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.