Today in our journey along Route 66 we are stopping off to visit the prophet Jeremiah...
Author
Traditionally, Jeremiah, a prophet and priest, member of the household of Hilkiah, is thought to be the author of this book. Jeremiah may have been a descendant of Abiathar, priest during the days of Solomon. The Lord commanded Jeremiah not to marry and raise children because the impending divine judgment on Judah would sweep away the next generation. Jeremiah’s closest friend was his faithful secretary, Baruch ben Neriah, who wrote down Jeremiah’s words as the prophet dictated them (36:4-32). It is possible that Baruch was also responsible for the final compilation of the book of Jeremiah itself. And so, a number of modern scholars view Baruch as the author of this book. Chapter 52 is a historical appendix added by a later hand. Modern scholars like Richard Elliott Friedman also believe that Baruch was the compiler of the Deuteronomistic History which covers the books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings.
Date
Jeremiah began prophesying in Judah around 626 BCE, halfway through the reign of Josiah (640-609 BCE). Jeremiah continued prophesying through the reigns of Jehoahaz (609), Jehoiakim (609-598), Jehoiachin (598-597), and Zedekiah (597-586). This was a period of storm and stress when the doom of entire nations—including Judah herself—was being sealed. Ashurbanipal, last of the great Assyrian rulers, died in 627. His successors were no match for Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian empire, who began his rule in 626. Soon after Assyria’s capital city, Nineveh, fell under the onslaught of a coalition of Babylonians and Medes in 612, Egypt (who was no friend of Babylon) marched northward attempting to rescue Assyria, an empire near destruction. King Josiah of Judah made the mistake of trying to stop the Egyptian advance, and his untimely death near Megiddo in 609 at the hands of Pharaoh Neco II was the sad result. (See 2 Chronicles 35:20-24.) Jeremiah lamented Josiah’s death (in 2 Chronicles 35:25). In 605 BCE the Egyptians were crushed at Carchemish on the Euphrates by Nebuchadnezzar. (See Jeremiah 46:2.) Nebuchadnezzar was the gifted general who succeeded his father Nabopolassar as ruler of Babylon also in 605. Babylon had a free hand in western Asia for the next 70 years. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in 605, humiliating Jehoiakim and (according to Daniel 1) carrying off Daniel and his three companions to Babylon. Later, in 598-597, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem again, after which Jehoiakim was heard of no more. His son, Jehoiachin, ruled for only three months. Zedekiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle and son of Josiah, was placed on Judah’s throne by Nebuchadnezzar in 597. Jerusalem was finally destroyed by the Babylonians in 586, Zedekiah’s rule came to an end, and most of the remaining Jews in Judah were taken into exile in Babylon.
Themes
By worldly standards, Jeremiah was a miserable failure. For forty years he served as God’s prophet to Judah, but when he spoke, no one really listened, let alone, obeyed. Jeremiah was poor and underwent severe deprivation while delivering his prophecies. He was thrown into prison (37) and into a cistern (38), and he was taken to Egypt against his will (43). He was rejected by his neighbors (11:19-21), and his family (12:6), the false priests and prophets (20:1-2; 28:1-17), friends (20:10), his audience (26:8), and some of the kings of Judah (36:23). Throughout his life, Jeremiah seemingly stood alone, declaring God’s word of judgment, announcing the new covenant, and weeping over the destiny of his beloved country.
However, in God’s eyes, Jeremiah was probably one of the most faithful prophets in the history of Judah. Jeremiah’s life and ministry reminds us that godly success is defined in terms of obedience and faithfulness. Regardless of opposition and personal cost, Jeremiah courageously and faithfully proclaimed the word of God.
Jeremiah’s book begins with his calling. The next 38 chapters contain prophecies directed at the people of Judah (sometimes referred to using the historic name for all of God’s people: Israel). Chapters 2-20 are general and undated, whereas chapters 21-39 are particular and dated. The basic theme is simple: repent or perish. Because the people rejected God’s message, Jeremiah moved on to predict the destruction of Jerusalem. This terrible event is described in chapter 39. Chapters 40-45 describe events following Jerusalem’s fall. The book concludes with prophecies concerning a variety of nations (46-51) and a historical appendix (52). Note: the oracles of Jeremiah (like those of Isaiah) are not necessarily arranged in chronological order.
