No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
In the days of the prophet Jeremiah, God refused to break the covenant He had made with His people. Despite His steadfast love, though, God’s people continued to sin. This presented a problem: how could God fulfill the promises He had made to bless His people when they continually demonstrated their unfaithfulness to Him?
As a part of His great plan, God pledged a new covenant—a work of inner re-creation. As the theologian Alec Motyer writes, “When his people could not rise to the height of his standards, the Lord does not lower his standards to match their ability; he transforms his people.”[1]
This new covenant is the purpose and promise of God to regenerate hearts through the blood of the Lord Jesus. He takes our hearts and He makes them the perfect shape—like fitting a piece in a jigsaw puzzle—so that His law becomes a delight to us.
In God’s declaration of this new covenant, the verb “know” is key. In the original Hebrew, its meaning is clear from the very beginning in Genesis: the straightforward statement that Adam “knew” his wife and they bore children (Genesis 4:1) demonstrates the level of intimacy it conveys. God is saying that when His people come to an understanding of His love, they won’t simply be doing Bible studies at arm’s length; they’ll be people who truly know Him.
What Jeremiah spoke of in the future tense, we are able to enjoy in the present; for in between his prophecy and our time, the Lord Jesus held up a cup of wine the night before He died and announced, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). By God’s grace, you and I may know the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Not only this, but He also knows each of our names, individually; and He knows our needs and is committed to our well-being. Jesus bears our names before the Father—and because of all He is and all He’s done, those names are written in the Book of Life.
What kind of King is this? The answer is beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Someday, we will see Him face-to-face and understand far more than we do today. But still, today you can go about with the confidence that comes from knowing that you know the God who redeemed you through His Son, who dwells in and works in you by His Spirit, and in whose throne room you will one day stand.
Questions for Thought
How is God calling me to think differently?
How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?
What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?
Further Reading
Jeremiah 31:31–40
Topics: God’s Covenants New Birth
FOOTNOTES
1 Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ (Kregel, 1996), p 58-59.
Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg
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