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The prophet Jeremiah called the people of Israel to repent from their unfaithfulness, and announced judgment because they had broken their covenant with God. He prepared the people for exile in Babylon, but also anticipated that they would return and that God would make a new covenant with them. But what is a covenant? The word is ancient and biblical, and it describes a promise-based relationship. Today, the phrase “covenant of marriage” is used to describe a relationship based on vows, one in which two people promise to be faithful to each other “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” God uses some of the language of marriage when God says that the new covenant “will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD” (Jer 31:32).
Such promise-based relationships have their origin in the covenant God made with Abraham, “I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous” (Gen 17:2). God was faithful to this covenant with the people of Israel, saying, “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exo 6:7). Later, God extended the covenant to “the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord” (Isa 56:6). In effect, this covenant was a deal in which God said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people. I’ll love, comfort, honor and keep you. Forsaking all others, I’ll be faithful to you forever. All I ask is that you do the same for me.”
Well, you can guess what happened: God remained faithful, but the people did not. They broke the deal and worshiped other gods, despite the fact that God loved them like a husband loves a wife. Fortunately, God did not abandon the people of Israel, but instead chose to “make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. … I will put my law within them [says the LORD], and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:31, 33). When the people broke the covenant, God offered a new deal. It came as a surprise, bringing the powerful love of God into the very center of human life. The people had done nothing to deserve it — it was a completely free gift, a gift of grace.
There are times when we all need a new deal. Maybe we have broken a promise to ourselves and engaged in self-destructive behavior. Maybe we have betrayed a spouse or a friend, and fractured a relationship. The old deal is shattered and we need something to help us to start over. The American people discovered this in the 1930s and 40s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered his “Fireside Chats,” radio broadcasts that were offered in an informal, conversational tone. Until that time, presidents were largely cut off from the American people, and they seemed to be very distant from the average person. But then FDR, who had campaigned on a “New Deal for the American people,” spoke with sincerity and compassion about a New Deal that would replace the old deal which produced the Great Depression. After his first chat, “he was inundated with fan mail from listeners who felt they now knew him intimately.”
Into our spiritual depression, God promises a New Deal. Speaking to the people of Israel and to us, God says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33). God promises to move the law from a piece of paper to the center of the human heart. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people,” says the LORD (Jer 31:33). The loving bond between God and people will be renewed, like a renewal of vows between spouses. “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me” (Jer 31:34). Knowledge of God will suddenly shift inward, and all of us will have a deep and personal relationship with God. “I will forgive their iniquity,” says God (Jer 31:34). With this new relationship will come forgiveness of sin and a chance to move forward, fully accepted by God.
For Christians, the terms of this New Deal are made clear in the one who put God’s new covenant in human form: Jesus Christ. The law was given through Moses, says the Gospel according to John, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:17-18). When we believe in Jesus, we enter into a new covenant with God. We accept his promise of forgiveness and eternal life, and offer our own promise to follow Jesus in faith, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” This passage from Jeremiah is one of the Bible’s greatest hits because it promises us that God is always reaching out to us in love, inviting us to enter into a deep and personal relationship with God, one that is truly heart-to-heart.
Questions:
1. What does the “covenant of marriage” mean to you?
2. When one party breaks a deal, how can the relationship be restored?
3. How does Jeremiah’s new covenant connect with Jesus, if at all?
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