be accountable to God for his own actions. Because the Israelites broke the first covenant, God would create a new covenant to replace the written covenant given to Moses. This new law would not be written on stone or paper, but on the people’s hearts and minds. God would change the hearts of people so that they would love Him and would desire to do His will. Men would respond to God’s will based on inward desire instead of outside obligation. Additionally, God would give them the power to obey His commands from the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 36:24-32).
Though the method changed from a written, external law to an internal law written on the heart, the goal was still the same – love and devotion to God. “I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). The new covenant did not abolish the requirements of obedience; it simply changed the motivation from obligation to love.
The new covenant was established when Jesus shed His blood on the cross. Any person who puts their faith in Jesus Christ shares in this new covenant. The proof of salvation in the new covenant of Christ is the presence of the Holy Spirit and a desire to obey God’s Word completely. Does this describe you?