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.
after-note: DELETE
- 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.
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
Jeremiah's picture of the new covenant ends with two promises. No one will need to be told to know God, and God will not call their sin to mind again. Who is this promise for, when does it happen, and what can a Christian take from it today?
This verse closes a covenant made only of God's promises. Commentators set it against the agreement made at Sinai.
You could hardly say the old covenant of law rested on promises at all, though some promises went with it. It rested instead on a bargain. Israel promised to obey in everything, and God guaranteed certain blessings if they obeyed. Israel broke the bargain almost as soon as they had agreed to it, by making the golden calf... God's "I will" is the mark of the new covenant. Everything turns on what God is going to do, and so on what Israel is going to be and have.
Nothing here rests on what people do, so this promise cannot break as the first one did.
As I have said, it is no longer "if you will, I will." It is all "I will," "I will," "I will." And this is sure and everlasting. The blood of Jesus is the basis and expression of it.
God names who this covenant is with, and its public making is still ahead.
This is an unconditional covenant that God has said He will make with the houses of Judah and Israel (Jer. 31:31-34). The cross laid the foundation for it... God has not yet made this covenant with Israel. But its principle, sovereign grace, is the principle He acts on now. It sets out the terms on which He is with His people, with the Lord Jesus as Mediator, through whom He secures all the blessing.
Writers connect the moment of that public act with the reign of Christ over the earth.
God will make the new covenant publicly with Israel. It fulfils the unconditional promises He gave Abraham, 430 years before He gave the law. For this, God must first bring Israel back to her own land. He will publicly confirm the new covenant at the same time as the thousand-year reign of Christ.
The order of the phrase matters. So does how far the knowledge of God reaches.
"They shall all know me, from the least to the greatest" — not "the greatest to the least" — that is, Israel will know God not nationally but individually. Is there not a great deal of truth in the new covenant? In the knowledge of God we have the love of God.
Another writer keeps the national side in view, and ties the end of that teaching to forgiveness and a new heart.
What two delightful truths are here! Forgiveness of sins for the conscience, and a new heart that can delight in God and walk in His ways! Because of this, no one will need to say, "Know the Lord." All His people will know Him and love Him... Israel will be born again as a nation, not just certain people in it.
God's silence about those sins is not forgetfulness. Something happened to them first.
Then they will serve Him and know Him with love and with understanding. He has pardoned all their iniquity, and He will remember their sin no more. The atoning work of our blessed Saviour, their Messiah, has put it all away, as Isaiah 53 says. Their sin was remembered at the cross in atonement, and now it will be remembered no more. It is not simply forgotten.
Hebrews takes the last clause of this verse and hands it to the Christian as testimony.
The words of Jeremiah were the words of the Spirit; his writings the writings of the Spirit. The witness of the Spirit to us is found in the written Word of God. The burden of His witness in favour of the believer is, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."
Its practical force appears when set against the yearly ritual it replaces.
"The worshippers once purged... have no more conscience of sins." That stands in contrast to the day of atonement, when God raised the question of sins every year (Lev. 16:34). But now He says, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember" — not once a year but — "no more." Can you say, "The question of my sins has been gone into and settled between God and Christ on the cross; and God says, I will never raise the question of your sins again"?
- Cause: "I will." The old covenant was a bargain, and it broke almost at once. The new one is all God's promises, so it is sure and everlasting.
- Ground: the cross. God does not overlook the sin. It was remembered at the cross in atonement, and so it will be remembered no more.
- Gift: a known God. Forgiveness reaches the conscience and a new heart delights in God, so no one needs telling, "Know the LORD."
- Reach: least to greatest. The order runs upward, not downward. Each person will know God, and the whole nation with them, not just a few in it.
- Result: no more question of sins. The day of atonement raised the question of sins every year. The Spirit now tells the believer that God will never raise it again.
Thus saith Jehovah, who giveth the sun for light by day, the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for light by night, who stirreth up the sea so that the waves thereof roar, -- Jehovah of hosts is his name
Jeremiah has just promised a new covenant written on the heart, with sins forgiven and forgotten . Now God signs that promise with the sun, the moon, the stars and the sea. One question presses: how sure is God's word to a people who broke every covenant they ever made?
The verse is not a change of subject. God attaches His own creation as the guarantee of what He has just said.
This New Covenant is as sure as the ordinances of day and night, of sun, moon and stars, of heaven and earth. God made them; man cannot alter them; so is it with the New Covenant. The "I WILL" of the Unchanging One has fixed it. It must be. Israel and Judah shall be blessed together in Christ, the Surety and Mediator of this New Covenant. All is established in Him.
The ESV calls the moon and stars a "fixed order." Older translations say "ordinances." That word has a set sense in the Old Testament: it is what God has ordered. The quotes below follow the older wording.
