Behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah
God speaks here of days still ahead, and of a covenant that will replace the one Israel already had. Three questions follow. Why was a new covenant needed? Who is it for? And what does it mean for readers who belong to neither house named in the verse?
One writer traces the long silence that followed Jeremiah's words:
Century after century passed, and no prophet or messenger said one more word about the new covenant. Had God forgotten it? Had Jeremiah raised false hopes? At last, in an upstairs room in Jerusalem, the Lord mentioned it to His twelve disciples alone, in a way that showed heaven had not forgotten it. He spoke of it as something to expect, something that would happen. But He did not say when. "The days are coming," Jeremiah had said. He spoke of the new covenant as certain, but the timing stayed deliberately open… It was not made before the cross, for the blood it will rest on was not shed until then. It has not been made since the cross, for God has not been dealing directly with Israel and Judah.
The first covenant rested on different ground, and it did not last long:
You could hardly say that the old covenant of law rested on promises at all, though some promises went with it. It rested instead on a bargain. Israel agreed to obey in everything, and God guaranteed certain blessings if they did. Israel broke that bargain almost as soon as they made it, by making the golden calf. The new covenant rests on promises, God's own promises, better than anything the law offered. That marks it off sharply from the old… God's "I will" is what makes it what it is. Everything depends on what God is going to do.
So what stops Israel from breaking the second covenant as they broke the first?
Israel had not kept the first covenant, so God set them aside. But Israel could not break the new covenant, because it did not rest on what they would do, but on what God would do. God would not set out His laws on tablets of stone, as at Sinai. He would put them in their minds and write them on their hearts too… and having remembered their sins at the cross, He would remember them no more.
The verse names two houses that have long been apart:
Notice the added thought here… it is made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The ten tribes of Israel have wandered off. God knows where they are, if we do not, and the time is coming when the whole twelve tribes will be reunited. The staff will become one, God's royal staff in His hand again, when Israel and Judah will be one nation in the land under the terms of the new covenant.
Does a new covenant dishonour Moses and the law he brought? One writer answers from Moses' own words:
It will be no dishonour to the law of Moses that God will establish a new covenant under the Messiah; in fact Moses himself predicted it. He foretold that the Lord God would raise up a prophet like himself — like him, yet greater than him (Deut. 18:15, 18). This prophet would be no greater if he did not bring in a new order of things, that is, the new covenant. Moses brought in the old covenant. Christ will bring in the new covenant.
So where does a Christian reader stand? One writer draws a careful line:
I do not say that we Christians have the new covenant itself. But we do have the blood of the new covenant. We have the foundation the new covenant rests on. The new covenant itself assumes the land of Israel blessed and the house of Israel delivered, but neither of those has become true yet. The new covenant also assumes certain spiritual blessings: the law of God written in the heart, and our sins forgiven. We have received these spiritual parts of the new covenant now, along with other blessings that belong to Christianity alone: the presence of the Holy Spirit, and union with Christ in heaven, which the Jews will not have.
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- Cause. The old covenant was a bargain, and Israel broke it at the golden calf. A new one was needed because man's side had already failed.
- Gift. The mark of the new covenant is God's "I will" — laws written on hearts, not cut in stone, so it cannot be broken as the first was.
- Basis. Its foundation is blood already shed; Christ, the prophet greater than Moses, is the one who brings it in.
- Reach. It is named for the house of Israel and the house of Judah — the twelve tribes reunited in the land, still future.
- Result. Believers today do not hold the covenant itself. They do hold the blood it rests on, and with it forgiveness and the law written within.
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day of my taking them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah.
Jeremiah 31:32 defines the new covenant by what it is not — unlike the covenant Israel broke after God led them out of Egypt. Two questions follow: why did the first covenant fail, and why does God call Himself a husband to people who betrayed Him?
The two covenants run on opposite principles.
Even for the earth and Israel in the millennial day, the Messiah will be present. The new covenant will be made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah in all its literal force. It will bring in such a blessed change that the prophet rightly contrasts it with the condition under Moses. It will be Jehovah undertaking, and therefore sure blessing, instead of a test to prove man's weakness and ungodliness.
The picture behind the phrase is not a legal signing but a parent steadying a small child's first steps.
And what shall we say of the tender, affectionate care expressed in these touching words: "When Israel was a child, I loved him... and it was I who taught Ephraim to walk — He took them upon His arms" (Hosea 11:1, 3). A mother holds her child in her arms as the object of her protecting love and care. She holds its arms when teaching it to walk. God dealt with His earthly people in the same way... But how unsteady and uncertain were their steps, stumbling all the way.
The covenant at Mount Sinai came as a demand written on stone. Failure came quickly.
The covenant made with the people at Sinai was one of demand, presented to them on two stony tablets. If they met these obligations, they were to live. But they could not meet God's demand. So what was appointed to give life became death to them... They could not bear the word when God spoke it in their ears out of the devouring fire. As soon as Moses turned his back, they turned away from God, made a golden calf, and worshipped the idol.
Grace came first; the terms of Sinai came after.
Up to that time, since their redemption from the land of Egypt, they had been under grace. God had borne them on eagles' wings, and brought them to Himself... They accepted the condition offered to them, with death as the penalty for breaking it. From then on they stood on a new footing and relationship with God.
The old covenant had two sides. The new one has only one.
