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Chapter 7

The Divinely Donated Dynamism of Jeremiah 30-31

A Further Glance at the Vision of Jeremiah

So Simple, so Strong, so Sure

See also Jeremiah is More than Jeremiad

NEAR AT HAND AND FAR OFF

Jeremiah 30-31 are two of the most omni-coverage chapters in the prophet's book. Their scope is sensational, brilliant, poetic in intensity, literal in vast arrays of practical events and particular happenings, moving with a facility which ravishes and a cordiality of  heart which impacts, as this and then that major feature in the current, the coming kingdom, that in Israel, that of heaven, is revealed.

Let us then trace the outline in Jeremiah 30-31, and relish its content while following principles which arise, to whet the visual appetite with more perspective.

Thus you see first events near at hand. The Lord will bring back the fallen and exilic Israel from captivity. He traces the contemporary horror (30:5-6), only to move on from this time to a devastating finale, the time of Jacob's trouble (v. 7), when "they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king whom I will raise up."  What a leap in time from the ditch of desolation to the acme of the ultimate, in the time beyond! But with the Lord, time like a brook has its start and its end, in the human test conditions, and a glance along the way is like that of an aircraft covering terrain, though this covers all history and stops where it will, as it gives to man the perspective.

Then, in that royal day of the Lord, then will be broken, as earlier in Egypt,  the breach of the imposed yoke, so that foreigners shall cease the bondage and enslavement they have imposed. This is like Micah 7:15 where the divine actions to achieve this are compared to those freeing them from Egyptian rule, much earlier. That was an initial action, and here is a far more ultimate parallel.

Thus we move far forward to a near fatal finale, in which the Lord intervenes to terminate "the time of Jacob's trouble." After all, it was the LORD who took them from slavery (in Egypt), and it was they who brought themselves into slavery (to sin), and now that it had been objectified in another physical slavery, it would not be such as to glorify the slave-drivers, any more than the Egyptian slave-drivers over Israel in former time, were glorified. It is now passing beyond the immediate travail of a destroyed city, at the hand of Babylon, which will of course suffer for it (cf. Jeremiah 51:24). It moves through the whole series of divine actions as in Leviticus 26, which escalate till the end!

We are coming to that very end in this passage, when the Messiah actually rules (as in Psalm 2, Isaiah 11, 59:20-21, 65, Micah 4, Psalm 72). It is a rule over all the earth in which it will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9, Habakkuk 2:14, 3, Micah 7, Psalm 72:11)

THE NADIR FOR WHAT IS NEAR

In fact, as to Babylon, in interim persecutor, they were humiliated, brought to ruin (as in Isaiah 13's prediction, and history drab fulfilment in its dust), just as was Egypt, which had dared to bring Israel to ruin in slavery much earlier, though it was permitted to continue as a secondary or 'base' kingdom in the later stages of history (Ezekiel 29:14ff.). Indeed, in this passage, Babylon, while performing the work of divine duress in its initial phase, is given Egypt  as 'wages' for having fallen on Tyre.

In this is a very important principle. Anyone, man, woman, child, nation, city, may be enabled in time to fulfil some fearful action in which justice is not delayed and folly at last is met. If the Lord suffers someone to take such a past for a time, this in no way excuses excesses, cruelties in the process, mad arrogant vanity in the result. An agent is himself assessable!

This is explicit with Babylon, that disaster exemplar (Jeremiah 50:29ff.). There is a reward even here on earth,  for the regimes which fall in their cruelty and viciousness, their lust and their apparent loss of all awareness of being human, as appears to be the case in Zimbabwe, where the use of iron bars on dissidents seems to be preferred to the use of reason on their ears, and is expressly permitted, according to television footage on Mugabe.

The allowance of vengeance, vindictiveness or philosophies of hatred to ruin a land and make it starve (which is precisely what the USSR did under Stalin as evidence indicates, deprivation of food a tool of manipulation) is not loved by the Lord (Lamentations 3:33), and the results in the end are not loved by those responsible. Then there is assessment day, a matter dramatically set before the mind in Ezekiel 32, in the macabre and lugubrious darkness of obscurity and judgment. It may be food shortage is a CONSCIOUS tool, or just gross mismanagement and hatred make it a derivative one, but in any case, the hand that smashes has answer to the hand that rules.

