Sunday: Behold the Days are Coming…
Read Jeremiah 31:31-34 and answer the following questions:
1.Who instigates the covenant?
2.Whose law is being talked about here? What law is this?
3.Which verses stress the relational aspect that God wants with His people?
4.What act of God in behalf of His people forms the basis of that covenant relationship?
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It is clear: The new covenant is not something much different from the old covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai. In fact, the problem with the Sinai covenant was not that it was old or outmoded. The problem, instead, was that it was broken (see Jeremiah 31:32).
The answers to the above questions, all found in those four verses, prove that many facets of the “old covenant” remain in the new one. The “new covenant” is, in a sense, a “renewed covenant.” It is the completion, or the fulfillment, of the first one.
Focus on the last part of Jeremiah 31:34, in which the Lord says that He will forgive their iniquity and the sin of His people. Even though the Lord says that He will write the law on our hearts and place it within us, He still stresses that He will forgive our sin and iniquity, which violates the law written in our hearts. Do you see any contradiction or tension between these ideas? If not, why not? What does it mean, as Romans 2:15 puts it, to have the law written within our hearts? (Matthew 5:17-28).
Looking at the verses for today, how could you use them to answer the argument that somehow the Ten Commandments (or, specifically, the Sabbath) are now made void under the new covenant? Is there anything at all in those texts that makes that point? On the contrary, how could one use those texts to prove the perpetuity of the law?
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Jeremiah provides us with the first mention of the idea of a new covenant. I'm presenting the passage here in its entirety in a modern translation because I think it makes the big picture clear:
Clearly, God wants heart-based, not rule-based obedience. It is not an argument about which laws are binding or what is done away with at the cross. It is the strategic plan for living a saved life now; not a guide to acquiring heavenly real estate.
It is interesting that the only other mention of the new covenant are found in Hebrews and they are clearly referring back to the words of Jerimiah.
Jeremiah has a couple of other things to say that clearly relate to the idea of the new covenant and its big ticket issues:
And finally Micah's message:
When we get this love for God and one another right, then we have a case for keeping Sabbath. Otherwise, all we have is a cerebral argument
We sometimes summarize the 2nd renewed Covenant with God's people in the following theological terms:
Sanctification
Reconciliation
Knowledge of God
Justification
However what do they really mean and how do they affect our daily lives? Secondly why are they listed in that order? And thirdly are these concepts also found in the 1st Covenant with Israel?
Today we have two class of Sabbath keepers.
1.The law being inscribed in their heart is an internal matter that is felt only by that faithful believer whose heart pumps that sanctified blood and he knows who he is.
2.This class is merely a Saturday keeper and goes to keep the day because the Bible says so.
People with sanctified blood acts in mysterious ways that is only provoked by the spirit that works with this blood type. You might mistaken them as being radical to your religious class#2.
“Behold the Days are coming ..” is spoken as Israel suffers through her time of exile, having been scattered to all nations and isles afar off. He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock– Jer.31:10KJV.
How will God change the heart and mind of Israel when He returns them to their homeland, what will make the difference between the old Covenant and the new one?
Israel’s Shepherd will transfer His laws from the tablets of stone and put them in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.. Jer.31:33KJV.
Whose law is this? It is the Creator God's law, transfering it through His spirit onto the willing believer’s heart and mind. The new Covenant reflects God’s original guidance for righteous living as it works in us, establishing in us the new heart and mind by our faith. Now we can know God with our heart and mind as we live according to his Will.
Now, everyone searching for God’s Truth and Righteousness can recognize His voice. This is the crucial difference between the old Covenant’s ways of transmission of His laws versus the new one. Now God’s laws are directly accessible, imbedded in our conscience; being our companion wherever we are to alert us or to confirm us in our ways.
Rom.2:13-29KJV speaks to the difference between the law written on tablets of stone verses the law written on the hearts and minds of man.
v.14-15 -”For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts between themselves while accusing or else excusing one another;
v.28-29 - ”For he is not a Jew, which in one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Hello Brigitte Humphrey,
Your contribution really helped me get the Sunday Lesson very well but I want a little more light.
You said:
and then you said
you went further to say that
How was it then under the Old Covenant?
I appreciate your inquiry, Bawa – After reading Rom.2:13-29, I understood the context of Rom.2:15KJV better. My comments quoted those Scripture verses which state the difference between observance of the letter of the law versus observance by the spirit of the Law best – the old Covenant versus the New Covenant.
You ask: How was it then under the Old Covenant?
As I understand it, this depended on the person either living by the spirit of the law – establishing a Father-Child relationship with God - or just living/observing the letter of the law/covenant by obedience to the law and not to the Lawgiver. Rom.28-29 states this best - the law gradually became separated from its Lawgiver.
Living under the Old Covenant - observing the letter of the law became limited to fulfilling the demands of the on stone written words, promoted and enforced by the priesthood and the religious system of that time through punishment; the reward was not immediately observable, but the punishment administered through their religious system was. In a way, the Law became their god.
But even then, living by the Spirit of God’s law had the power to built the individual’s personal relationship with the Lawgiver. Yes, God's transformative spirit was at work at that time as well, but the heart and mind of most of them were still encased in the hard shell of the old ways of living and religious observances.
The new Covenant -
The Father’s spirit endeavors to inspire us to live His way because we love Him, are greatful in return for our salvation, not out of obedience through fear of retribution or some type of reward.
He wants us to experience His Glory by the motivation of faithful love for Him as His plan for our Salvation is being worked out in our inner parts, our heart and mind.
Now, through Christ Jesus’ living testimony, the aim of the law has become clear. It is meant to establish the personal, spiritual, transformative relationship with the Father through His Son and His way of Life and Light which transforms us into His Image.
His way becomes our ‘natural’ way as we are being sanctified.
I know I am posting this a bit late. What I do not understand is why this lesson does NOT deal with Ezekiel 36:16-37. It gives the back ground and reason for the New Covenant.
They, His people brought shame upon the God they CLAIMED to serve no matter where they were! God had to vindicate HIS name because of HIS people! Has anything changed?
Behold the Days are Coming…..
My question. Those words were spoken more than 2500yrs ago. The days are coming, but are we still looking for those days? Has those days here already and we miss the 'boat'? What does those words in Jer 31:31-34 meant, and at what time is its fulfilment, or were they already fulfilled, or are they ongoing? Or are the yet to come?
To me, when did/does the New Covenant began? All of those words and language points to Jesus who would have/came and was a perfect example, showing us that it is possible to live a life without sin although we are sinners by birth and by nature. Christ came as humans with all the tendencies to sin, yet he choose not to sin. He was the perfect example and the perfect fulfillment of have the laws dwell within his heart. No one told him how to live or how to keep his father laws. He lived a sinless life. We, humans choose to sin. Many times we doubt the power of Jesus to keep us from sinning.