There were two sides to the old covenant — God's and the people's. The people broke their side of the covenant. This compelled God to break His — or rather, to find fault with it, as a way of relating to Himself that could do nothing for the people. There will be only one side to the new. In the old God said, "I will, if you will"; but in the new it is all "I WILL" on the part of God... He will put His law, not upon two stony tablets, but upon the hearts and minds of the people.
Hebrews quotes this verse with different wording at the end. Commentators take both wordings as true sides of one situation.
In Hebrews the quotation follows the Greek Old Testament, where the words are "I showed no concern for them." That is, they had lost divine regard because of their failure. It shows how the Spirit of God uses an Old Testament scripture and adds the truth according to His own wisdom, as He sees it is needed. Looking at the people, how true it was that God could not regard them as under the first covenant! And yet, under that covenant, God truly was a husband to Israel!
The nation that lost everything under the first covenant is the nation promised the second.
Israel only had the first covenant; Israel by grace will have the second. Israel lost their privileges and land under the old covenant. Under the new covenant, Israel will be restored and blessed more than ever, and for ever, in their land.
Even so, the Christian is not shut out today.
No doubt this is true of the Christian meanwhile, for the blood of the new covenant is already shed and ours by faith. But God will apply it to Israel and Judah as such, through His mercy.
- Hand. God's dealing began in tenderness — He took a helpless people by the hand and taught them to walk out of Egypt.
- Demand. At Sinai that grace gave way to terms on stone. Obedience was the condition, and what was meant to give life brought death.
- Broken. The people broke their side, and one broken side ruins a covenant that has two.
- Husband. God still calls Himself their husband. Hebrews states the other true side: under that covenant He could not regard them.
- Undertaking. The new covenant drops the "if you will" and keeps only "I will." It is God's own undertaking, promised to Israel and Judah, with blood already shed and enjoyed now by faith.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith Jehovah I will put my law in their inward parts, and will write it in their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
God here sets out the terms of a new covenant. Israel had broken the old one. So this time He puts His law inside people instead of posting it outside them, and He binds Himself to them as their God. Who is this covenant for? Why did the first one fail? And what does it mean for God to write on a heart?
The old covenant depended on two parties keeping their word. One of them did not.
You could hardly say that the old covenant of law rested on promises at all, though certain promises were attached to it. It rested instead on a bargain: Israel undertook to obey in everything, and God guaranteed certain blessings if they obeyed. The bargain was barely made before Israel broke it by making the golden calf. The new covenant rests on promises, those promises are God's, and they are better than anything offered under the law. That alone marks it off sharply from the old.
Notice how often God says what He Himself will do. He asks nothing in return.
Here you have the new covenant, and it has two marks. The old covenant rested on the condition of obedience. What condition does the new covenant rest on? None at all on their part. Israel will gain no glory from the new covenant, but it has two features that go together. First, God writes His law in the heart instead of writing it on tablets of stone. That is new birth.
The change of writing surface changes what the law does.
The old covenant written on tablets of stone stood as a witness against Israel, because it showed how far short they fell of God's demands. But the law written on the hearts and minds of Israel will show what Israel are for God. In the millennial day His earthly people will treasure God and His word in their hearts, and the will of God will govern their thoughts.
When the law is inside a person, obedience stops being a fight.
God will put His law within them and write it on their hearts, so that keeping it will be as natural to them as breaking it once was. They will come into the light of the knowledge of God with all their sins forgiven and even the memory of them gone. And all by an act of God's sovereign mercy.
God still looks for obedience. He now produces it from inside a person.
God has taken a new way to bring about the obedience He looks for: by the work of Christ, which is the basis of it, and by the gift of the Spirit that followed the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. He does not do it by writing His will in the book of the covenant in ink, or on tablets of stone with His own finger. Instead He has given us a new nature within, which, empowered by the Spirit of God, delights to do His will.
The verse names the house of Israel, and commentators take that naming seriously — the covenant belongs to a nation, in a coming day.
God will make the new covenant openly with Israel. It fulfils the promises He made to Abraham without conditions, 430 years before He gave the law. For this, God must gather Israel back to her own land, and He will confirm the covenant publicly at the same time as the millennial reign of Christ.
Christians are not the party named here. That does not put the verse out of their reach.
I do not say that we Christians have the new covenant itself, but we do have the blood of the new covenant. We have what the new covenant is founded on. The covenant itself assumes the land of Israel blessed and the house of Israel delivered, and neither of those is true yet. It also assumes certain spiritual blessings: the law of God written in the heart and our sins forgiven. Those spiritual parts of the new covenant we have received now.
For a Christian, what is written on the heart is a Person.
As Christians, though the new covenant is still future and belongs to Israel, we already have these blessings in a deeper sense: Christ (not the law) is written on our hearts (2 Cor. 3:3; Rom. 12:2); we have a relationship with God and are 'a people for His name' (Acts 15:14).
- Cause — the old covenant was a bargain, broken almost at once at the golden calf. The new one rests on God's promises instead.
- Condition — there is none. Every clause is "I will," so the glory of it belongs to God, not to Israel.
- Gift — the law moves from stone that accuses to a heart that displays; commentators call this new birth.
- Reach — the covenant is named for Israel and waits for a future day. Yet its spiritual parts — law written within, sins forgiven — belong to believers now, through the blood of Christ.
- Result — obedience becomes as natural as disobedience once was, and God owns a people who own Him.