In the biblical prophets in general, God makes His will and predictions clear, His principles and promises, of good or evil, that is desolation for sin that even on this earth may be vast; and to Israel He promises to show what is coming (Amos 3:7) and has done just that.

To all time the amazing acts of God, those forecast and fulfilled, throb in the conscience of rebellious man. Thus His action in the Exodus,  to bring out a subject people from a massive empire, to become an independent kingdom with a glorious temple and massive power, would be seen and considered. It is often celebrated in the Psalms such as 78, 106, the latter moving on to the failure of Israel to follow such a lead in many ways over time, and to the mercies of the Lord before judgment set in.

ISRAEL ITSELF HAS SUFFERED

Israel also has suffered for its follies, its multi-cultural religious zeal, divinely described in terms of spiritual adultery in Hosea and elsewhere, its indifference to the purity of truth and the wonder of the living God, who had dealt with them so closely for so long. When God completes the picture in the utter repulse and devastation of those who seek to control Israel (as in Ezekiel 37-39, Micah 7), then as He says in Ezekiel, "the nations will know" that the Lord acted to discipline Israel, just as He acts to bring them back (39:21ff.).

Already they are back physically and nationally (cf. SMR Ch. 9, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10), as promised and in their triumphs and pressures, all is fulfilled. The end-time dénouements await their addition to the list of divinely fulfilled prophecies which, of course, are no mere list of items, as for a super-market, but matters of principle an promise, disposition and culmination.

We have moved on in terms of principles in view, and begun to cover much of what was to come near the end of the Age, but as we move on in Jeremiah 30,  the present in the day of Jeremiah himself comes now poignantly into view.

Thus too, in this period nearer to Jeremiah himself,  would the Babylonian oppressor, used indeed of God in Israel's discipline, itself be humbled when its time came (as Jeremiah is led to show by the ceremonial dropping of a large stone in the river for Babylon - see Jeremiah 50-51 cf. 50:17-19). Indeed, in Jeremiah 51:54-58, we hear this: "the sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans, because the LORD is plundering Babylon, and silencing her loud voice .. For the LORD is the God of recompense, He will surly repay. "

He proceeds:

"And I will make drunk her princes and wise men, her governors, her deputies,
and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake,"

and this, it is the word of "the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts." Here is the King of kings allocating results. He is to do far more, and come personally as King to rule in the end of the era. Crucifixion is the commencement of the end, resurrection its place of power, but the return to rule is the exhibit of the result (Psalm 2, Acts 3), as really as rebellion from the Cross and the redemptive mercy of Christ, has been the cause of calamity.

"David their king" the LORD will "raise up" for them (Jeremiah 30:9, cf. 23:5ff.). Though nations like Babylon would fail entirely (v. 11), yet Israel would not fail, a fact Christ made so very clear, as seen in Luke 21:32. The breed of the Jew, and indeed, the nation of Israel, though the latter was hard pressed for long, DID NOT pass away! Many another people or nation has done so.  God ALWAYS does what He says and His word to Abraham has not altered (cf. Galloping Events ... Ch. 4).

Yet Israel, Jeremiah declares, for all its restoration to come, and its guarantee of continuation, is to be corrected (Jeremiah 30:11). Returning to their pathology, the contemporary occlusion, the spiritual heart attack they have suffered, with its results written on their national face, their weakening, the devastation all too apparent (as in Lamentations), the Lord exhibits in excruciating detail their plight. "All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you."

In other words, they have lost their 'lovers', that is, their companions in vice, the nations like Egypt or Assyria whom once they sought, INSTEAD of relying on the Lord, pagan supernumeraries. faithless nations, these they have sought, and in them tried to find their help! Yet these very nations have no time for them now.

Isaiah had also and earlier inveighed against the folly of such reliance, just as the folly of World War II reliance in part on the tyrannical USSR was folly, with the Cold War, part-payment, a thing that humbled and hurt many millions in Eastern Europe, challenged the massive might of that time in the USA, and brought opportunity for new foes to flourish in the partial gap thus provided. This is one of the results to this very day.

