Jim Deering - ancientPath.net

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OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETIC BOOKS
An Introduction to THE NEW COVENANT

DATE: About a century after Isaiah, approximately 627-575 BC, during the reigns of the last five kings of Judah--Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin (Jeconiah or Coniah), and Zedekiah. After Jerusalem fell, Jeremiah ministered to the remnant in the land; then he went with them into Egypt when they ignored God's command through him that they should remain in the land.

CONTEMPORARIES: His contemporary prophets were Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Obadiah.

INTRODUCTION:
Our lesson focuses on an overview of The New Covenant as introduced in the book of Jeremiah in chapters 29-32 Titled::Redeemed, Promised, Restored and Covenanted.

BUT FIRST...
The following is a very basic overview of God's Master Plan for our salvation - in simple terms. The God of the Bible is an ABSOLUTELY HOLY GOD. He is apart from any and every source of evil (that which is UN-Holy). In God's Master Plan, which would take place in an insignificant place in a far away galaxy, away from the rest of His creation - where He had placed the evil one. It was there that mankind would be given the attribute of free will. The evil one entered in and questioned God's Word. We, having been created in the image and likeness of Almighty God... then wished to be little gods ourselves. Adam and Eve, our representatives, chose to question and disbelieve God's Word, and partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus became "fallen," "cursed," and we became separated from our Absolutely Holy God, and cast from His presence (locked out of the garden). 

Why?
The nature of God, one of His attributes, as we have been often told, is LOVE. In His Master Plan He desired to have intimate fellowship with the human race... He wanted men and women, boys and girls, to become physical members of His Royal Family. Therefore in order for God to have an intimate relationship with the human race - which for His reasons He has chosen to LOVE... and bring FORGIVENESS from ALL SIN - putting all people on a level playing ground, the plan included a test of faith to be put in place and a Savior God to put our faith in and to demonstrate our choice of Him over all else.

BACK TO GENESIS
It was there that a way of ending that curse in individual lives through "one who would come" was revealed. And it was there that God killed an animal for Adam and Eve, and clothed (covered) both Adam and Eve with the skins of that animal, and God's image of SUBSTITUTIONARY BLOOD SACRIFICE was established. And then Adam and Eve were then removed from the immediate presence of God by being put out of the Garden of Eden.

Depending on the level of revelation in each biblical age, individuals were responsible to seek God, believe in Him, believe His word, and love Him.

Pre-Christ, those who did so were positionally removed from the curse and their sins were counted forgiven - based on the then future willing sacrifice of the Son of God, whom we know as Jesus the Christ.

As more revelation was added in time, the people of God became more and more aware of the plan of God in which one would come and satisfy the just demands of God to bring freedom from this curse.

God's law defines His demands that the penalty for sin is death in our individual physical lifetimes and eternal separation from God.

SATISFYING GOD'S PLAN
For the one who comes to satisfy those demands, the first requirement is that the one who comes must come willingly to die on behalf of the sinner. Second, he must come as a substitute--as he must die in place of the offender. Third, the substitute must be entirely sin free (or he would have to die for his own sin). Fourth, he would have to be a human, not just an animal, for animal substitutional atonement only is a physical metaphor for the real thing. Fifth, he would have to be infinite in nature, or his death could only satisfy these demands for one other person. Sixth, under the God's demands, the effectiveness for the substitute can be found only through the shedding of his life. - So, he must be willing, he must act as a substitute, he must be sinless, he must be man, he must be infinite God, and he must die shedding his blood.

THE ANSWER - REDEEMED
Jesus, the Messiah (in Hebrew, Christ in Greek, The Anointed One - the full translation of all of these words) is the only one who could satisfy all the just demands. The process of this "Salvation" is most often defined as "Redemption." The freedom purchased for the sinner by the willing death of a sinless, God-man. Again, Jesus is the only possible efficient and effective Savior.

