Jeremiah (1-31) 3:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 3:1

Comments

In this chapter we going to see, particularly, biblical urging to repentance. Not only does Jeremiah emphasise the unreasonableness of sin, he is also reasoning with people. He is not simply going to say, ‘You are a sinner and you need a Saviour, so you must come to Christ.’ He is going to go much further than that, and he is going to make them feel that they are sinners. Of course, ultimately this is the work of the Holy Spirit, but clearly the prophet, and in New Testament era the preacher, must so preach that the Holy Spirit can use those words. He is going to help make the people feel their sinfulness, as though it would never occur to them just how sinful sin was, unless he found ways of showing it. He is working under inspiration, but alongside that he straps the equal unreasonableness – perhaps a better word would be ‘excessiveness’ – of God's mercy. Because while man is unreasonable in his sinfulness, God goes far beyond anything that you might expect in showing mercy. These two elements are coupled up all the way through this chapter. So while he persuades people that they are sinners, it is not all negative. It is fifty percent trying to achieve that, and fifty percent pressing the mercy and the kindness of God. It is both hand in hand.Jeremiah the prophet is now speaking of the tradition that they have, which is based of course on the Old Testament Scriptures, such as they had, the books of Moses, the book of the law which had only just been rediscovered in the reign of Josiah. Its rediscovery is recorded later on in Jeremiah, but it had only just been found at this point. So before this they have been dependent upon a kind of spoken tradition for some decades. ‘They say, If a man put away his wife,’ – and this is from Deuteronomy 24 – ‘and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted?’ It is really a rhetorical question, because they all know the answer to this, and the answer is, no. The law forbids it. If a man finds his wife to be unfaithful to him, and there is a valid and legitimate divorce because she has betrayed him and been unfaithful, and then presumably that second husband has in due course put her away also, or he has died, or he has deserted her, and she is left alone; should the original husband return to her? Under the law of Moses the answer was no. In fact that was a terrible thing to do, and would bring disgrace, Moses says, upon the whole land. Why is Jeremiah preaching this? He has caught their attention. This is the example that is brought in here to show the extraordinary mercy and kindness of God. He is addressing Judah, but it is the northern kingdom of Israel which has already gone into exile which is in mind in this illustration as we see from verses 8 and 20. She had not been unfaithful to God once, but numerous times. This course comes up repeatedly in the Old Testament: the long periods of time through which God bore with a disobedient people, and people who behaved appallingly. The number of warnings, the centuries of lesser chastisements before he moved and brought them into a captive condition. So God had finally cast her off and Samaria fell, and yet in his readiness to be merciful he would still have her back. Even though the nation, the northern kingdom, that is, the ten tribes, have been disbanded and taken into captivity – their history has been brought to a full end – yet God would still receive them back. So this illustration of the man who might just marry his former wife contrary to the law of Moses; this is brought in here to show the extraordinary and almost unreasonable mercy and kindness of God. ‘Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers’, yet return again unto me, said the Lord. God will receive her; his mercy is so great. What he has in mind is their idolatry. The fact that they have adopted the false gods of the nations around and they are worshipping them. So it is spiritual adultery, which is in mind.

Application

The mercy of God should never be an encouragement or an excuse to us to allow ourselves to wander from the path. But if we have wandered from the path, and we have whittled down to almost nothing our devotional times and our reading of God's word, and then ultimately the enemy has taken advantage of that, and we have been swept into spiritual coldness, and we are almost nominal Christians praying very little; something terrible has happened, and then we begin to feel so bad about it. We think, ‘Well, God will not have me back now. I have gone much too far; I am so far away’, and we cannot bring ourselves to return and to repent. If so, then passages like this are of enormous help to God's people. If he would have been so merciful even to those unregenerate people, even to the northern kingdom of Israel, long after her last opportunity had been turned down, and if he would have forgiven them, how much more will he be gracious and merciful to his people! Whatever poor shabby state we may get into through our neglect or foolishness, return to him as soon you can. Go back on your knees and restore your personal devotions. Don't let the devil whisper in your ear, it's too late; it cannot be done; it will never be the same. He may try everything to take advantage of your waywardness. But here we just get another insight into the astonishing lovingkindness of the Lord and his mercy. If he would plead with them – ‘Return unto me’ – how much more will he receive back his blood bought people from their wanderings!

Amazingly, there are people today – and they are earnest Christians – who have decided that they don't want to preach much on the theme of repentance. They believe in the necessity of personal conversion. They believe in the atoning death of Christ, and the inspired Scriptures, but they claim that the gospel of John has nothing about repentance in it, and so evangelism should not have anything of repentance in it today, except interpreted lightly simply as a turning around in your attitude to God. But this idea of being ashamed for sin, and lamenting it and regretting it before God, and turning from it, and seeking cleansing through Christ and forgiveness as a central part of the process in coming to Christ; they dislike that, and that is called by many a completely erroneous condition added to salvation. Out of the elements necessary for salvation, they distil believing as the only essential one. They say, if you add to believing a further duty – that is what they call it – of repentance, then you are adding to the terms of salvation, and that is quite wrong. That will disturb everybody. People cannot be saved except simply through believing. How amazing that this has caught on in our time, and is popular and proclaimed, particularly in the USA, but here in this country also. It has taken hold of, not all, but most of the Charismatic movement. But you turn to Jeremiah – and not only Jeremiah, but the whole Bible, and the Gospel of John also – and you find repentance is key. So Jeremiah begins his great session of evangelistic arguments and reasonings to persuade people to turn, with the necessity of repentance from sin.

Jeremiah is making the people feel their sin deeply, and we have to do the same today. People are unbelievers, and indifferent to Almighty God, away from him, and on their own track. We have to try to persuade them to see this from God's point of view. God has created you for his purpose and his glory and for himself. You are his. You are like somebody married to someone. He has a right to you, surely. He has done so much for you. He has breathed life into you. But you for your part, in unbelief, go off and love all kinds of things. You love yourself; you loved the world; you love everything but God. You are a serial adulterer, adulteress, only in a spiritual way. Yet God has such mercy, he will receive us back and forgiveness us. If only we could get that across to people from God's point of view: how they have wronged God, and betrayed him, and disregarded him in the light of everything that they are and have received from him. This is reasoning, and that is what you see a prophet like Jeremiah doing. Not just saying, ‘You are rebels and you are doomed; you had better turn to the Lord’, but trying to get underneath their carelessness, and help them. We pray that the Holy Spirit will soften the heart, and regenerate the soul, and enable them to see, but that is the work that we are engaged in.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 3:1 Commentary and Bible Study