Jeremiah 31:31-37
(Vs.31) “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. (Vs.32) “It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. (Vs.33) “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. (Vs.34) “No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD ,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD . “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Vs.35) “This is what the LORD says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar- the LORD Almighty is His name: (Vs.36-37) “Only if these decrees vanish from My sight,” declares the LORD, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.”This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject the descendents of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.”
Introduction:
Today replacement Theology is spreading like wildfire throughout Christendom with its denominational structures. While it used to be taught in only certain denominations holding to reformed theology including the Lutheran, the reformed Calvinistic and Roman Catholic churches, it’s now becoming more widespread at an ever increasing rate.
This brand of ‘Theology’ that teaches that the Christian Church has replaced Israel has been further fuelled by the brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 which was acknowledged by the mainstream Media, however, the whole ‘Palestinian’ issue remains the focal point, an issue not endorsed in scripture where God clearly gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people through the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be for them as an everlasting possession (Genesis 17:7-8, 15-22). The tragedy of October 7, 2023 forced people to voice their views on Israel many of these views were pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel and even from many within Christendom. While acknowledging the tragedy they still have a bias against Israel having been ‘indoctrinated’ by the ‘fake news’ and prejudice against Israel coming from the mainstream media by and large.
When it comes to the Biblical understanding of God’s end-time plans and purposes for Israel the default reaction of many within the wider Church is to ignore this topic altogether while others just put it into the “too hard basket.”
The sad reality is that hatred of Jewish people is the unfortunate result of Replacement Theology, unloaded upon wider Christendom by Augustine (354AD-430AD) and the Latin and Greek Church fathers that started reinterpreting scripture through the lens of a Greco-Roman mindset when approaching scripture and distancing Greco-Roman Christendom from its Hebraic roots, not only within Europe over the following centuries, but also within the middle-Eastern Orthodox denominations. One proponent of replacement theology was Martin Luther whose virulence against the Jews became widespread even to the point where his theology related to the Jews centuries later influenced Adolph Hitler.
Many in the Replacement Theology camp claim that the current nation of Israel is just like another pagan nation. They say the Jews are not God’s chosen people. Why? Because they have brought into this erroneous ideology of those who started teaching that the Church has replaced Israel and that because of Israel’s disobedience to God and their rejection of the Messiah our Lord Jesus God rejected them. Replacement Theology also ignores Scripture verses that clearly outline God’s plan to restore and save Israel as a nation at the end of this present age and also teach that the Millennium is not a literal 1,000 years.
Added to this, those proponents of Replacement Theology have to somehow spiritualise clear promises made to the Jewish people to restore them to the land of Israel and apply them to the Christian Church, hence saying that God has finished with Israel as a nation. Their view can be likened to trying to shave a wooden square peg to make it fit into a perfectly round hole!
See the article on this website titled; “Why there must be a Messianic Millennial Kingdom”
Let’s not forget the Messiah is Jewish, the first Century Body of Messiah was Jewish, the Old Testament scriptures were Jewish, and as the Canon of the New Testament was being finalised as the Spirit-Breathed Word of God by the Church the letters and the gospels and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation in the Bible were all written by Jews. Luke was an exception but a Proselyte (a Gentile convert to Judaism).
Added to this, the method of interpreting the scriptures in the New Testament era was according the Jewish way of thinking and not according to a western mindset. This matter of interpreting scripture also applied to the Jewish way of understanding Biblical prophecy and the end-times. After Constantine the Roman Emperor supposedly was converted and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Emperor things began to change and over the following centuries the way of interpreting scripture also started to change as well.