Let us hear Isaiah on this theme! (Ch. 31).

However, like Jeremiah, the Lord speaks through Isaiah (31:4ff.) of a deliverance which is to come, one which in fact ramifies exceedingly, and started notoriously with Hezekiah, when he was dramatically delivered from Assyria by an act of massive, divine intervention (cf. Isaiah 37-38).

                    "For thus the Lord has spoken to me:

                           Passing over, He will preserve it.' "

In that exact accord through the various prophets, so here in Jeremiah 30, the Lord continues His itemisation of their follies, bringing temporary but acute ruin. "Your sorrow is incurable because of the multitude of your iniquities."

However, the Lord stresses once more that so far from those who are used to punish Israel being able long to glory in their own strength: "... all those who devour you, shall be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity: those who plunder you shall become plunder..." (cf. Isaiah 13, 37).

For Israel, however (Jeremiah 30:17), "I will restore health to you and heal you of your wounds." Carrying on anti-God activities may bring happiness for a moment, but devastation is not far off; and the Lord does NOT forget Israel,  yes, though they may forget Him for many a long day! He will restore them with this in mind: "Because they called you an outcast saying: 'This is Zion; no one seeks her.' "

The details of the coming reconstruction (after the 70 years of punishment in exile - as in Jeremiah 25) are now dwelt on lovingly, to 30:20.

The deliverances and government described is CERTAIN and the Lord indicates that it will take till the end of history on this earth, the very Age, to accomplish it fully.

                    In the latter days you will consider it."

So ends Chapter 30.

THE UNIQUE HISTORY OF ISRAEL,
THEN TO COME, AND NOW NEARLY COMPLETE,

BUT BOTH FOREKNOWN AND FORETOLD

Then we learn toward the end of Ch. 30,  of a new advent, one of incomparable joy (Jeremiah as in Isaiah 9:1-7). "Their governor shall come from their midst" - a good exhibition so far, perhaps of independence! However, this is a specific and special religious centre. " 'Then I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach Me: for who is this who pledged his heart to approach Me ?' says the LORD." 

This forms basis to the new or renewed perspective in which this Governor figures: "You shall be My people, and I will be your God." Thus we see the combination, as to a safe's lock. It is a Governor, one who is able to bring His heart in pledge near to the Lord, and hence has priestly function, as well as regal, a mark beyond priesthood to the Messiah (as in Zechariah 6:12-13, in contrast to the prohibition to this sort of duality of function in the Old Covenant, as shown so dramatically in the case of the sinning presumption of King Uzziah, in II Chronicles 26:16ff.).

Through Jeremiah, the Lord will pour out more on this major theme in vistas and visions as he proceeds.

In Jeremiah 31, the Lord reviews some of His constant love over preceding national vicissitudes, and speaks of a coming time when holiness will become, suit and be exhibited in Israel once again! He almost seems to describe as in a newspaper,  the return under Ezra and Nehemiah, the emotion, the feeling and the features of spirit found in that zealous reconstruction, which eventually issued into history, after the 70 year detention in Babylon, for their sins, was complete.

Thus in Jeremiah 31:10ff., we hear this:

"Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
'He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock, for the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he. Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the LORD..."

Suddenly, the scene changes, and a new vista is brought to impact on the watching eye, as in a cinema when from one scene, pregnant with hope, you suddenly see in the next, actual desolation and then come to understand in a little while, what had happened.

"A voice was heard in Ramah,

"Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children,
refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more."

What national desolation is this ? It is mentioned in Matthew 2:17, and there pinpointed. It refers to the travail associated with the birth of Christ, when Herod slaughtered 'the innocents', the babes, in the hope of killing the new king in his nets, in case of danger to himself or his dynasty, presumably. Killers like that are two a penny now, but that was quite an exploit in utter immorality and bloodthirsty selfishness. Only the sense of entire desolation in the mothers of Israel is conveyed here, as Jeremiah proceeds on to specify the incarnation, and the New Covenant, the one and then the other, to give the historical placement of this national tragedy.

