I Shall Be Your God

"'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. 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.'"

This is the beautiful covenant promise that God lays out for us through the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:33-34) and that is reiterated by the author of Hebrews in the New Testament. It was given originally, of course, to the Israelites, but now we know that it has been given to Christians and is the covenant brought by Christ - rejected by the Jews and offered to the Gentiles. Not only was this a radical thing for the Hebrews of Jeremiah's day to hear (if they had been listening), but it was a still more dramatic thing to be presented to the Gentiles as something in which they could participate. For the Jews, having as they did Moses' famous tablets of the Commandments and the constant reiteration of the Law, this must have been strange indeed - to hear that the Law would be written upon their hearts instead of on stone, and placed in their very mind instead of merely in the mouth of the priests and prophets. To hear that there would be utter remission, utter cleansing, of sins, instead of the daily killing of animals in the Temple. To hear - yes, to hear that the Holy God would truly put away and not remember their iniquities!

Though most of the Jews did not see it as we do now, this change from old covenant to new was as different as a shadow is from the real thing. But how much greater must the new covenant have been for the believing Gentiles, who had never even had the shadow! Except for the relatively few proselytes before Christ, it had pleased God to let the Gentile world live in darkness, and now suddenly, through the preaching by the apostles and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a light was being shown to them. The perfect law, that no pagan philosopher or teacher could fully grasp, was to be placed in the believer's heart and mind; the far-off God, who "covers Himself in light as with a garment," was now showing to the darkened nations that He would be their God, and they would be His people.

This is the covenant that we as believers dwell under now, and it is a beautiful and glorious one...but one that we often take very much for granted. I think that perhaps looking at how strange and brilliant it must have been for the believing Jews and Gentiles of the early Church might show us how to appreciate it more.