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

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Jeremiah (1-31) 31:1

Comments

Here is the great chapter of renewal. We are coming to the prophecy about the Lord our righteousness in this chapter about his coming and about the renewal and what will characterize it. We have seen something of the mechanics of renewal and the terms of renewal: God will renew when a generation exists that will not compromise and is ready for hard work, and fervour and feeling and declaration of the word of God again. God will renew by the mechanism of a purging out. But here are some of the details. ‘At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. ² Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.’ The reference here is again to a remnant, the people which were left of the sword. The language of this chapter is extravagant. Those who insist on tying every detail to some literal fulfilment may struggle, and it is much better to see it as predictive of the gospel age, with only partial fulfilment in any literal blessing on the nation of Israel. It is a prophecy about the ingathering of the New Testament Jewish-Gentile church, and the blessing of the Spirit of God on his true people, more than on his typical people. The descendants of Israel will be brought into the kingdom of heaven, and the gospel will begin to be preached among them exclusively, but Christ will send his apostles out into all the earth to gather them in from both Jews and Gentiles. There will always be some Jews saved, but perhaps at the end of the age they will be saved in vast numbers. ‘The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’ We are reminded that although God raises up a new generation, a new era, new churches, pioneering preachers; although it will be a new thing, that won't make it a novelty. It will be the same Lord who blessed his people right from the beginning that will be with them. We always go back to the word of God and we know that he cannot contradict himself. The principles by which the New Testament churches operated under the direction of the apostles are the same principles by which we order our churches. It is the same message, the same simplicity of worship in spirit and in truth. When there is change and new methods are introduced and the people of God stop depending on him and being careful to follow his direction, that is when the church is weakened and trouble comes. Here is the promise. ‘Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.’You see the terms coming back in again? ‘You will be built.’ When the power of God comes upon the new generation in renewal and restoration, that people of God will have a power that the world will not be able to resist, and souls will be won, and churches will be planted, and there will be no turning them back. But the terms will have to be there: ‘O virgin Israel.’ There will have to be a people who exhibit a loyalty and purity, and a readiness for separation from error and falsehood and worldliness, which the previous generation of evangelicals did not do. They will have to keep the terms to see the blessing: ‘Thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.’ There will come not a lament, not, ‘Oh what a sorry state we are in!’, but rejoicing because God is with them.How overpowered we are today; how few we are! But if the Lord sends revival, there will be great joy and great victory, a great sense of success and strength in the work of God. There will be great fruitfulness: ‘Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.’Blessing will be plentiful. ‘For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.’ The picture is of not only a restored Judah, but a restored Israel in the north. When did this happen literally? It is hard to do justice to the language with any literal fulfilment, but as a picture of the New Testament church, it is language which describes the zeal to worship among all God’s people.

Application

When the Lord restores and renews he chooses to restore and renew a remnant; not the entire body that let him down, but a new remnant, so that a new thing may be done. After all, if God restored the whole body of evangelicals in this country and privileged every one of us with revival power and blessing and fervour, all kinds of things might happen. Such is the fickleness of our ways and our thinking, that we would have forgotten in five minutes what caused the decline, and we would go back to trusting the same leaders that caused led us into trouble, the same ways, the same compromises. It wouldn't take more than a matter of months before, encouraged with success and with souls won to the Lord and with great numbers and prosperity and stewardship, the whole body would go back to its old ways. So the Lord does not do that. He starts again with the remnant and with a new generation.

‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love.’ If the people of God thought that something they had done had earned the love of God, they would feel very much less secure. God would be changeable to the extent that it was not his love that began our salvation, but something in us that attracted his love. But if he began to love us he might also cease to love us, and certainly, if it was left to us, we would do enough to drive away his love. But that is not the nature of his love. His love is everlasting. There was no time when he did not love his elect people. They did not cause him to love them, but they love him because he first loved them.

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