Forgiven and remembered no more

As the years went by and God continued to reveal His purposes, “precept upon precept and line upon line,” as Isaiah puts it, He made further covenants with the Jewish nation. Perhaps the most important were His covenant with Moses at Sinai, described in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the new covenant, promised, for instance, in the book of Jeremiah.

The covenant with Moses, unlike the Abrahamic covenant, was a conditional covenant.  God said “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant” (Exodus 19:5). The Jewish people replied “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). Sadly, the Jewish people found it too difficult to keep. They broke the covenant.

The covenant given to Moses at Sinai contained 613 laws. There were 248 positive commandments -  “thou shalt” – and 365 negative commandments – “thou shalt not.” It was made with the Jewish nation. Gentiles were never subject to Moses’ law. (A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; a Gentile is someone who is not a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.)

Jsrael had become a nation, but not a nation like the other nations: Israel was a theocracy. This was a national covenant; a covenant to live by. It had a number of purposes. It was to demonstrate the holiness of God, and the standard of righteousness that God required of man. With the covenant’s food laws and its commandments concerning the Sabbath, it was to keep the Jews a distinct people. And it was to demonstrate the reality of sin and bring the Jew to saving faith in the Messiah.

It was also for a limited time period. When Messiah came, He would institute a new covenant, a better covenant.

So when the Jews broke the covenant, did God forsake them? He did not. He promised them something better. Here is the new covenant God promised in Jeremiah, written 600 years before the promised Messiah was born:

“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 –

“Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they brake, though I was a husband to them,” says the Lord.

“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 neighbour, 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.”

Jeremiah 31:31 – 34.

The new covenant was not made with the church, but with the house of Israel and the house of Judah – in other words, with the complete nation of Israel. It was not going to be the same as the covenant He had made with the Jews at Sinai when He brought them out of Egypt, which they had broken. That had given them an external law.

Now the law was going to be internalised. It was going to be in their minds and written on their hearts. It would no longer be necessary for one person to teach another to know the Lord. It looked forward to the day when all the Jews would know Him.

Under the Mosaic covenant, their sins had been covered by the sacrifice of bulls and goats. But only covered, because the sacrifices had needed to be repeated. Under the new covenant, there was going to be one last, great and perfect sacrifice. Their iniquity would be washed away. Their sin would be forgiven and remembered no more.