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The Scriptorium

The Promise of the New

The new covenant is one with the old. Jeremiah 31.15-40

Pray Psalm 132.13-18.
For the LORD has chosen Zion;
He has desired it for His dwelling place:
“This is My resting place forever;
Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless her provision;
I will satisfy her poor with bread.
I will also clothe her priests with salvation,
And her saints shall shout aloud for joy.
There I will make the horn of David grow;
I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed.
His enemies I will clothe with shame,
But upon Himself His crown shall flourish.”

Sing Psalm 132.13-18.
(Finlandia: Be Still My Soul)
God dwells among us, and He will forever,
to meet our needs and clothe us with His grace.
He has to us sent Jesus Christ, our Savior,
and made us His eternal resting-place.
His foes are banished from His presence ever,
but we shall reign with Him before His face.

Read and meditate on Jeremiah 31.15-40.


Prepare.
1. What hope did God hold out for His people?

2. What is new about the new covenant?

Meditate.
This is a somewhat longer passage than we typically consider, but we do this in order to show how prophesy sometimes works.

Here is it clear that the words of Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon are like a telescope or spy glass. Pull the glass to one length, and you can see more clearly what lies immediately ahead. Pull the same glass out to its full extent, and you can see further still.

In the short run, God again promises to return His captive people to their land, and to bless them with all the promises of His covenant. Their weeping will end, and their patient work will be rewarded. God hears the groaning of His people and their cries for restoration (v. 18), and He will answer His “pleasant child” and return them to their home (vv. 19, 20). He calls them to remember the way by which they came to Babylon, because by the same way, He will take them back again (v. 21). Then their land will abound with the blessings God promised for His covenant people as far back as Moses and Abraham (vv. 23-30).

But this is just in the short term. In the longer term, these blessings are but the down payment on richer and more glorious blessings to come, when God establishes a “new covenant” with His people (vv. 31-40).

Readers of the New Testament are cued up to read this entire passage for the long term by opening verses, which we know Matthew applied to the slaughter of the innocent children in Jesus’ day (vv. 15-18). For his purposes, Matthew included only verse 15; the weeping mothers of Rachel would have clung to the promise of verses 16-18, that a day was coming when they would see their children once again. They could not have understood completely what this meant, but they would have held fast to this promise of a future hope.

God promised a new covenant for His people. They would not be able to break this covenant, as they repeatedly did the old one, because God would write it on their minds and hearts, renewing them in His Law and all His Word and – as Ezekiel points out (36.26, 27) – giving them His Spirit as well. This new covenant will become the means of truly knowing the Lord and realizing forgiveness of sins (v. 34). We recognize this as pointing forward to Jesus and His work of redemption.

But notice: God refers to this new covenant using the same motto we’ve seen over and over in reference to the old covenant: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (v. 33). The new covenant is really the same covenant God has given from the beginning, only this time administered in such a way as to ensure the union of God with His people in bonds of eternal life and love.

Reflect.
1. What does God do to internalize His new covenant in us? Why is it important to understand this?

2. How can you see that the new covenant is really a further development and extension of the old covenant?

3. Why would God combine prophesies people would live to see with those yet far off in the future? Does He do that with us? Explain.

Here is what it is that God is keeping for the good alone, though it is he who has made them good. Here is what it is. Our reward has been very briefly defined by the prophet: I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will be their God. He has promised us himself as our reward. Augusting (354-430), Sermon 331.4

Thank You, Lord, for the new covenant; help me to live as Your covenant child today as I…

Pray Psalm 132.1-12.

Thank God for His covenant with David, now fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Devote yourself to live within His promises and blessings for the day ahead.

Sing Psalm 132.1-12.
Psalm 132.1-12 (Finlandia: Be Still My Soul)
Remember, Lord, we pray, in David’s favor,
the hardships he endured, the oath he swore,
the vow he made to Jacob’s mighty Savior:
“I shall not enter through my palace door;
I shall not sleep, nor slumber my eyes favor,
Until I make a dwelling for the Lord!”

The word throughout the chosen nation spread,
to Ephrata, and in the fields of Jaar:
“Now let us go,” the faithful people said,
and worship where our Savior’s dwellings are!
Around His footstool let our worship spread;
come, gather to Him, all from near and far!”

Arise, O Lord, come to Your resting place;
Your holy presence meet with us in might.
Clothe us with righteousness in Jesus’ grace,
and we will shout to Your divine delight!
For David’s sake, turn not away Your face,
but look upon us in Your holy light.

Remember, Lord, the oath You swore to David;
do not turn back, do not deny Your Word:
“One of your sons, with your throne I will favor,
and He shall keep My cov’nant evermore,
and walk within My testimonies ever,
thus He shall ever rule as Israel’s Lord.”

T. M. Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from Church Fathers from
Ancient Christian Commentary Series, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006). All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (available by clicking here).

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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