The New Unbreakable Covenant

Jeremiah 31:31-40

31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

35 Thus says the LORD,
Who gives the sun for a light by day,
The ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night,
Who disturbs the sea,
And its waves roar
(The LORD of hosts is His name):

36 "If those ordinances depart
From before Me, says the LORD,
Then the seed of Israel shall also cease
From being a nation before Me forever."

37 Thus says the LORD:
"If heaven above can be measured,
And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,
I will also cast off all the seed of Israel
For all that they have done, says the LORD.

38 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that the city shall be built for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 The surveyor's line shall again extend straight forward over the hill Gareb; then it shall turn toward Goath. 40 And the whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields as far as the Brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the LORD. It shall not be plucked up or thrown down anymore forever."

The New Covenant promised to God’s people was to be unbreakable as later described in Hebrews 8:8-9 referencing these words of God in Jeremiah and with the writing of His word on the hearts (Hebrews 8:10) and the assurance of forgiveness of all sin in a covenant made by God with His people which replaced the old one (Hebrews 8:12-13).  This is the Messianic Hope fulfilled in Christ by a new creation as a second birth which renders the stony hearts as of the tablets of Moses into living hearts of flesh containing His moral law written by the very finger of God’s Spirit (Ezekiel 11:19-20, 36:26-27, 2 Corinthians 3:3)!  They and we are to be taught by God after His word is inscribed on our souls that we might understand and follow His commandments willingly and with understanding which before was by rote and fear of the punishment of death as due judgment for failing to live by doing everything God said (Leviticus 18:5, Romans 10:5-6, Hebrews 2:15, Romans 3:27-28, 4:5).  The Law is impossible to keep by the letter in our own efforts and limited understanding, but by God’s Spirit enabling us in this new covenant we can please God by believing and trusting His word implanted in us.  Israel broke the old covenant by continuing to reject the LORD and His word, but to know Him truly requires a new birth with His word engraved on our souls by an unbreakable covenant promise by God’s work and not by our own ever-failing efforts.  He never fails, and neither does His word of promise.  We fail and break our word which the old covenant required us to keep fully (James 2:10-13).  Grace and mercy have triumphed over judgment in the New Covenant of the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.  Out with the Old, in with the New!  The promise then to us all in Him by faith is to know Him, be taught by Him, and to be forgiven of our sin nature (iniquity) and all our sins.  The only way this could be broken was told us as a hypothetical condition of all creation completely understood by us which means we would have to know everything which He knows, an impossible task attempted at Eden’s Garden when we tried to do this instead of being taught by God as we went along (Genesis 3:5-6, Hebrews 5:14).  God Himself would rebuild Jerusalem for Israel just as He promises the New Jerusalem for all His people whom He calls and justifies by faith in His work in the New Covenant by the Messiah Jesus.  It is this unbreakable covenant of eternal promise of life by that reconciling work of God Himself which is our eternal assurance which the old covenant that relied on our works could never earn anything but death in the end.  His mercy has triumphed over judgment!