Faith in God
Commentary
Will the Son of Man find faith on earth when he comes? That is the question Jesus puts to us in the Gospel lesson for today. The theme of this day is faithfulness and, for the most part, it appears to be a day to delight the conservatives and traditionalists among us. It's a day for appreciating that "old-time religion" or, more properly, the enduring truth of the gospel.
Jesus' parable insists that God will act when God is good and ready. Instead of worrying about why justice has been delayed, we should look to ourselves, to be sure that we are persevering in faith and in prayer. The Second Reading sounds the same theme -- perseverance in faith. But, here, the context for that word is perseverance amidst distractions and distortions with which the self-serving would compromise the true faith. The first lesson may seem incongruous alongside such warnings, for it speaks definitively of God initiating a "new covenant," not like the old. But it is this new covenant that has for us become the standard, the substance of faith from which we must not depart.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The first few verses of this passage may need a little explanation; after that, the pericope blossoms into a glorious proclamation of the gospel that needs only to be savored, experienced, and shared.
The prediction offered in verse 27 may sound a little weird, but the image is a positive one. God will replenish and repopulate the land. It will not remain desolate but will once again be teeming with people and livestock. This oracle, of course, was delivered to the people in exile. In verse 28 the prophet recalls (again) words that were given him decades ago when he was first called by God to this ministry (see Jeremiah 1:10). The time for tearing down is almost over; the time for rebuilding has come.
Verses 29-30 quote a proverb that is also cited in Ezekiel 18:2. The proverb was a complaint: children have their teeth set on edge because their parents ate sour grapes. Even so, the current exiles are complaining that their suffering is the result of the former generation's sins. Notably, Ezekiel argues this point. Jeremiah is more subtle -- he just encourages them to hope for the day when they will "die for their own sins." Not much of a hope, really.
But then, sarcasm aside, the prophet tells them where their hope does lie. Not in being responsible for their own sins rather than those of their parents, but in being transformed by a new covenant of grace and forgiveness. The Lord will do this -- change their hearts, so that faithfulness and obedience will no longer be alien concepts. The motivation will come from within. Such a work of God is what Christians usually have in mind when they speak of "sanctification" -- not moral perfection that renders one incapable of failing, but inner renewal through which God's Spirit transforms from the inside out.
The result of the new covenant is the same as the old: "I will be their God and they will be my people." But the strategy for implementation, this prophet suggests, is different. Rather than knowing the law, written on stone, they are to know God, the lawgiver, who will write the law on their hearts. Keeping the law will not be the means through which people are encouraged to "know the Lord" (v. 31). Knowing God (apart from the law?) comes first; then, people who know God will be moved to live in accord with what God puts in their hearts.
The other remarkable component of this new covenant is that God will forgive iniquity and remember sin no more! God not only forgives sin, but forgets it. Humans cannot do this. We can forgive, but we always remember -- always, in the back of our minds perhaps, we keep score. The scripture says that when God forgives sin, it is forgotten. God is famous for omniscience, but ultimately this "holy amnesia" is more wondrous still. God, as it turns out, does not know everything. God may know less than you do. You know your sins, forgiven or not. God has forgotten them.
2 Timothy 3:14--4:5
This exhortation to faithfulness comes on the heels of an expose of certain figures "of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith" (3:8) and a bold declaration that, indeed, "wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived" (3:13). All these references are to persons within the church. False teachers and scandalous con artists abound.
So, Timothy is called to continue in the faith that he learned as a child and has himself confessed as an adult. There are several keys to this. The first is to remember that he is part of a community with a tradition. He is to remember those (plural in Greek) from whom he learned what he now believes (v. 14). This would include his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5), the apostle Paul, and probably others. He is not alone in his struggle to remain faithful.
Second, he is to stay grounded in scripture. Salvation does not come through the scriptures but through faith in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, the scriptures not only declare this faith but also provide sound teaching that will prevent people from being deceived by a variety of errors. Notably, the scriptures may be experienced either positively or negatively. Just as God spoke through Jeremiah to build up and to tear down (Jeremiah 1:10; 31:28), so the scriptures continue to encourage and to rebuke, as necessary.
Third, Timothy is not to allow "contextualization" of God's message to alter its essence. He is to be persistent in proclaiming the biblical message "whether the time is favorable or unfavorable." The whole problem is that people have "itching ears." The reason there are so many false teachers and con artists is that people "accumulate" teachers who will "suit their own desires," tell them what they want to hear. It's easy to fall into that trap.