God (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (one God)) makes the offer based upon His love for mankind. If you take the offer - take the Lord Jesus the Christ as your Lord and Savior, Repent - walk away from any idols you may have or serve - and love Him as God (because He is), then you become redeemed (like a condemned slave, bought out of "the marketplace" so to speak, and removed forever from the penalty of Hell receiving the value of His death on the Cross, and because of His resurrection... you became Justified in God's eyes. You become then the dwelling place of God the Spirit as the "Promise" of your eternal place as the Brother/Sister of Jesus the Son of God, and you have, as a child of God, His full inheritance throughout eternity.

So that we are all clear on what Jesus has done... In our time - While you are alive and living on planet earth without Christ you were "living in sin." You were, and are still, not free from sin. What Jesus has done, in simple terms, is forgive you, die - paying the penalty for everyone's sin. That benefit is available to everyone during their lifetime. At the point you receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord, that benefit is applied to you and your sin record is erased. But, interestingly enough... No one goes to hell because of their collected sin or sins. Individuals who put their faith in God's Anointed Redeemer Son, Jesus.. are selected to go to Heaven. Individuals who refuse to put their faith in God's Anointed Redeemer, Jesus.. are selected to go to Hell. It's as simple as that. Believers will go to Heaven eternally sin free and rewarded with Grace, Love, and God's family relationship got believing in His Son. Un-Believers will go to Hell eternally  punished for not believing in His Son during their lifetimes.

A NOTE ON WORKS AND THE LAW
Many are often led down the path of doing works in order to become worthy of being saved. Many have been taught from the Jewish Old Mosaic Covenant, the story of the Old Testament, that everything is about being able to keep the Law. No one has ever been able to Keep God's Law and maintain holiness as He is holy. No one ever was or ever will be "Saved" by keeping the Law, or by "Working to gain favor" with God. Keeping the Law was and is mostly about keeping fellowship with God if He is your God. That is largely the story of the Nation of Israel - It's the story of God's Covenanted People and their Fellowship with God. Salvation of the individual is always by the Grace of God based upon the saving work of Jesus, the Son of God.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW COVENANT
Salvation is only on the basis of where you stand with Jesus Christ. Under the old covenant (Mosaic), made by God with Israel, salvation was based upon what God had revealed looking forward to the Cross. Since the Cross it is all about Jesus. Is He your God, your Savior, Your King? Or not? IF YES - Then, by the loving grace of God, you the are SAVED... the New Covenant is your promise defining your eternal abode, which will be based in the New Heaven. You have your lifetime to decide. If your answer to Him is NO - Then you are NOT SAVED, and the New Covenant is not your promise, your eternal abode will have no blessings guaranteed with it, and your destination will be Hell, your sentence will be suffering, the duration will be eternal, and your prison is owned and operated by God, and He will have nothing to do with you.

BRIEF HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Perhaps you remember from one of Larry's classes (Jeremiah Ch-18) a number of weeks ago: To Jeremiah, God explains that: With all of their rebellion... Divine grace could remake the divided nation of Israel as a vessel of usefulness to God once again. In the terms of this lesson... Only through God's Grace would it be possible that the Nation of Israel, both that of the North, captured by Assyria about 50 years earlier, and that of the South, Benjamin/Judah, in the midst of capture, could be REDEEMED following 70 years of God's discipline by the nation of Babylon. God would be disciplining His people whom He loved. Out of all of the tribes of Israel, over all the centuries of their kingdom, only the believing remnant would be saved. The same is true of the Gentile world. Their, and our salvation is by the grace of God which is administered through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son and their/our belief in Him and what He has done.

But, writing to the elders (Jer. Ch-19), the prophet indicates that the nation, as present in that generation, is to be irreparably destroyed and their fragments  taken to Babylon. It also needs to be said that the remnant will remain, those who remained faithful, for God told Jeremiah that the first generation of the nation who was taken to Babylon was not to be restored to the land, as the false prophets predicted that they would and they believed the false prophets instead of God (Jer. Ch-29). This action of God was very similar to the generation of Israelites who refused to go into the promised land where no one in the nation who was over 20 years of age at their refusal would be alive to cross the Jordan into the land that God had promised them - they would perish in the wilderness.