The Lord proceeds in Jeremiah 30:16 , to offer comfort to Israel, the nation in its distress, as it would be in that coming time: something not surprising since Jeremiah being a prophet , has to do both with truth and the future. What is wonderful is the word of comfort provided some 600 years in advance, concerning this pivotal era to come in Israel's history, one which has made much of the Gentile world rejoice, now in this nation, now in that, as the waves of the Gospel proclamation have traversed the earth (as Christ foretold - Matthew 24:12).

The words given to Jeremiah: these are a domain in which he is being directed by deity (as in I Peter 1:10ff.). Don't cry - your work will be rewarded! the Lord tells them. "There is hope in your future!" (Jeremiah 31:17).

Thus a time is presaged in which an independence will be found once again, as it was in the day of the Maccabees; but this temporary effulgence by the day of the Messiah had no small exhibition in its own day, of what the Lord could do for Israel. It started with the predicted abomination put by a Syrian king, in a residual sector of Alexander's empire (Daniel 8), and the popular arising with the Maccabees as leaders, resulted in a time that became virtually imperial for Israel. The Maccabees did indeed have a virtual empire in their day! (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 8) and in what precision the Lord dealt with that coming event in its critical period, in Daniel.

That however came only to pass, and into the centre of concerns,  into the realm of the Messiah's own birth, the word of the prophet then looks forward,  past what was here, merely an amazing preliminary rule; and indeed it ponders the position of Israel in times far off, when at last there will be a permanent return to Him, a matter of epochal significance, one which would not come at once, no, not even when the Messiah arrived (Isaiah 49:7, 53:3-5) on His first mission of grace (as in Isaiah 7, 9, 22, 42, 49, 50, 52-53). The Maccabee era was merely a political prelude; the spiritual realities were to come in their most intense form. 

Now the prophecy turns to the whole problem, sin, and the whole solution, repentance back into the love of God, His mercy and His program, plan and personal zeal for His people.

"I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself:

‘You have chastised me, and I was chastised,

Like an untrained bull;

Restore me, and I will return,

For You are the Lord my God.

Surely, after my turning, I repented;

And after I was instructed, I struck myself on the thigh;

I was ashamed, yes, even humiliated,

Because I bore the reproach of my youth.’
 

When however is this finale to be ? When will the position shown in Jeremiah 31:23-33, come to pass ? When will the Messianic rule of Jeremiah 23:5 occur, that of Isaiah 60, 65 ? It is when at last the necessary prelude is in place. One of its critical features is of course, to be the repentance on a massive scale, in Israel, concerning their rejection of the Messiah, such as Isaiah is used to depict. Zechariah 12:10-13:1 shows it in some detail, the realisation by many in Israel that they slew their Messiah and the return for washing in the fountain He provided!

Dwelling on this delightful, post-Messianic marvel, from Jeremiah (31:18ff.),  we find the period at last, also stressed by Paul in Romans 11:25ff..

"Is Ephraim My dear son?

Is he a pleasant child?

For though I spoke against him,

I earnestly remember him still;

Therefore My heart yearns for him;

        I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord."

The ultimate in restoration now for the second time, is to become clear (cf. Isaiah 11:11ff.).

Giving intense instructions for their return, the Lord links to this forecast repentance deep within the nation, and in the midst of the "latter days"  as the criterion for this ultimacy (Jeremiah 30:24), the marvel of the Messiah in action on this earth. It is then that the Governor will be priest as well, for the Lord will Himself bear the glory (Zechariah 6).

 "Turn back, O virgin of Israel..." He exhorts. Israel must repent finally of regression. "How long will you gad about!" He chides.  In other words, there must come a categorical rejection of this cultural proclivity, this spiritual obesity, this finding of satisfaction in idols, in cultural accretions, dipping into the cess pool of the sins of other nations. Israel must come clean. Then the Lord opens up the way for the Messiah, for this amazing rule of God on earth in the person of a man, as shown in Psalm 2, where in HIM one must TRUST (whereas trust in any but God as Lord and keeper, is forbidden with no small stringency, as in Jeremiah 17:5ff..

