The passage from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah that is probably quoted the most by Christians today is Jeremiah 29:11. While this passage may be the most famous one from Jeremiah today, that does not seem to always have been the case. I say this because there are many passages from Jeremiah that are quoted in the New Testament but this is not one of them.
Most quotations from Jeremiah in the New Testament are fairly short. For example, Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31:15 in the context of the massacre of the innocent children by Herod in Matthew 2:18, showing the sorrow experienced before the restoration of God’s people. Jesus also briefly quotes Jeremiah, as his comment about the temple being turned into a “den of robbers” (see Matthew 21:13, Mark 11:17, Luke 19:4) comes from Jeremiah 7:11. The Apostle Paul quotes the comment from Jeremiah 9:23-24 about “boasting only in the Lord” in both 1 Corinthians 1:31 and 2 Corinthians 10:17.
There is one quotation for the book of Jeremiah in the New Testament that is much longer. In fact, it is the longest consecutive quotation from the Old Testament found in the New Testament. We find this in Hebrews 8:8-12, which explicitly quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34, a passage that is also partially quoted again in this book (10:16-17) and alluded to at other points in the New Testament when discussing a “new covenant” (see e.g., Matthew 26:28; 2 Corinthians 3:3).
Therefore, while Jeremiah 29:11 might be the most famous passage from Jeremiah in today’s church, Jeremiah 31:31-34 was the most famous passage from Jeremiah in the early church. Since people often quote Jeremiah 29:11 without paying attention to its context (as I discussed in this post from a few years back), I wanted to make sure we understand the context of this famous passage both in terms of what it says in Jeremiah but also why it is quoted and discussed in Hebrews.
The Passage in Its Original Context
This passage comes from the section of Jeremiah often dubbed “the Book of Consolation” or “the Book of Comfort,” as there is a shift in tone in Jeremiah 30-33 from words about judgment through the exile of God’s people to one of hope and restoration. In the midst of God promising to bring His people back from exile and turn their lament into joy, in a way that recalls God’s deliverance from Egypt, God speaks of making a new covenant with His people (31:31). This covenant will not be like the one He made with them through Moses when He brought them out of slavery in Egypt (31:32). The people were not able to keep that covenant and broke it (31:32), but this new covenant will be greater because God “will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts” (31:33) which will lead to them truly being His people.
Another additional element of this new covenant is that people, from the least to the great, will know the Lord, thus not needing to be exhorted or instructed to do so (31:34). The final aspect God notes about this covenant is that in it people will have the forgiveness of sins, as God declares that He “will forgive their inquiry and never again remember their sin” (31:34). This promise is then grounded in the ongoing and enduring reality of the universe (see 31:34-37), showing that God will truly and eternally do what He promises.
These words would truly be of comfort to people facing the threat and then living in the reality of exile. Not only does God promise to restore them, but really to get at the root cause of the exile – the disobedience of His people who may have said the right things but had hearts that would not and could not obey Him. While God promised that the nation that would take Judah into exile – Babylon – would be destroyed in 70 years (see Jeremiah 25:12) and that He would “attend” to His people and “confirm His promise to restore” them to the land (Jeremiah 29:10), He did not necessarily state when all this would happen. We read in the Old Testament that the people returned to the land, but when you read through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people’s hearts were still not inclined to follow God’s Word.
The Passage in Its Quoted Context
Jesus’s words about the “new covenant” at the Last Supper show that the fulfillment of this promised covenant happens through hs death and resurrection. It is through his death and resurrection that our sins are forgiven and then the Holy Spirit comes to remind us and guide us in our truth; instead of the law being written on tablets it is written onto the minds and hearts of Christians through the Spirit’s indwelling and guiding work.
The writer of Hebrews, however, does not quote Jeremiah 31:31-34 in Hebrews 8:8-12 as a way to show or explain how Jesus’s work stands as the fulfillment of this covenant. Rather, he quotes this passage as a way of showing how the covenant that God had made through Moses – “the first covenant” as he calls it here – was not the final or ultimate covenant because God had spoken about this new covenant and describes it as one that would be better and greater than the first covenant that was made. The particular application that the writer makes after this quotation is that this first covenant, the one through Moses, now is obsolete because this new and better covenant has come (Hebrews 8:13). The reason that the writer makes this point seems to be that people were tempted to turn back to the laws and regulations of the old covenant.
In saying that the covenant with Moses was now obsolete in light of Jesus’s establishment of the new covenant, the writer of Hebrews is not seeking to disparage or demean the old covenant. In fact, one of the reasons he quotes from Jeremiah here is a way to show that the prophets themselves pointed to a new and better reality to come. While now obsolete, the old covenant had an important and distinctive purpose in pointing ahead to this new covenant. The covenant made through Moses foreshadowed the future covenant to come, with various elements of it pointing to the realities found in the new covenant. For example, the sacrifices for sin were pointing to the need for forgiveness of sin and also the costly nature of it. The work of the high priest pointed forward to Jesus’s work. The tabernacle that was built was a picture of a heavenly reality and of how Christ enters on our behalf for us as our high priest. Therefore, the elements of the old covenant do not need to be followed today and can serve to help deepen our understanding of the blessings that we now have through Christ.
The Passage in Our Current Context
Having looked at this passage in its original context and then how it is quoted in the New Testament, I want us to now consider its significance for our context, particularly how it relates to our understanding of salvation and Scripture.
While we are probably not tempted to return to the regulations of the old covenant like the people at the time of Hebrews, this passage helps us to understand why we don’t need to follow the various Old Testament regulations and laws because this covenant was always temporary. In addition, it reminds us of the realities that we experience through Christ establishing this covenant – that we are forgiven, that we have hearts and minds that have been cleansed, and that we have both knowledge and access to God. It shows us how great a salvation that has been accomplished by Jesus and how he did it. In making this point, the writer of Hebrews urges us not to fall away from this great salvation but rather to remain steadfast in the face of sufferings. Remembering what our salvation encompasses hopefully helps us persevere in the gospel.
In addition, this Old Testament passage being quoted in the New Testament is a reminder that Scripture is an unfolding story and that we need to read passages within its historical context in terms of culture but also in terms of how God’s saving plan unfolds. While we do not follow the Old Testament laws, there is still value in looking at them because they are pointing us forward to what God would do for us; we need to read them not simply as historical artifacts but as signposts to Christ’s work of redemption.
Being in the new covenant means that we should cherish its blessings – the ones that people were waiting hundreds of years for – while also looking back at the old covenant to help us better understand the blessings that we have in the new.
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