"REDEEM," and "REDEMPTION"
In order to understand Jeremiah and the New Covenant we need do a wrap-up of a few verses that will bring us to the focus point of Jeremiah Chapter 31.

We'll first take a look back at Jeremiah Chapter 2:12-13; and :17 and we'll see the WHY Israel will go into captivity. (I'm reading from the ESV): We'll see God's anger through two metaphors that represent Israel's evil actions.

2:12  Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
        be shocked, be utterly desolate,
        declares the Lord,

2:13     for my people have committed two evils:(under covenant)
A.     they have forsaken me,
        the fountain of living waters, (The Source of all life and goodness that God has promised His people)

B.     (and they) hewed out cisterns for themselves,
        broken cisterns that can hold no water. (They have taken on dead false Idols which have no life, and offer no real promises)

2:17  Have you not brought this upon yourself
        by forsaking the Lord your God,
        when He led you in the way?

Established in "the promised land," lived in rebellion to God through the Judges, Saul, David, Solomon, the split of the nation, and now through the kings.

Twenty eight chapters later: We see Jeremiah's first prophecy is of the restoration of the nation.

JEREMIAH 30:1-3
The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book. For behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The Lord says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it.’”

Many only see the restoration as their soon return from captivity to Jerusalem. Jeremiah also has received of the Lord information concerning the final and great restoration, not just the coming soon (70 years) restoration. It would take those years for the nation of Babylon to be defeated and be under the beneficent rule of King Cyrus of Persia, and the story there would be picked up by Ezra and Daniel.

Remember from our graphic chart "The Mountain Peaks of Prophecy," we should always see a prophet's revelations as ones looking at a mountain range. You can see the tops of the closest mountains and perhaps the distant really tall ones, but not the tops of shorter mountains or any of the valleys in between the first ones and the very tall far ones you can see in the distance. Apparently many of the prophecies are like that - there may be two, three, or more applications of each prophecy in distant times, for them and us, yet to come.

A QUICK EXAMPLE:
Jeremiah spoke of the prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians that would happen during their lifetimes and it's rebuilding. Almost 500 years later, in AD 70 Jerusalem and the Temple would again be destroyed, this time by Rome, and we're still waiting for the rebuilding of that Temple. And finally, during the great tribulation it will once again be destroyed and rebuilt. Yet another time at the end of the 1000 years... that destruction is waiting to happen, but the Lord ends the threat and the great war that was expected... unexpected except by prophecy. That's the way the Lord teaches us over the generations to believe what He has to say about the future - He is, after all, absolutely sovereign.

It's also good to know the whole plan of God that many do not tell. Many believe that God is done with His Covenanted people, the nation of Israel, the Jews, but that's just not so...

JEREMIAH 30:10 & 11
‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant,’ declares the Lord,
‘And do not be dismayed, O Israel;
For behold, I will save you from afar
And your offspring from the land of their captivity.
And Jacob (Israel) will return and will be quiet and at ease,
And no one will make him afraid.
‘For I am with you,’ declares the Lord, ‘to save you;
For I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you,
Only I will not destroy you completely.
But I will chasten you justly
And will by no means leave you unpunished.’

This is where they stood in Jeremiah's time, and it's where they stood after the Death of Jesus - It's where they stand now - set aside until God is done chastising them for their rebellion to their God and His revealed and recorded Word. They are His Covenanted Posession (Abrahamic).

Our final catch-up verse will be Jeremiah 30:22 & 24

The overarching truth concerning Israel and Judah (at that time in history is...

22 ‘You shall be My people,
And I will be your God.’”

24 The fierce anger of the Lord will not turn back
Until He has performed and until He has accomplished
The intent of His heart;
In the latter days you will understand this.