Now this study is not aimed at discussing Replacement Theology as such but to show that God has not finished with Israel as a nation and that His eternal plan was to spiritually graft Gentile New Covenant believers into the Commonwealth of Israel (Romans 11:17-18) (Ephesians 2:11-22). We will see that on the day of Pentecost that David’s fallen tabernacle was restored, a restoration that will come to its complete fulfilment at the end of this present age. Let’s begin…
(Jeremiah 31:31-37) Exposition
(Vs.31) “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
It is a fact that if you ask many Christians today this question; “With whom was the New Covenant made?” Sadly many would say with the Church. Not that they are Biblically ignorant, but because they have been taught that the Church has replaced Israel and that all of the promises God made to the Jews now apply to the Christian Church. Not only this, but this Replacement Theology has in many cases turned them to rejecting the Jews as God’s people.
In this prophecy of Jeremiah we are specifically told that the New Covenant would be cut with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah which was the Everlasting Covenant cut once and for all time through the shed blood of the Messiah our Lord Jesus, the Passover Lamb sacrificed for the sins of Israel and for the whole Gentile world for that matter (Matthew 26:28) (Matthew 1:21) (Luke 22:20) (John 1:29) (1 Corinthians 5:7) (Hebrews 7:26-27; 9:11-28).
When you read about Israel as a nation in the Old Testament scriptures there were also Gentile believers who were accepted as citizens of Israel but were still subject to the commandments and ordinances God gave to the Israelites.
As we will see God never intended that Gentile believers in Messiah collectively would replace Israel as a nation. In fact Gentile believers share in the blessings given by God to Abraham and to his descendants the Jewish people (Romans Chapter 4) (Galatians 3:6-9). Let’s continue…
(Vs.32) “It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.
Under the Covenant in the Old Testament God gave His laws and statutes to Moses for the people of Israel and we are told that the Ten Commandments themselves were written on tablets of stone by the finger of God (Exodus 31:18.
The law could not save anyone but pointed to the Messiah our Lord Jesus whose blood would atone for sin once and for all time (Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 26-28; 10:10-14). The blood of bulls and goats could only temporarily cover for sin but not deal with the inward problem of sin (Hebrews 10:4). The purpose of the law was to show us our inability to be put right with God by works because we had no capacity to keep them because of the power of sin in us, but also to point us to the Messiah that we might be justified by faith in Him (Galatians 3:21-23).
The blood of the lambs sacrificed in the homes of the Israelites in Egypt on the night of the Passover covered the sin of the people, and by that shed blood they were protected from the wrath of God upon the Egyptians. When God saw the blood on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites He passed over them when the destroying angel put to death the first born of Egypt (Exodus 12:13, 23).
It is important to note that any Egyptian who sheltered under the blood on the door posts of the houses of the Israelites also escaped the plagues. This pointed to the fact that God would also bring Gentiles into the New Covenant to be cut in the blood of Messiah. In the New Testament we are told that as New Covenant believers we are justified and protected from the coming wrath of God by the blood of Jesus (Romans 5:9) And then we read…
(Vs.33) “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.
Under the Mosaic Covenant the people’s sin had to be covered by the blood of bulls and goats but the sacrifice had to be repeated annually. Those who had faith given by the Holy Spirit were certain individuals such as Joshua and Caleb and David and others who trusted God. Some groups were also indwelt by the Spirit such as the 7,000 who did not bow the Knee to Baal in the time of Elijah.
In fact all of the godly Israelite kings, prophets and priests were all indwelt by the Spirit of God. However, the people as a collective community for the most part did not have the permanent indwelling Holy Spirit. Only those individuals who had faith were indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Psalm 51:11) (1 Peter 1:10-11).
People were born again in the Old Testament. When discussing the New Birth with Nicodemus the Lord Jesus clearly told him that he should have known about this spiritual rebirth from above which was called the circumcision of the heart in the Old Testament scriptures (John 3:9-10).
So then God’s intention in giving the Mosaic law was not the means by which sinful men and women could be reconciled to Him, but to point to the Messiah our Lord Jesus, and that only by faith in Him could anyone be declared righteous in God’s sight whether Jew or Gentile (Romans 3:19-30) (Romans 5:1) (Galatians 3:1-14). The New Covenant would see the Holy Spirit write the Law and statutes of God on tablets of flesh, being the inner spirit of men and women who exercised saving faith in the Messiah our Lord Jesus.