Now therefore comes the second unique component of the final restoration, the one to last. Stop gadding about, says the Lord, BECAUSE "the Lord has created a new thing in the earth - a woman shall encompass a man."

There is nothing so new in parthenogenesis, though it is not common; but what IS new is the case in question. It is as a new category, one where the former virgin, Israel, now sullied beyond all normal repair, in repentance at a vast level, comes to its Messiah as shown in Jeremiah 30. Now He will come through a virgin, come without human male parentage.

THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF DEITY IN THE FORETOLD MESSIAH,
THE SAVIOUR AND LORD

Now it is to be seen HOW such a Messiah can be: it is because a woman shall encompass a man. In other words, here, following in time the prophecy of Isaiah, Jeremiah is gifted to see this new thing for the earth (but not for the prophets). It is that the Messiah, who as in Isaiah 9:6-7, is to be called the mighty God, the everlasting Father (Bible Translation 20), has a reason for this exalted nomenclature. Why, on the human side, there is ONLY a woman in this conception. The Father is so implicit in THIS son of the virgin, that the Son can even be so intimate to that Father as being of His stature, He reveals that Father, and bears His very name as deity (as in John 14:1-11).

HENCE this Messiah can be both priest and king, hence His government shall not end (Isaiah 9:7). Therefore,  although all must bow the knee to the LORD (Isaiah 45:23ff.), to God Almighty Himself, yet they must bow as a divine direction to the Messiah, since He IS the Lord (as in Philippians 2, John 8:58). The very distinctive acknowledgement of God is to be shown to the SON who is given, whose home is in heaven (John 3:13).

NONE other God is there, no not even any of this very region of deity (as in Isaiah 45:21, so that God's UNIQUE prerogative to have every knee bow to Him, is expressed in its being bowed to the Messiah). I am My Father are one, said Christ (John 10).

That is what you see not only in Isaiah 45 and Philippians 2, but in Psalm 2 likewise, where failure to trust in the Messiah means wrath (as in John 3:16-19 with 3:36), for it is failure to trust in the LORD. That is why failure to REALISE who the Lord is and to honour Him ONLY as such is so riotous a thing when Christ is rejected; for it is the LORD who as Jehovah has been their revealed God for so long (as in I Corinthians 10), and it is He who is incarnate now (John 8:58). Here is this ONLY GOD (as in Psalm 89:6), with none even comparable in heaven or on earth, who so demonstrates and reveals in the Son, in the Messiah, being God of very God!

 God the sender and God the sent (Isaiah 48:16ff.) are one. Indeed, in  John 10:30ff., we find that the statement to this effect from Christ produced thoughts of stoning Him, since this made him in their eyes to be claiming, as indeed it was, equality with God. This is precisely what is shown in John 5:19ff., where He not only does what God is doing but does it in the very SAME WAY.

I could paint like Picasso, though all would laugh at my trivial attempt to copy; but I do not paint in the very same way for I do not possess anything like the talent. His talent for that style is unique. It is the PICASSO. In the human realm, some might come near; but when you are  dealing with God, or rather God is dealing with you, then there is the infinite mode of acting from the infinite being called God. Nothing short of infinity is comparable in power and mode. Yet Christ did what the Father was doing in precisely the same way, He declared.

It is so in II Peter 1:1, where the expression God and Saviour, Jesus Christ is used. It is 'the God of us and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' There IS no other Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11), firstly; and secondly, there is only one 'the' at the head of the phrase as shown above, so that the two come in unitary terms. That this is intended, as the grammar would suggest, is ratified in II Peter 1:2, where we find 'in the knowledge of the God and Jesus the Lord of us.' Again there is the unitary linkage, with the term 'Lord' reserved till after the word 'Jesus'. Since there is ONE LORD (Ephesians 4:4), and one must worship the Lord our God ONLY, there is abundant declaration of deity, with the Lordship criterion added at the end, in the name of Jesus.