As we study Jeremiah in these the latter days we must remember that in our greatest times of trial and need, as children of His... "You shall be my people, and I shall be your God"... In "the latter days you will understand this."

It is through the promises of the New Covenant that both believing Israel and we believing Gentiles are covered by these statements. We need to understand that in our trials and tribulations, no matter how terrible, that God is fighting a great battel against all who oppose Him, and in the end - our latter days - we need to be faithful to Him, and understand His great Grace, at the cost of His Son, to rescue us and make us free.

I want to draw your attention to something that the lesson book does not fully address up to this point. On page 74, the second paragraph. If you don't have your book, You don't have to go there, as I'll read it to you.

I think it is important to understand God's New Covenant revelation to Jeremiah in terms of time. Everything written here is true, but if you ask yourself a couple of questions about what you are told I'm sure you may get my point.

Jeremiah 31:31-34, The New Covenant Defined
31 "Look, the days are coming"--this is the Lord's declaration-- "When I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt--My covenant that they broke even though I am their master"--the Lord's declaration.

33 "Instead, this is the covenant I will make (future tense) with the house of Israel after those days"--the Lord's declaration. "I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them"--this is the Lord's declaration. "For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.:

SIX QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED:
1.     Did God bring the Judean people from their Babylonian captivity         to the land promised to them?
        Yes. 

2.     Did God establish His New Covenant with them?
         No! He only proclaimed that he would...

3.     Did God put His teaching in their hearts (the totally effective       indwelling Spirit of God)?
        No! Post Christ we have the indwelling Spirit, but we still struggle with sin and most often still want our own way, which is idolatry.

4.     Do they--The Jews--all know Him?
        No! Not now, but after the Tribulation...

5.     Would He forgive their sins and remember it no more?
        Yes... Those who would turn back to Him and worship and love Him.

6.     Has Israel been fully restored to the Promised Land as per God's promise to Abraham? |
        No!

Here is one of the moments when we need to remember the mountain tops of prophecy. God was telling Jeremiah all that He would do, but not telling Jeremiah when He would fulfill every part of His revelation. The New Covenant has even yet to be fully established with a believing Israel (and the believing Gentiles).

Unknown to Jeremiah would be a time coming when Ezekiel, shortly after Jeremiah, would tell us that God came to a breaking point with Israel. The story unravels in chapter ten and it takes a couple chapters to tell it all, but Israel came to the place of a full rejection of their God. Ezekiel tells us that God was angry at Israel and was in the temple in Jerusalem, He went through the temple and out the front door. He went around the side where the Angels would meet. He walked down the main street and looked back at the temple. God then went out of the city onto a hilltop and looked back at Israel one last time... and He was gone... remember Jesus just before He was taken, praying and crying for Jerusalem?.... It then took 490 years before God spoke to them again - in the story of His Son. They would reject His Son and they and the Gentile Romans would kill Him. Israel would be set aside, but still loved with His Covenant promises... And then God moved on to the Gentiles - This was His plan from the very beginning. His new revelation that was originally focused to the Abrahamic-Covenanted nation had come to an end. Now His message are be focused on Israel and the whole world.

God, through Christ and the beginning of the Church (Luke 22:20), has given a foretaste of the New Covenant that will be fully made with Israel, and us... in the future. Jesus told His disciples that His death (resurrection and ascension) would initialize the first taste of His New Covenant at Pentecost. A fuller implementation of the covenant would take place as His New Testament Believers passed from earth Life to Heaven Life, more would be revealed at the end of the Tribulation, and final and absolute fulfillment will come as God's program moves us after judgment to our eternal dwelling.

Now believing Jews and Gentiles are experiencing the indwelling of His Holy Spirit but are you fully changed? No. Are you living a sin-free life now? No! Do you no longer need to witness to your family or your neighbor? No. But it is still coming--because, under New Covenant:

22 ‘You shall be My people,
And I will be your God.’”

A Promise made by God, is a Promise Kept.

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