Jeremiah 31:31-34 – God Says, “Let’s Start Over!”

A wise friend once gave me some advice about marriage counseling. “If a marriage doesn’t work, usually it’s because the people in the marriage don’t work. You can’t have a functioning marriage with dysfunctional people.”

“My feelings exactly,” says God. After the nation of Israel went out from Egypt, God met with them at Mt. Sinai in the desert. God said, “I, the LORD take you, Israel, to be my people.” Israel said, “We, Israel, take you, the LORD, to be our God.” God’s Law spelled out the agreement under which God and his people would live together. Israel promised, “Everything the LORD has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3).

The trouble started before the ink on the agreement was dry. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with God’s Law. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with God.

But there is something very wrong with people. God’s Law requires perfect faithfulness from his people, and the Israelites just weren’t up to it. We aren’t, either. God’s Law requires that we love him and one another perfectly. You and I are born with a flawed, sinful nature that makes this totally impossible.

So what did God do? God’s solution was to tear up the old agreement and make a new one. “This is the covenant I will make,” God said. “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:33, 34).

That’s what God did in Jesus Christ. Under the “new covenant,” the gospel, here’s how your relationship with God works. God forgives your sins.

That’s it! No conditions to agree to before God will take you back. No stipulations that God will forgive you if you’re good enough. Jesus represents you in this agreement, and Jesus is more than good enough. God has accepted Jesus’ sacrifice. And in accepting Jesus, God accepts you, too.

For those who live with God under this new agreement, an amazing thing starts happening. We find ourselves undergoing a change of heart, becoming less dysfunctional and more like Jesus day by day. Jeremiah predicted this, too (31:33). We find ourselves loving God, not so that God will make us his, but because he already has (1 John 4:19).

It’s amazing! God’s Law nagged at us from the outside. The Gospel changes us on the inside. The new agreement gets results where the old one failed.

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