We know, of course, that there is a need for innovation in the church, for creativity in ministry. It could be said that the folly the Pastoral epistles warn against has little to do with style; the concern is that the substance of the message not be lost. But Marshall McLuhan taught us in the '60s that often "the medium is the message"! So, we dare not draw too clear a distinction between "style" and "substance" without asking: "What is being received? What message is coming through?"
The timeless, biblical word of truth has the power to "convince, rebuke, and encourage," but there may be times when it must be taught with "utmost patience," when flashier alternatives beckon.
Luke 18:1-8
Four weeks ago, we had a parable involving a dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13). Now, Jesus uses the image of an unrighteous judge in a parable about prayer and faith. These religious stories featuring unsavory characters strike many as odd. Actually, the parables describing God as a shepherd, as a poor woman, or as an irresponsible, co-dependent father (see Luke 15) may have been just as shocking in Jesus' own day. The Gospel of Luke makes ample use of such provocative portraits.
Parable interpretation always gets in trouble when it departs from the simple point or points that the parable intends to make. Jesus does not indicate here that God is like an unrighteous judge. The parable is not an allegory or even an analogy in which the judge stands for God. It is simply a story involving heroic perseverance. The focus of the story is on the widow, a completely powerless individual who will not give up. She seeks justice but the deck is stacked against her. She is powerless, yet she persists in seeking justice anyway, out of sheer stubbornness. Eventually, she "wears down" the powers of evil and they give up. One thinks of Rosa Parks.
Jesus encourages his followers to persevere in prayer and not lose heart (v. 7). The point is not that they will eventually wear God down to the point that God reluctantly gives in and answers their prayers. The point is that the forces of evil and injustice eventually fold, so that stubborn persistence in faith pays off.
As such, the story seems to offer pragmatic advice for survival in this world. But Jesus' further comments cast it all in an eschatological light. Unlike the widow in the story, we might not always see wrong redressed in this life. Ultimately, God must grant justice from heaven, and this will come with the parousia of the Son of Man. The text assumes that, already in the first century, some thought this justice was delayed. How much more, as we enter a third millennium, might we ask, "How long, O Lord?"
Jesus turns the question around. The real question is not whether God will establish justice. God will. The real question is whether, when this justice finally comes, anyone will still be seeking it. The perseverance of faith demonstrated by the widow is to be our example: seek justice in hopeless causes. This is the kind of faith the Son of Man wants to find on earth when he returns.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The lectionary has included two separate oracles in this reading, verses 27-30 and verses 31-34. The first includes a quotation from Ezekiel 18:2 and is probably a later addition to the genuine oracles of the prophet. Nevertheless, it picks up a theme from Jeremiah's call. Judah languishes in Babylonian exile. God has plucked up and broken down, overthrown and destroyed (Jeremiah 1:10), because of his people's faithlessness toward him. But now God will build and plant in Judah's future. Judgment is never God's last word.
The promise of the new covenant that follows in verses 31-34 forms God's solution to Israel's sinfulness. God had held out the invitation to his people to mend their ways and to return to him. But they would not. To every gracious invitation from God, they replied, "That is vain. We will follow our own plans and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart" (Jeremiah 18:12). In fact, they not only rejected God's grace, but mocked his word and persecuted his prophet. Their sin had such a grip on them that they no longer had any power of self-assessment (cf. Jeremiah 8:4-7), and finally, they had no power in themselves to repent and return (cf. Hosea 5:4). "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" God asked. "Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Israel's sin was written with the point of a diamond on her heart, replacing God's word that was supposed to be there (Jeremiah 17:1; Deuteronomy 6:6).
The history of Israel's sin is reviewed in verses 31-32 of our text. Despite God's grace -- despite the fact that he took his people by the hand and led them, like a father his son, out of captivity in Egypt and made a covenant with them at Sinai, and then renewed that covenant with them in the Deuteronomic reform of 621 B.C. -- despite the whole long history of God's mercy toward his covenant people -- they nevertheless broke covenant faithfulness with him. He was their husband -- to use the figure in the text -- the one who had so tenderly loved them in the wilderness (Jeremiah 2:2). Yet Israel whored after other lovers (Jeremiah 2:23-25) and gave her devotion to other gods and goddesses (Jeremiah 7:17-18, 30-31). God therefore rejected them as his people and sent them into exile (Jeremiah 12:7).