This term in the Old Testament generally means what God 'ordered' for His people to observe. "They kept his testimonies, and the ordinance that he gave them" (Ps. 99:7). "You have gone away from my ordinances" (Mal. 3:7). It is also applied to things in creation: God gives "the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night" (Jer. 31:35).
Readers often take the sea here as the Red Sea crossing. One writer says the picture is different:
Compare Jeremiah 31:35, and Job 26:12. "Dividing the sea" is not the Red Sea, but raising it into tumultuous waves.
The ESV follows this sense: God "stirs up the sea so that its waves roar." So the picture is not a past rescue. It is ongoing power over the wildest thing on earth.
The verse ends by naming the speaker. That name says what stands behind the promise.
This carries the meaning, THE LORD of hosts. It occurs over 300 times in the Old Testament... It carries the thought of mighty irresistible power and resource in the hands of the Lord.
Verse 35 sets up verse 36. God ties Israel's survival as a nation to the endurance of the sun and moon. One writer takes that at face value.
Some people spiritualize everything that has to do with Israel. They would do well to look up at those heavens and realize this: as surely as the sun and moon will last, so surely will Israel remain a nation before God.
The same argument settles an old question: has God finished with Israel?
Some in Christendom think that God has cast away Israel and that they are no longer the chosen people. This word of the LORD is a complete answer to them. The Lord attaches a condition. Can anyone measure heaven above, or search out the foundations of the earth below? Only then will He cast off all the offspring of Israel for what they have done. But no one has measured heaven. No one has searched out the depth of the earth. No one ever will. What a faithful covenant-keeping God He is!
The comparison is also about scale. One writer hears grace in it.
May the Lord teach us here something of the heights and depths of His grace. Its heights are even more impossible to measure, and its depths even more impossible to fathom, than heaven above or the sea beneath.
One writer marks exactly where the line falls in this chapter.
These two verses [33, 34] apply to the Christian just as much as they will to the Jew. What follows does not. It does not apply to Christians, nor to the Jews now, for they are not a nation.
One writer ties this covenant to the cup Christians drink at the Lord's Supper.
Believers now are also blessed according to this covenant, for they have believed on Him during the time of His rejection. The Gospel, and the cup at the Lord's Supper both remind us of this. His blood is the blood of the New Covenant, and all the promises of God are Yes and Amen in Him.
- Order. The word behind "fixed order" means what God has ordered — the same word used for what He ordered His people to keep. The stars obey a command.
- Oath. God does not just promise. He puts the sun, moon and roaring sea behind His word. His "I WILL" is what fixes the new covenant, and man cannot alter it.
- Name. He signs it as the LORD of hosts. That name appears over 300 times in the Old Testament. It means irresistible power and resource.
- Test. The claim is public and easy to check: if the heavens fail, Israel fails. Look up, and the promise is still standing.
- Reach. The faithfulness that holds the stars in place also holds a covenant of forgiveness. Its grace runs higher and deeper than heaven or sea.
If those ordinances depart from before me, saith Jehovah, the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
Jeremiah has just announced a new covenant, and he ties it to something no one can move: sun, moon and stars. If that fixed order ever fails, God says, only then will Israel stop being a nation before Him — so can anyone else claim this promise?
The promise about sun and stars is not a stray poem about creation. It seals the covenant announced a few verses earlier. That covenant is unlike the first one, which failed almost at once. Older translations render the "fixed order" of the verse as "the ordinances" of moon and stars.
In fact, the first covenant was broken before its mediator could hand over the tablets of the covenant. The new covenant is a lasting, eternal one, based on an unshakable foundation. It will remain as long as the earth exists ("eternal" is often used in this sense in the Old Testament).
Some read every promise to Israel as a picture of the church. One writer draws a line. The promise of a law written on the heart reaches the Christian. The promise that Israel stays a nation does not.
These two verses apply to the Christian just as much as they will to the Jew. But what follows does not apply to Christians, nor to the Jews now, for they are not a nation.
So the promise does not describe Israel today. It looks on to a day when they stand as a nation before God again. The test is simple, and anyone can run it: look up.
It would be good if those who turn everything about Israel into a symbol would look up at the heavens. Then they would see that just as surely as the sun and moon will last, so surely will Israel remain a nation before God.
The next verse doubles the picture. No one can measure the heavens above or explore the foundations of the earth below. Both pictures reach for something too vast for us.
May the Lord teach us here something of the heights and depths of His grace. Its heights are even more impossible to survey, and its depths even more impossible to fathom, than those of heaven above or of the sea beneath.
The chapter also stays on the map. Jeremiah goes on to name the towers, hills and gates of one real city.
