Read: Jeremiah 31:27-34
I will make a new covenant with . . . Israel . . . (v. 31)
At Mount Sinai, God established a covenant with his people. He offered the law as a means of making life right and making Israel right with him. They accepted the terms: “It will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment” (Deut. 6:25). Israel’s life with God was a partnership. Their contribution was obedience. They failed, and the covenant fell apart.
During the exile, God promised a new covenant. Its terms included these promises. First: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (v. 33). Second: “they shall all know me” (v. 34). Third: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (v. 34). This new covenant was trustworthy because while the Sinai covenant relied on imperfect people, the new covenant was solely the work of a perfect God.
God made himself known by taking on flesh and dwelling with us. He forgave human wickedness at the cross of Jesus Christ; he also put his law in human minds and wrote it on human hearts by his Holy Spirit. What the old covenant failed to accomplish, God accomplished perfectly in the new. Believers are the beneficiaries of this new covenant, sealed in the blood of the Son and consummated through the Spirit. Our sins are forgiven and forgotten. With Christ as our righteousness we are, once and for all, right with God. —Ben Van Arragon
As you pray, thank God for his new covenant, offered through Jesus.
About the Author
Ben Van Arragon is the Minister of Worship and Leadership at Plymouth Heights Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He preaches and teaches the Bible in church, online, and anywhere else he has the opportunity.