Again, in II Peter 1:11, we have 'the kingdom of the Lord of us and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' It is in this particular case manifest that it is the very same person, not only the same being; and the grammatical form is just the same as for that of God and Saviour, one 'the' and an integral following group of words. The same form and formula of integral being is used throughout these cases in Peter, where the use of theological salvation in terms of the Christ linked with God, is rather like saying, here is the kingdom of water and water, even our water. The mutuality is independently based in the very terms themselves, in the grammar, in the illustrations of the usage in Peter, and in the bold affirmation, as one expert has declared, perhaps an answer to those who threw this very thing in the Christian's face, as if to mock. Here it is affirmed with zealous indifference to unbelief.

Nor is it different in II Peter 2:20, 'knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' with only one 'the', as in all the other integral cases. This is the mode of expression being used for oneness, and the degree of oneness is unitary in one as in all. Jesus is THE LORD, and He is linked in this way with THE GOD. Thus these terms in these ascriptions are of one type, and include the elements of God, Saviour and Lord in various combinations, each one of these being independently a prerogative of God.

Further, in Titus 2:13, we have in this manner and order,  'appearing of the glory  of the great God and Saviour of us, Jesus Christ'. It is the 'great God' who is in view, indeed, and the same one definite article only is to be found at the head of the phrase, with no differentiation for 'Saviour' which follows as in all the other groupings noted above. Moreover, as Poole points out, there is no case where the Greek for 'appearing' appears, except of Christ, for it is HIS special prerogative, calling and task to do this (as in John 1:18 cf. Hebrews 9:29, where the concept also obtains) in the domain of deity.

This is the thing to be AWAITED, this appearing in this context, this return as predicted by Christ (Matthew 24), that of the One who already gave Himself as Redeemer.

Of course there is no other Redeemer but God! (Isaiah 44:24, 43:3). It IS the Lord who identifies Himself as their Redeemer, and it is the Messiah who DOES the redeeming as in Isaiah 53. Similarly,  He who is the Creator is similarly the ONLY ONE (as in Isaiah 44:24, 45:18), just as Christ is that Creator (as in John 1:3, Colossians 1:15), of ALL.

Indeed in the category of what comes into being (as in Greek, for John 1:3), ALL is done by Him. As Saviour, Redeemer, Creator, GOD ONLY is He, and Christ is each of the three. Again, the LORD is the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 41:20, 45:11), whereas in Isaiah 43:14, it is the LORD, their Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, where all the terms are conjoined, who is in view.

The singularity of God in these divine functions and prerogatives is stressed to the point that it is clear that only the thickest of skins can even hope to avoid it, and then, with sharp incisions! This throbs like a diesel engine in 43:10, where we learn that before the LORD no god was formed, and none may be after Him. Moreover, it is even EL (as in the Hebrew transliterated), not ELOHIM, meaning NOTHING at all of this order, small or great, of this kind or concept or that. It is a case of NOTHING else altogether, forever, formed before, coming later! God is ONE ONLY, ETERNAL, IMMUTABLE, not subject to forming.

Again there is this denunciatory annunciation, or this clear removal of the name from ANY OTHER, with contempt, acclamation or discrediting, as the case varies, in Isaiah 44:6 There is no God beside Him, in 44:24, 45:5, 45:14, 45:18, 45:21, where He is "a just God and a Saviour", and moreover "there is none besides Me."

It is this God to whom every knee must bow, in His singularity and being; and it is to Jesus Christ, to whom all must bow, He who also is the Saviour, the Redeemer, the payor indeed, the Creator. The terminology is indisputable, the concept is inalienable, the claim is a merger and the oneness is that of one Being, with two Persons, the third, the Holy Spirit seen in such phases as Genesis 1 and Isaiah 59:19, 32:15.

But we digress. It is merely to show the whole significance of what in Jeremiah is brought forth in the individual style given there; and this must be seen in the biblical context, to which we have paid just now a little attention.

ENCOMPASSING THE MAN, PATHWAY FOR GOD,
INTROIT TO THE HUMAN RACE

Thus the woman who encompasses a man, and the man who is governor who approaches and pledges His heart to approach the Lord, whose day is the way to come, is indeed the criterion for the return of Israel to its place as in Jeremiah 31:21-22.

There comes in His day such a wonder and a glory of satiety for the spirit of the redeemed as will be a sign, signal and cynosure of grace (Jeremiah 31:23ff.).

