Thought from today’s Bible reading from Jeremiah 30-31.
Many Jewish Christians in the first century had a hard time giving up the Old Law in favor of wholehearted devotion to the gospel of Christ. Similarly, there are some Christians today who desire to hold onto parts of the Old Law that have not been carried over into the New Testament. Yet the following prophecy from Jeremiah makes it clear that a change was coming in which the Old Law/covenant would be taken out of the way.
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the first covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’ “(Jeremiah 31:31-34).
In revealing God’s message, Jeremiah makes it explicitly clear that the covenant and, therefore, the law to which the people were currently bound would eventually be replaced. The Hebrew writer makes Jeremiah’s point clear. The first covenant was made “obsolete” and would “disappear” (Hebrews 8:13).
Jesus nailed the Old Law to the cross (Colossians 2:14), and He is the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9:15). We commit spiritual adultery by seeking to return to the Old Law (Romans 7:1-4). Therefore, let us be content with the new covenant and obey the new law that came with it.
Tomorrow’s reading: Jeremiah 32-34
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