One interesting thing to note about the book of Jeremiah is that the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) both present a version of Jeremiah that is about 13% shorter than the longer version found in modern Bibles which follows the Masoretic Text of AD 1000.
Structure
- Call of the Prophet (1)
- Warnings and Exhortations to Judah (2-35)
- Sufferings and Persecutions of the Prophet (36-38)
- The Fall of Jerusalem and its Aftermath (39-45)
- Judgment against the Nations (46-51)
- Historical Appendix (52)
Key Concept—A New Covenant
There are many verses in the book of Jeremiah that are favorites of mine. I wish we had time to talk about all of them today, but we don’t. So, I want to focus on what I think is the most important concept introduced in the entire book. In fact, it is a concept spoken of only by Jeremiah and nowhere else in the Old Testament. It is the idea of the new covenant. Listen for God’s word to you from Jeremiah 31:31-34…
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
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.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people 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.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘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.”
The problem with the people of Judah and their former neighbors to the north, Israel, was that God had made a covenant with them through Moses, but God’s people repeatedly failed to keep the covenant. That is the point of the whole Deuteronomistic History, beginning with the book of Deuteronomy and ending with 2 Kings. According to this history, the reason Israel went into exile, never to return, and the reason Judah was about to go into exile, was because they failed to keep God’s covenant with them, despite repeated warnings from all the prophets.
Now, the Lord announces through Jeremiah that he is going to make a new deal, a new covenant with his people. The Lord says that this new covenant will not be like the old covenant God made with his people when he led them out of Egypt.
How will this new covenant be different? First, the Lord says that he will put his law in their minds and write it on their hearts. In other words, it won’t be like the law, written on tablets of stone, working from the outside in. This new covenant will work from the inside out.
Second, this new covenant will work in such a way that no one will have to teach anyone else about it. Again, the new covenant will work from the inside out. This new covenant will spell the difference between religion and relationship. All religions basically work the same way. They work from the outside in. Most religions have books. To be an adherent of the religion, one must read the appropriate Scriptures or at least have an educated person teach the Scriptures to you. But the Lord says here that a day is coming when that won’t be necessary anymore. No teacher will have to admonish people saying, “Know the Lord,” because everyone will know the Lord, from the least person, to the greatest.
Obviously, we aren’t there yet. I still have a job, for one thing! But that is where the Lord says, through Jeremiah, that we are headed. Or at least, that is where God’s people, Israel/Judah, are headed. There is no hint yet that this knowledge of the Lord will be for everyone, for all nations. But when we get to Habakkuk 2:14 we are going to hear a different story. There we will read, “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Third, this new covenant will be different from the old in that it will provide forgiveness.“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
This is a striking statement. So striking is it that we must ask, “What does it mean? How can God forget anything? Isn’t God omniscient?”
In fact, the Lord does not say here that he will forget anything. Yes, there is the modern phrase you may have heard, “When God forgives, God forgets.” While that statement may have found its inspiration in Jeremiah 31:34, that is not actually what this verse says.
Not remembering is different than forgetting. Forgetting is passive. That is what we as human beings do because our minds are weak and imperfect. As I often tell people, “My mind is like a sieve.” Or as the saying goes, “In one ear and out the other.” But God’s mind is not like that. If the Bible is correct, then God is omniscient. His mind is not weak, or feeble in any way. He can never forget anything. God holds all things together in his perfect mind.
So, what does it mean when God says, “I will remember their sins no more.”? This statement conveys a promise. When God forgives, he goes on record saying, “I will not bring your sin up against you anymore.” That is what his not remembering is all about. It is active and not passive. And so, this verse conveys the essential truth that forgiveness is a promise.