In fact, the Lord goes even broader in His depiction, and pursues the topic untiringly.

This is the era of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31ff.), a fact cited in Hebrews, where the law of God is written on the heart, when as in Jeremiah 3:16, Old Covenant specifics at the very centre, will not even come to mind.

Knowledge of God will be innate, consummative, general among His people in that day. Indeed, we move here into the very specialised environs of the Christian Church, since this is merely the called out ones of the Messiah, and here Israel is seen in this coming light, as part of this bathing in the illumination which comes from the knowledge of the Messiah.

Jeremiah is used to hammer the point with an atomic driven jack-hammer, it seems.

He makes abundant declaration of the certainty of this coming, of this new Covenant, and its Messiah. This is to come more surely than anything astronomical (Jeremiah 31:35ff.), and so it has.

One must remember at such times that it was those of Israel to whom Christ initially came, and He bore their racial background for the incarnation (cf. Romans 9:1ff.). It was those of Israel who were the apostles, who with Christ the cornerstone and the prophets of old, are foundational (Ephesians 2:19-20). Those who KNEW the Lord were associates of His, and specific were they (Acts 1:15-22).

This coming day of the Messiah, as in Jeremiah 23:5ff., is one relating to that specific Saviour who was in the flesh, a descendant of King David; and His reign, as in Isaiah 9:7ff., is to prosper, and indeed as there, it will grow and never end.

Far from obscuring Judah and such, it will have specific hold there, for here is one component of the Christian Church, one to come (as in Romans 11:25ff.). The time of blindness of Israel is divinely limited, and it comes only to PASS! says Paul in that chapter. It will cease and they will resume!

So do all the prophets teach. Indeed, in Micah 4 and Isaiah 2 you see the same impact of the same Gospel. Isaiah is most careful to remove, as the Lord led and inspired him, any thought of mere Judaism (parallel to Britishism or Chinese-ism); for as for Israel in itself, Messiah apart, how different the theme!

Why the servants of God are to be blessed and refreshed and regaled with blessing, while those who cringe, creeping away from the Messiah whom Isaiah depicted so lavishly in Chs.2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 22, 32, 49-55 and so on, are to be abhorred, cursed not blessed. Isaiah 65:13-15 is most explicit on this. It demarcates the blessed believer and the estranged, alienated and cursed unbeliever, residual Israel, strong in its fiction, in its delusive division from its own Lord!

There is no recrudescence of Israel as the old inheritance, but only in the Messiah, as part of the new, in spiritual terms. Yet it is to come, both in restoration of the nation and of its later restoration in large bulk, spiritually to this same Lord (as in Ezekiel 36ff. cf. SMR Appendix A, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10).

So do we see Israel, not only a spiritual new creation,  new in the Church, now in the phase yet to come,  more en bloc then before, when only some thousands at first came. It is also the specialised component that was Israel in the flesh, restored first to its land, and now to its Lord.

It is in part an arm of the Church, united into one living body as in Romans 11; but it is one group which has a distinctive history whose national restoration is as much a part of predicted history as their submersion into the ONE GOSPEL is another.

It is after all, THEIR Messiah, and just as their rejection of Him has been shown in earthly history, to have results just as foretold from Moses in Leviticus 26, and in Deuteronomy 32, yes and in Ezekiel: so  it also has results of divine mercy. Thus comes this restoration specifically of the once near, then far, then returning body, Israel alone meeting this definition.  This is in part already fulfilled with every detail of the related predictions conserved with passion!^*1

It is almost amusing to see some try to remove Zechariah 14's reference to the division of the city of Jerusalem in end of the Age conflict,  subsequent to the crucifixion of Christ and before His personal return (as in Zechariah 12:10- 14:5), into some futuristic situation. In fact, most extraordinarily and extravagantly to the last detail, this has already HAPPENED. It came in 1948.

