Today we looked at the fifth and final Covenant of Promise in our Old Testament Sunday readings. The text is Jeremiah 31:31-33, sometimes referred to as "the gospel before the gospel." This is a prophesy of the good news of God before it is fully realized in Jesus Christ. It is the promise of "the new covenant of the heart."
This fifth covenant of promise is some 700 years after the previous covenants we looked at. Israel had entered the promised land, built a great kingdom under David, and built the temple under King Solomon. However, by the time of Jeremiah, all of this had unraveled. The kingdom had divided into two and the neighboring Babylonians had conquered Israel and Judah, and taken many Jews into exile. Jeremiah saw this as a judgment against the people because of their unfaithfulness to God. He compares the broken covenant to a broken marriage covenant between a man and a woman.
But despite this unfaithfulness, God does not divorce His people or send them away. Instead, he promises a new covenant. In the new covenant, God gets very personal, promising to write his law on their hearts. And in the new covenant, God promises to forgive and forget the sins of the past. Despite all their failures, God forgives and forgets what has taken place in the past.
We believe that this new covenant is fulfilled in Jesus. In fact, when Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper, as he gives the wine he says, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." In Jesus, God put's God's Spirit in our hearts. In Jesus, God forgives and forgets forever our past sins. We may have difficulty forgetting and forgiving our past, but God has already done so. Thanks be to God for the new covenant, fulfilled in Jesus for us. May this new covenant guide our lives this day and always!
No comments:
Post a Comment