That is great news, not only for us as people who need to be forgiven, but for us as people who need to forgive. I cannot tell you how many people I have counseled as a pastor who have told me of their difficulty in forgiving someone else. And one of the problems that countless people have is that they do not have feelings of forgiveness. It is sometimes startling, and sometimes a relief to people when I tell them, “You don’t have to feel forgiveness to forgive someone. Forgiveness is a promise, not a feeling.” You see, our forgiveness is to be modeled on God’s forgiveness. When we forgive someone else, we go on record saying that we will not bring that sin up to them, or to God, or to ourselves, ever again. The challenge comes in keeping the promise. What do you do when you make the promise of forgiveness and then you find yourself ruminating on the offense the very next day? Well, I can imagine what you do. But let me tell you what God led me to do one time.
Many years ago, I got myself into a sticky situation where I had caused offense to several people. I sought their forgiveness and some of the people I had offended had a hard time forgiving me. There wasn’t much I could do about that, but the fact that they had a hard time forgiving me led those same people to treat me in ways that I did not think were quite fair. So, now I was offended. But what to do? In that sticky situation I did not think I could approach the people who had offended me without making the whole situation worse.
To compound the problem, I was having difficulty praying during that juncture in my life. I had always been taught to pray in my own words, but now the words would not come. Nonetheless, I committed to praying the Lord’s Prayer every day. And one day as I was praying that prayer I came to the line where we all pray, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Jesus’ clear teaching is that if we don’t forgive others then we ourselves will not, cannot be forgiven. You see, lack of forgiveness creates what I can best describe as a frozen pipe, a frozen channel. Lack of forgiveness freezes the relational conduit, not only between us and other people, but also between ourselves and God. So, if we want to receive God’s forgiveness, we also must forgive.
I knew this to be true, and when I came to that part of the Lord’s Prayer about forgiveness, I realized that I lacked forgiveness toward certain people. Feeling that I could not approach those people directly, I decided to pray about it. I named each of the people before God in prayer and said, “Lord, I forgive so and so, and so and so, etc.” I kept doing that every day when I prayed the Lord’s Prayer until I knew I had let go of the offense. It took time. The process was gradual. But it worked. If you are having trouble forgiving others, I commend this practice to you.
Now, before we close our time together, I want to point out what the New Testament has to say about this new covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31:31-34. Jesus speaks of this new covenant during the last supper that he shared with his disciples. In Luke 22:20 we read…
In the same way, after the supper he [Jesus] took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
Somehow the new covenant promised hundreds of years before through Jeremiah is inaugurated through Jesus and his blood shed on the cross. And the benefits of this new covenant are received sacramentally by believers in Jesus when they partake of the elements of bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper.
This is such an important point that Paul repeats this same statement of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11:25. Then in 2 Corinthians 3:6 Paul says…
He [God] has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
I believe that all of us as believers in Jesus are called to be ministers of this new covenant, to announce it and share it with others. And this new covenant works by the power of the Holy Spirit, not by the power of a written letter. It works from the inside out.
So, the new covenant is spoken of by Jesus who inaugurated it, by Paul who proclaimed it, and we also see it mentioned in a third place in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews. The writer to the Hebrews is constantly comparing the new covenant with the old and telling us how much better it is. In Hebrews 8 beginning with verse 6 he writes,
But in fact, the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said [then the writer to the Hebrews goes on to quote the passage in Jeremiah 31 that we have read today, and he concludes…]
By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.
These verses in Jeremiah and in Hebrews are the very reason why we talk about the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament”. It’s another way of saying “the Old Covenant and the New Covenant”. Then in Hebrews 9:15 we read…
For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
That’s how we receive forgiveness for our sins. We receive it through Jesus’ death on the cross. As it says in Hebrews 12:24, Jesus is “the mediator of a new covenant” and his blood “speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”
Would you like to get in on this new deal, this new covenant? Would you like to experience Jesus’ forgiveness for your sin. If so, all you need to do is say to Jesus, “I want to receive the forgiveness you bought for me, Lord Jesus, by your death on the cross.” Let’s pray…
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