The UN and the British were all stalling and stopping Israel from this restoration, and yet it came. The Arabs and Middle East were aflame with hostility, opposition, confrontation. It was as if the whole relevant world, some even far off, and the very UNITED nations were all for its extermination, overthrow, desiring to internationalise Jerusalem, giving just a pittance of land to Israel. Not enough for the Arab, was this! Not at all. Israel had to be exterminated and so did the many nations war on it, and more warred with words, with sanctions to overthrow its independence, making it a mere collection of bits with their very capital denied them. God had other ideas. He has implemented them. He said that He would in the very midst of such kefuffles (Zechariah 12).

There was conflict and Israel won. It was as if the Lord fought for them; and He overthrew the enemy as planned, predicted and now fulfilled. Israel got first half of the city of Jerusalem in 1948, and then the other half in 1967. These were some of the most amazing victories of modern times, not as with the Allies, vast, strong and technical nations overcoming another highly proficient power bloc, but a tiny segment of a nation overcoming many nations.

How many times does the Lord have to ACT in fulfilling His word, before erratic theology will take heed and listen.

So has the Lord done what He declared, and having preserved the Jewish nation from extinction while abroad, He has returned it to its place, in the post-Messianic period. He has brought out THROUGH His word in it,  in the day and that following, of Christ, via the apostles and the Jewish Church first formed, the beginnings of the Christian Church. He has to this initial core added the Gentile Church with precisely the same Gospel, the same apostles, and the same one as Isaiah the prophet, foretold in detail in Isaiah 48-55.

Many from Israel thus were used in the foundation of the Christian Church; but the nation languished.

Now there is to come not only the territorial re-establishment, but the spiritual renewal for Israel. At this moment, this heaves into sight. Then He will return, having taken His people, His elect from all points of the compass (as in Matthew 24). Then He will be king on the earth as in Jeremiah 23, Isaiah 2, Revelation 20; and then the place He chose will be honoured (as it already has been), by His coming. The people He chose will be preserved (as they already have been), and the place of the crucifixion will become not a site for conflict, but a cynosure of joy as the Lord rules, before He removes heaven and earth, their works being burnt up, as Revelation proceeds to declare, with II Peter 3, and indeed, the word of Christ in Matthew 24:35.

As to God, He means what He says. He is the first communicator in the world, and the beginning of it, creator of it in man, not for cavil, but for transmission of truth.

He does not define His terms in order to have bright new definitions put in. Context continues to indicate what He has in mind, and this unfortunately in much of theology tends to become the mental furniture of the writer, not the actual text of the scripture. WHATEVER it says of WHATEVER party, is defined by context; and where the Israel that came and went and is to come and has returned is in mind, there is no point in distorting the word of God to make it something other. Again, where the Gospel-receiving body is in view, there is no good purpose in making it just one nation or something of this kind; for its scope is as defined where it stands, where unlimited, or dealing specifically with a part, Jew or Gentile, of its operations. At times, it may focus the Jewish segment of the Church, but only in terms of a battalion with the same Gospel as that of the apostles, as that foretold by Isaiah, which will not alter (Isaiah 59:21).

There is no mystery in all of this, except that of the faithfulness, love and tender mercies of the God of all truth; and as to that, it is a mystery of joy, like the beauty of a lingering sunset which suffuses the sky with no intention of leaving until it is entirely ready. Yet the way man wanders from what God says, sometimes with a sort of brilliant glow, as if making up the word of God were a profession.

Alas it is not only liberal, but some conservative groups who fall into this pool; and it is deep.

It is God however who is deep, and wise is the one who lets HIM define what He means and where He means it, without any pre-conceived ideas about what He MUST mean, when ... it is simply not what He says, does not accord with His immediate definition of terms, or avoids the keys for interpretation given.

It is very wonderful, Jeremiah, the tenderness, the truculence, the poignancy, the pity, the diversity of concept, the unity of thrust. It is like the Lord, like the wind on the waters: it moves and you follow. You do not do well to imitate ... the wind. There is a name for that.

NOTE

*1

See for example:

His Wounds ... Ch. 3, Little Things ... Ch. 9,

It Bubbles ... Chs. 10   -11, Regal Rays ... Ch. 1

Musings on the Middle East (verse mode),

Beauty of Holiness Ch. 5,

SMR Chs. 8 -9, Israel ),

Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm and Renewal of Life Ch. 5.

Overflight in Christ ... Ch. 6.