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

This is a passage of tremendous importance. It is quoted at length in Hebrews 8:7-12. The writer of Hebrews makes quite clear that this is a covenant of a completely different nature to the first which was made on Sinai with the nation of Israel, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The second took the place of the first because the first was deficient in various ways. The first was the legal covenant made by God with Isreal on Sinai, a national covenant. It was still a covenant made by God and his side of it was kept perfectly – ‘although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD’ – but it was a covenant made between God and human beings, sinful human beings, and it failed because Israel did not keep her side of it. To keep her side of it would have meant perfect obedience to all the requirements of the law: the Ten Commandments and all of the expansion of them in the moral law, as well as the ceremonial law and the civil law. All of this, Israel failed to do from the very start. The terms of the Sinai covenant were legal, the covenant only lasted as long as both sides kept the terms. Paul in Galatians is very clear what were the terms of this covenant. Quoting Moses he says, ‘For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them’ (Galatians 3:10). The law required one hundred percent obedience.But under the new covenant: ‘And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them under the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I remember their sin no more.’ What a difference! Under the old covenant the entire nation was considered to be, in a measure, in the church that was a type of the New Testament church, and which foreshadowed it. Saints and sinners were all mixed together. So if you truly knew the Lord, and you were a Jew in those times, an Israelite, a person of Judah, then you would be concerned about the conversion of your relations and your acquaintances, and you would perhaps witness to them that they needed personal relationship with the living God. But in this new order the church will be generally composed of believers, so we will not be witnessing to one another. We will certainly, hopefully, be witnessing to people outside and speaking of Christ. But ideally we should be able to suppose that all within the church do love the Lord and walk with him. Now it is true that no church is perfect, and there are always people for whom you pray, and for whom you are deeply concerned, but generally speaking, this is the regenerate church membership which was intended of true churches in the New Testament. It will be markedly different from the Old Testament where it was a nation. That is the meaning of these words: ‘And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour,’ or his fellow member, let's read, ‘and every man his brother,’ his brother in the Lord, ‘saying, Know the LORD’, for it will be a company entirely of saved people. Now that is the New Testament era: the coming of Christ and the establishment of the New Testament church. There will be a regenerate church membership in this New Testament period.