Scripture reading: 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.

Sermon text: Jeremiah 31:27-34.

When do you replace something old with something new?

Somehow, I still have trouble overcoming the overwhelming tendency of my rural Southern upbringing: Keep everything until you can’t fix it any more. My sister and I once spent the night with our grandparents and enjoyed helping our grandmother around the farm the next day. Grandma used nails to repair the fence that looked as if they dated from the Great Depression — nearly 40 years before. No one with a different background would ever understand my abilities to patch myriad devices with wire, Super Glue, and duct tape. These abilities come from several decades of practice.

The Jews of Jeremiah’s time may have displayed similar ingenuity, but in one aspect, everyone knew something had to change.

The covenant between God and Israel, which dated from their time at Mt. Sinai at 1446 B.C., lay hopelessly shattered in Jerusalem. Everyone wanted to remember the promises God had given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, but no one wanted to think that God would enact the curses the covenant insured would result from disobedience. God had told the Jews through prophets beginning with Isaiah that their sins would result in conquest and captivity, but the Jews had blissfully ignored the warnings for over 150 years.

Now, the ultimate proof in the warnings lay in the Babylonian army encamped around the city. The Babylonians had already conquered the rest of the nation, leaving the capital city of Jerusalem for last. The prophet Jeremiah had tried to warn the people for decades; now, he could only watch helplessly from the palace courtyard as the Babylonians systematically tightened their siege of the city. Only a miracle from God could save the city, and Jeremiah had already warned everyone in hearing distance that God had no intention of intervening.

In this context, today’s sermon passage could seem oddly out of place. Why talk of a “new covenant” now? If God intended to bring a new covenant, why couldn’t He do so before the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem? If God intended to restore the nation, why didn’t He merely spare them now and save them the horrors of defeat and exile?

Sometimes, humans need resounding evidence that it’s time for something new. Be it a car, computer, or some other contraption, there comes a time when spare parts simply don’t exist. The Jews in 586 B.C. needed evidence that the old covenant was beyond repair. Sin corrupts more thoroughly than rust. The rebellion and perversions and shortcomings of the Jews had accumulated over the centuries, leading God to replace His mercy with justice. God loves His people far too much to let sin run amuck. Israel had gone too far; God had to deal with their sins.

Now, while the Babylonians prepared for their final assault, Jeremiah gave a word of hope to the people. The people still needed a means to relate to God, even if they failed to keep the old way. God would now use Jeremiah to encourage the Jews that He would provide a new means for establishing and maintaining their relationship. God had never forsaken the Jews, and He wouldn’t start with the inevitable Babylonian victory.

Jeremiah told the Jews, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD.” The Jews recognized the phrase “the days” as a code phrase; the phrases “the day,” “the day of the LORD,” or “that day” almost always meant the day of judgment. God’s prophets used these phrases to warn the people that God’s judgment loomed over their heads.

However, Jeremiah now used the phrase to promise comfort. The coming days would not bring judgment and justice; instead, God promised restoration. “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

The Jews could not ignore the evidence that the old covenant, “ the covenant that I made with their fathers,” could no longer apply. God had taken the Jews “by the hand” from Egypt 860 years earlier, leaving that nation a ruin that would take several generations to recover. God made a covenant at Mt. Sinai that promised the Jews generous blessings for obedience. Read the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy and count the blessings God promised to Israel: blessings of abundant crops, of protection from enemies, of fruitful marriages.

Unfortunately, the Jews “broke” the covenant, “though I was their husband, declares the LORD.” God used the marriage metaphor numerous times to describe His relationship with Israel, with Hosea’s marriage serving as the most illustrative example. God had remained faithful to Israel in spite of the nation’s nearly countless incidents of faithlessness over the centuries. If you read the history of Israel in the Old Testament, you can understand why the author of the Chronicles summarized the previous 800 years with these words:

1. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem. The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:14-16).
   

The Jews had matched God’s faithfulness with idolatry, oppression of the poor and defenseless, and empty ritual. At no point could the Jews blame God for breaking His word in the blessings; now, He would keep His word regarding the punishment promised by the covenant.

With the failure of this covenant, God would deliver a new covenant: “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD.” The covenant would come “after those days,” or after the days of punishment through exile and captivity.

God’s new covenant with His people would not appear on tablets of stone, as had the old covenant (Exodus 32, 34). If the Jews wanted to read the actual covenant, they had to go to Jerusalem to see the Temple, in which the stone tablets lay in the Ark of the Covenant. Only the high priest could go into the Holy of Holies to see the Ark, and he would never open the Ark itself. For this covenant, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” The people would innately, instinctively know the new covenant, because the covenant would reside within them, “on their hearts.”

