 The 31st chapter in the prophet Jeremiah has a very famous prophecy about a new covenant, a breed, that God is going to make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I'm going to read it to you. The prophet says that, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant. God is saying I'm going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And he goes on to say, it's not according, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day, I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. It's not going to be like the covenant we made back when they came out of Egypt because they broke that covenant. Israel broke. We didn't live faithfully according to the original covenant. Although God says I was a husband to them, but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I'll put my law, I'll put my Torah in their inner parts. I will put it into their hearts. I will write it in their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And they shall teach no more every man, his neighbor and every man, his brother saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord, for I'll forgive their iniquity, I'll remember their sin no more. The way Christians understand this passage is that there's going to be a new covenant which they take either to mean that God's going to reveal a new scriptures. That's how they justify gluing the New Testament onto the back of our Tanakh. Because they say Jeremiah predicted there's going to be a new covenant and many of them go on beyond that to say that this is predicting the nature of that new covenant. It'll be one where God puts the Torah in our hearts and therefore if it's in our hearts, it's now really translated into a heart relationship with God. That it's no longer going to be like the old relationship where we related to God through keeping and observing the commandments of the Torah. But now that gets replaced with faith in the Messiah. That's more or less the way Christians understand this new covenant. It's going to be a new relationship with God, not like the old one which the Jewish people broke. It's going to be a new one where God puts it into our hearts and it's going to be based upon faith not on observing the Torah and it's going to be captured in a new document which they refer to as the New Testament or the New Covenant. The one thing that Christians get right about this passage, the one thing they get right is that it is a messianic passage. This passage in Jeremiah is speaking of the messianic age. What you should remember and it's important to understand that the vast majority, the vast majority of messianic prophecies in the Jewish Bible do not speak about the person of the Messiah. The vast majority of messianic prophecy in the Jewish Bible speak about what the world will look like when the Messiah is here. They don't mention anything about the person himself that's referred to as the Messiah. The vast majority simply describe what the world is going to look like. The world's going to be a place of peace, we're told in the second chapter of Isaiah. The second chapter of Isaiah, the world's going to be a world of peace. It doesn't say anything about a person, a special human being, describes a transformed world. There is a small number of messianic prophecies that actually refer to the person of the Messiah. So Jeremiah 31 that we just read which is about the New Covenant God is going to make is a messianic prophecy. The Christians get that right. Their mistake is in assuming that it has already taken place and it's very clear that when you read this passage it has not taken place for two reasons. Number one, actually for three reasons. Number one, one of the things that's taking place in the book of Jeremiah here in the 31st chapter and other places is that it's speaking about a reunification of the Jewish people. We know that about 2700 years ago, even more than that, our nations split into two different nations. The southern kingdom of Judah, the northern kingdom of Israel. We were two separate nations and 2700 years ago the 10 northern tribes went into exile and became lost. But one of the prophecies throughout the Bible is that we will be reunited, that in the future these 10 lost tribes will be found, they'll be coming back and reuniting with their brethren from the kingdom of Judah. That's one of the things that's being mentioned here because it says God is going to make this covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. At the time of Jesus there was no house of Israel, just the kingdom of Judah. The 10 lost tribes were still lost at the time of Jesus. We're still waiting for this to happen. Number two, it says here very clearly that when this new covenant is made you won't have to go anywhere in the world to teach people about God because it says everyone is going to believe in me from the least of them to the greatest of them. Now if that were true you wouldn't have any ministers or missionaries in the world today. We have plenty of people who are going around trying to teach people about God because the whole world does not believe in God today and it's very clear from this passage in Jeremiah that we're being told when this new covenant is made everyone is going to believe in God and this is one of the central features of the Messianic Utopia, not just here. Throughout the Bible in the 11th chapter of Isaiah we're told that the knowledge of God will spread across the world as the waters cover the seas. And the 14th chapter of Zechariah says on that day God will be won and his name will be won. And this prophecy that the whole world is going to embrace God is one that comes up numerous times in the Bible. This is just another one of those times and it's a major feature of what the Messianic world will look like and it's one of the reasons that we know clearly that we're not living in the Messianic age because it hasn't happened yet. Thirdly, what does it mean when it says God's going to put his Torah into our hearts? What's interesting is that God says that the new covenant will not be like the old one. The old one new people broke, which is true. The Jewish nation never were totally loyal and obedient to all observed the Torah. There have always been a righteous remnant of Jews who were loyal to God but as a people we have never fully embraced and observed the Torah. What's interesting by the way is that here in Jeremiah God says that even though you broke the covenant I was still a husband to you. I loved you. When the New Testament quotes this passage it distorts it in a very, very horrible way. In the New Testament book of Hebrews it quotes this passage from Jeremiah and it says that you broke the covenant and I rejected you. Jeremiah doesn't say that God rejected us. God says even though you broke it I was still your husband. What does it mean when God says he's going to put the Torah into our hearts? Not even getting substanciation from other passages in the Bible is very obvious that to say that the Torah is going to be in your heart what it means is you'll be faithful to observe it and it's contrasting with the old covenant. The old covenant Jeremiah says you broke. The new covenant it's going to be implanted into your hearts which means you'll be loyal, faithful to keep it and you actually see this substantiated in the Bible in the book of Psalms chapter 40 verse 8 King David says I delight to do your will oh my God why because your Torah is within my heart when the Torah is in your heart you will do the Torah you'll be faithful and the prophet Ezekiel says the same thing in two passages in the 11th chapter of Ezekiel he says and I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I'll take the stony heart out of your flesh and give them a heart of flesh what will that new heart be like that they will walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them that the transformed heart will result in a people who will keep the Torah and this again is a prophecy that is consistent in every major messianic prophecy the most clear messianic prophecy in the Bible is the 37th chapter of Jeremiah of Ezekiel the 37th chapter of Ezekiel where he speaks about again this descendant of David coming to be our King and all of Israel being loyal to follow the commandments of the Torah