As Rabbi the Apostle Paul wrote to the assembly at Corinth; “It is clear that you are a letter from the Messiah, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3).
People were born again by the Spirit during the ministry of the Lord Jesus including the eleven apostles with the exception of Judas of course, the son of perdition (John 17:12). Judas had never been born again even though he also had worked miracles by the Holy Spirit (Luke 9:1-2). As for the other eleven the Lord Jesus said that their names were already written in heaven and that they were spiritually clean through the Word He had spoken to them (Luke 10:19-20) (John 15:3).
Judas was also present when Jesus spoke these words yet Jesus knew from the beginning that Judas would betray Him. Even after His resurrection just before He ascended to the Father he personally breathed on them and said to them receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:21-23). This was the indwelling of the Spirit, the living water the Messiah offered to the woman at the well (John 4:13-14).
However, the outpouring of the Spirit for witness and service for the Lord Jesus would come on the day of Pentecost (John 7:37-39). On the day of Pentecost the 120 in the Upper room were already born again men and women as the Spirit indwelt them as a well of eternal life (John 4:14).
However on the day of Pentecost they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, not to be saved, but to receive power to witness and to work for the Lord Jesus (Luke 24:48-49) (Acts 1:8) (Acts 2:1-11). Indeed God could now write His law and statutes on the hearts of all who believed as Jeremiah had prophesied.
As a result of the outpouring of the Spirit upon the 120 in the upper room around 3,000 of their fellow Jews also became New Covenant believers followed soon after by another 2,000 Jewish New Covenant believers (Acts 2:41; 4:4). It was after the martyrdom of Stephen and because of persecution that the Jewish New Covenant believers Jerusalem started to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 8:1-8). The Spirit of God in His fullness of power was now available to all who repented , believed and were baptised by immersion and received the Spirit by faith whether Jew or Gentile (Acts 2:37-39) (Galatians 3:14).
It was at Jerusalem when the apostles were holding a meeting with James the head Bishop of the Jerusalem being the first among equals, that they recognised from the scriptures that God’s eternal plan was to bring Gentiles into the Tabernacle of David (Israel) which had fallen but was now being rebuilt and restored so that Gentiles could also become citizens of a spiritually revived Israel through exercising saving faith in the Messiah (Acts 15:12-21) (Amos 9:11-12).
On the Day of Pentecost the Spirit was poured out without measure upon a Jewish remnant. The last days had commenced. While we see what happened at Pentecost being experienced by Jew and gentile alike down through the history of Christendom, in the Last of the last days God will once again pour out His Spirit upon Israel which will see a remnant saved along with multitudes of gentiles to enter into the Millennial Messianic Kingdom of God on earth (Joel 2:28-32) (Acts 2:17:-21).
While David’s fallen Tabernacle (Israel) was partially restored at Pentecost, at the end of this age Israel will be fully restored spiritually and nationally. This was the expectation of the early New Covenant assemblies being the Body of Messiah corporately.
What happened on the Day of Pentecost was a partial fulfilment. In the Greek text Peter says that what was happening at Pentecost “was like that spoken of the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). On the day of Pentecost there were no wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke, neither was the sun turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the LORD which clearly points to the Second Coming of the Messiah.
Just before the Lord Jesus comes back people will be given the opportunity to be saved even at the eleventh hour before the clock strikes midnight! (Joel 2:32) (Acts 2:21) Scripture tells us that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). And then we read…
(Vs.34) “No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD ,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD . “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Here we see a reference to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the redeemed being both Jewish and gentile New Covenant believers in the Messiah our Lord Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit indwells and rests upon all who believe they will be individually led and taught by the Holy Spirit (John 15:26; 16:7-15) (Romans 8:9, 14) (1 John 2:20-27).
In that day when Israel as a nation is spiritually restored, God will have forgiven their sins and deliberately chosen to remove from His thinking any remembrance of Israel’s sin and former rejection of the Messiah. As Rabbi the Apostle Paul writes; “I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins…for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25-27, 29).