In the new covenant, God would again “be their God, and they shall be my people.” The Jews’ rejection of the covenant had led God to tell the people through Hosea, “you are not my people, and I am not your God” (Hosea 1:9). The people would again live in the comfort of knowing that the God who had disowned them would claim them as His own again.

In the old covenant days, the priests and Levites bore the responsibility of teaching the people about the covenant. In times of apostasy, the prophets often confronted the priests for their failures to teach the Jews the precepts of the Law and to encourage the people to keep the Law. In the new covenant, “no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me.” The people would no longer have to warn each other of the consequences of failure; everyone would know God and follow Him.

Another contrast to the old covenant appears in the next phrase of God’s promise: “from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.” The nation of Israel almost always followed the kings spiritually; godly kings would result in “top-down” revivals in which the king would repent and try to turn the nation around. Godless and faithless kings would actively lead the nation into rebellion against God, quickly undoing the good of the few godly kings. In the new covenant, all the people, regardless of birth, would know God, eliminating the need to follow a monarch spiritually.

Then, Jeremiah gave the greatest promise from God: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” The Hebrew word for “iniquity” refers to perversion, or “twistings” of the law. Every intentional sin begins, in some way, with the person justifying to himself that the rules don’t apply to him. The word for “sin” refers to missing the mark; “I’m too weak,” “I tried, but I couldn’t do it.” God, however, doesn’t accept our excuses, nor will He accept our justifications or explanations.

In the new covenant, God would “forgive” the “iniquity” of the people; He would also “remember the sin” of the people “no more.” Sin separated the Jews from God; now, in the new covenant, God would both restore the people in their relationship and never again allow their sins to affect the relationship.

The people in Jerusalem in 586 B.C. heard these promises and wondered if they would live to see them. History tells us the new covenant did not arrive in their lifetimes. However, I don’t think the Jews facing Babylonian captivity could have understood just how “new” a covenant God would institute.

We need to keep something in mind about our God: He always exceeded our expectations. God’s idea of a new covenant would have astounded the sixth-century Jews. As it was, most of the Jews of the first century A.D. never understood the covenant.

Jeremiah joined practically every other Old Testament prophet in foretelling the coming of an “Anointed One,” or a “Messiah,” that would deal with the Jewish failures of the old covenant and right the wrongs of the people. The prophet Daniel even foretold the exact timing of the Messiah. God again kept His promise, and the Messiah appeared as predicted. The Jewish leadership didn’t recognize Him when He appeared; instead, they saw Him as a threat and colluded with the Romans to crucify Him.

God wasn’t surprised by the crucifixion. He had planned for it, because the new covenant would do more than deal with the Jewish failure to keep the old covenant. The new covenant wouldn’t merely deal with sin; it would also deal with sin’s wages, death itself.

The Messiah, Jesus, fulfilled every prophecy regarding the Messiah, including those that foretold His death. (See Isaiah 53 for one such prophecy.) Jesus’ crucifixion dealt with the sins by atoning for them with His blood. Jesus told His disciples at His last Passover, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25). Jesus went farther than the old covenant by rising from the dead, thereby assuring not only victory over sin but over death as well.

The first covenant came about because of God’s love for Israel. The new covenant, purchased with Jesus’ blood, also demonstrates God’s love: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Romans 5:9-10). St. Paul also wrote, “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

Jesus also exceeded expectations in another vastly superior sense. The old covenant dealt only with God’s relationship with Israel. Jesus’ new covenant opened the door for all humanity to come to God for forgiveness of sins and victory over death. St. Paul wrote to the Ephesian believers of a mystery: “the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). Now, all humanity, regardless of race or nationality, can come to God, confessing Jesus as Lord and believing in His resurrection, and receive forgiveness of sins and victory over death.

The new covenant surpasses the old covenant in every possible way: In the extent of its victory over sin and death, in the extent of its reach to all humanity, and in its duration. When Jesus rose from the dead, He also conquered death for all those who believe in Him. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). Did you notice the good news here? Since Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, all can receive victory over death, all can “be made alive.” St. Paul went on to say to the Corinthians:

1. I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
   

1. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:52-57).
   

St. John wrote in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:3-5).

A new dwelling place; no death, mourning, crying, or pain; and “all things new.” All new, beginning with a new covenant foretold by a prophet in a doomed city. If you’ll confess Jesus as Lord, you, too, can participate in a new covenant that assures you a new life, a joyous life, and — eventually, inevitably — an everlasting life.