This is not the city in the heavens, whose maker and builder is God. It is not the new Jerusalem that comes down from heaven from God, because there is no tower of Hananel there... They are the old localities and gates of the city of Jerusalem; and God will renew them in the day that is coming.
You can check this promise against history. Scattered peoples melt into the nations around them. Israel has not.
The Jews have not been absorbed among the nations where they were scattered. That is an astounding miracle. In every case where foreign groups find themselves strangers in another land, in time they are absorbed without a trace. There is one solitary exception: the Jews. The miracle is repeated many times over, for many are the nations among whom they are scattered.
One writer separates two things: how God governs the earth, and what He has settled in His own purpose. So God's judgment on Israel does not overturn this verse.
As to God's government of the earth, Israel, or a great part of it, may be cut off because of sin and unbelief... But as to the unalterable affections and ultimate purpose of God, Israel can never cease to be the nation of His choice.
Some object that Jewish believers in Jesus disprove the promise. They join a body where national difference is gone. One writer answers that the two things stand on different ground.
If "the Jew embraces Christianity" he stops being a Jew. He takes his stand on the new ground where there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ. This leaves the promises and purposes of God to Israel wholly untouched. God will fulfil them all literally, without fail, in due time.
- Fixed — The verse ties Israel's future to the order of sun, moon and stars. The covenant behind it rests on an unshakable foundation. It lasts as long as the earth.
- Literal — The closing verses name real towers, hills and gates. They point to one city on earth, not a heavenly picture. No one else can claim the promise.
- Visible — You can test the pledge. Scattered peoples vanish into the nations around them. This one has not.
- Unrevoked — God may set Israel aside for sin under His government. He never removes them from His choice. Discipline is not rejection.
- Deep — Behind the pledge stands grace, higher than heaven and deeper than the sea. It is as sure as the sky you can see tonight.
Thus saith Jehovah If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off the whole seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith Jehovah.
God has just promised to write His law on their hearts and to remember their sins no more. Now He answers a bigger question: is He finished with Israel?
Everything hangs on one word: "if." That single word decides the whole question of Israel's future.
This word of the Lord is a complete answer to those in the Christian world who think that God has cast away Israel, that they are no longer the chosen people. The Lord makes a condition. But no one has measured heaven. No one has searched out the depth of the earth. No one ever will. What a faithful covenant-keeping God He is!
The height above and the depth below do more than picture impossibility. They also measure something in God Himself.
May the Lord teach us here something of the heights and depths of His grace. Those heights are even more impossible to survey, and those depths even more impossible to fathom, than heaven above or the sea beneath.
The verse repeats "declares the LORD" at both ends. That name is the security behind the promise, because it is the name God gave Himself when He first bound Himself to this people.
This name expresses His unchangeableness, as Malachi 3:6 shows. So the restoration of the people is bound up in it, however guilty and undeserving they are. They have changed towards God, but blessed be His name, He has never changed towards them. He did have to hide His face from them for a time, because of their sins and unbelief. Everyone who thinks that God has done with Israel should ponder this splendid declaration. It is magnificent, surely, and worthy of the God who uttered it.
God does not pretend the record is clean. He names their whole history of wrongdoing and then refuses to cast them off anyway. What holds is not their behaviour but His word to their ancestors.
Israel is suffering God's judgement because of sin. Even so, the voices of the prophets declare, and the voices of apostles echo, the glorious truth that all Israel will be saved. They will be saved not because they have not sinned, but because God never takes back His gifts and His calling. Let Christians beware how they tamper with the promises made to Israel's ancestors. If we explain these promises away or misapply them, it must weaken our sense of the divine integrity and accuracy of Scripture as a whole. If we may explain away one part, we may explain away another.
The promise is about a nation, not only about individuals. That is why the earlier verses of this chapter and these closing ones are not read the same way.
Two earlier verses promise God's law written on the heart and sins remembered no more. They apply to the Christian just as much as they will to the Jew. What follows does not apply to Christians, nor to the Jews now, for they are not a nation.
So what happens when a Jewish person believes the gospel?
He ceases to be a Jew and takes his stand on the new ground where there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ. This leaves the promises and purposes of God to Israel completely untouched.
- Measure first. God will cast Israel off only when someone measures the height of heaven and explores the foundations of the earth. No one can.
- Then the name. The promise rests on a name that cannot change. God never changed toward Israel, even when He hid His face for a time.
- Then grace. The same two directions picture His grace: heights no one can survey, depths no one can fathom.
- Then sin. "For all that they have done" is there on purpose. All Israel will be saved, not because they never sinned, but because God never takes back His gifts and calling.
- Then you. Explain this promise away and you weaken your own confidence in Scripture. Tamper with one promise, and you have learned how to tamper with the rest.