Indeed what is written in the Tanakh (the Old Testament) will be Israel’s experience. As it is written in the psalms; “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:11-13).
And again it is written in the prophet Micah; “He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). The prophet Isaiah also tells us what God says when he writes, “I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25). Here in these texts they all refer to Israel.
In light of these eternal unchanging scriptures referring to spiritually restored Israel as a nation and her spiritual offspring, being those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus, our Triune God has not forgotten Israel, abandoned them, nor dismissed them from His divine destiny for them as His Covenant people. Has God given up on Israel? Will He renege on His covenant promises made to them concerning their full spiritual and national restoration at the end of this present age? Well we need to read what God Himself says about Israel…
(Vs.35) “This is what the LORD says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar- the LORD Almighty is His name:
The universe itself was created out of nothing that existed. It was when the Eternal Triune God spoke that the universe came into existence being all created by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, the One True God (Genesis 1:1-2) (Psalm 33:9) (Psalm 104:30) (Psalm 148:5) (John 1:1-5) (1 Corinthians 8:6) (Colossians 1:16-17) (Hebrews 11:3) (Isaiah 45:12) (Isaiah 55:11) (Jeremiah 10:12) (Nehemiah 9:6).
He appointed the constellations and everything that exists on earth. The sun, the moon and the stars are still in the universe and the planets still in their allotted place in the universe and will remain as such until the New Heaven and earth are established in the final and eternal state after the millennial age has closed.
Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth, because the old heaven and earth will have passed away. Everything will be made new (Revelation 21:1-7). Until there is the new heaven and earth the constellations and the earth that our Triune God created by the power of His spoken Word will remain. Where Israel is concerned in the Messianic Kingdom they too will remain as a completely redeemed nation and be the Chief nation over all of the nations of the world and Jerusalem the capital city of the whole world with the Messiah reigning on the throne of David (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Micah 4:1-5) (Isaiah 9:6-7). And so what God says about the universe He also says about Israel as a nation.
(Vs.36-37) “Only if these decrees vanish from My sight,” declares the LORD, “will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.”This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject the descendents of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.”
The implication is that these decrees God has mandated in the heavens above and on the earth below will remain in force and the decendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, being Israel, will remain in the land having been fully restored spiritually and nationally. God always remembers His covenant promises, sealed in the blood of the Messiah for all of eternity through the New and Eternal Covenant made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Israel’s spiritual offspring the faithful Body of Messiah, Jew and gentile as one new man in Messiah are also destined to co-reign with the Messiah our Lord Jesus in His Messianic Kingdom for 1,000 years and after that to live forever and ever as His bride spiritually adorned for her husband in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:1-5).
Epilogue
If God cannot be depended upon to keep His promises to Israel as a nation then how can we depend on Him to keep His promises to the Body of Messiah in the New Testament? God always remembers His covenants and what He has ordained and decreed will come to pass. Just as the constellations remain fixed in the heavens so do His decrees remain fixed forever in heaven especially where Israel and the Body of Messiah is concerned (Psalm 119:89).
At present Israel as a nation by and large are still aliens and strangers to their own covenants of promise guaranteed in the Messiah and ratified by His blood. However, things will change where the nation of Israel is concerned. When the Messiah comes in the clouds the Jews still living on earth will see Him and be saved (Zechariah 12:10-13:1).
As Rabbi the Apostle Paul writes concerning Israel; “…the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen (Romans 9:4-5).
And again he writes to the Gentile believers in the assembly at Rome to correct an early embryotic form of replacement theology in their thinking; “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob”; and this will be My covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25-29).
God Himself speaks very plainly through the prophet Isaiah. “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfil My purpose. What I have said, that I will bring about; what I have planned, that I will do” (Isaiah 46:9-11).
In the Messianic Millennial Kingdom to come God will say concerning His people Israel, having been reconciled to the Messiah through a saving faith in Him and in His atoning blood, “No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Selah.