When we read the account of Israel's inability to see her own sinfulness and to repent, we find a very accurate description of our sin, too, do we not? We sinners do not see ourselves as God sees us; we think we are righteous people who do good most of the time. We rationalize our faithless ways, excuse our shortcomings, consider our day by day commitment to other goals and loves, rather than to the love of God, as necessary to our lives. Or when we do earnestly try to follow God's will and do the good, we find that we always fall short, secretly looking out for our own interests instead of for the interests of God and neighbor. In Paul's words, "We are slaves of sin" (Romans 6), unable to do the good that we would, and doing the evil that we do not want (Romans 7:19). We are captive to our selfishness, our pride, our anxieties for our own well-being. Such was the nature of Israel's life in Jeremiah's time, and such is still the nature of ours.
A merciful God did not give up on Israel, however, and he does not give up on us. Instead, God here in our text adopts the one solution for sin that is possible. He announces that he will make a new covenant with his people Israel. He will in the future change his people's sinful hearts (cf. Ezekiel 36:26-27), transforming them from the inside out, because it is from our hearts that our sin comes forth (cf. Mark 7:21-23). In place of the sin written on Israel's heart, God will write the words of his law or teaching, enabling the people to obey him in faithfulness and in love (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4-6). Their sinful past will be forgotten -- God will forgive it all -- and they will be reunited with him in a new covenant relationship of devotion and gratitude and obedience. Indeed, so thorough will be God's transformation of the hearts of his people that no one will have to teach his or her neighbor about the character of God. All will know him, in an intimate relationship like that of a faithful wife with her husband. All will cleave to him and follow him and love him with all their being. What his people could not do for themselves, God will do for them in an act of pure mercy and love.
Such was the promise that God made for Israel's future. But like everything in the Old Testament, we have to ask: Did God keep his promise? What happened to these ancient words? Were they fulfilled, or were they allowed to disappear into the forgotten mists of time?
The testimony of the New Testament is that God kept this ancient promise to his covenant folk. "The Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took bread ... In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood' " (1 Corinthians 11:23-25; cf. Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). God replaced his old covenant, which his people broke, with his new covenant in Jesus Christ and thereby made it possible for his covenant people to live new lives of faithfulness and obedience (cf. Hebrews 8:8-12; 10:16-17).
God has written this new covenant upon our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, testifies Paul (cf. Romans 5:5). He has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, so that we are no longer slaves but heirs (Galatians 4:6-7). He "has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). Christians therefore now can live the new life of the Spirit (Romans 7:6). Though we were once slaves of sin, we now can be obedient from the heart to the will of God (Romans 6:17). In short, Christians now have the possibility not to sin -- not by their own power, but solely by the power of God working in them. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies," Paul admonishes us (Romans 6:12), and by the power of Jesus Christ, lent to us in the Spirit, we can follow that admonition. We can in truth become new creations in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and lead a new life of faithfulness.
Like so much in the Old Testament, Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant finds its fulfillment in the New. However, the fulfillment is "already," but it is also "not yet." It is not complete. We have been made new creations in Christ, but our perfect obedience awaits that time when the Spirit, given us as a guarantee (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:14), changes us wholly into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18), and we are presented before the Father "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing ... holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). Similarly, our Jewish brothers and sisters await that blessed time when "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26), and we all are joined together in God's one covenant fellowship in Christ.
There is also a missionary message in this new covenant passage that must not be overlooked by us Christians. Its promise is that all people will know the Lord, "from the least of them to the greatest." But all people have not yet, in faith, received the Spirit of Christ into their hearts. And so we who, by the mercy of God, have been grafted into the new covenant as members of the "commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12), are sent into all the world to proclaim the glad news that new life and goodness and eternal life with God are possible through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus' parable insists that God will act when God is good and ready. Instead of worrying about why justice has been delayed, we should look to ourselves, to be sure that we are persevering in faith and in prayer. The Second Reading sounds the same theme -- perseverance in faith. But, here, the context for that word is perseverance amidst distractions and distortions with which the self-serving would compromise the true faith. The first lesson may seem incongruous alongside such warnings, for it speaks definitively of God initiating a "new covenant," not like the old. But it is this new covenant that has for us become the standard, the substance of faith from which we must not depart.
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The first few verses of this passage may need a little explanation; after that, the pericope blossoms into a glorious proclamation of the gospel that needs only to be savored, experienced, and shared.
The prediction offered in verse 27 may sound a little weird, but the image is a positive one. God will replenish and repopulate the land. It will not remain desolate but will once again be teeming with people and livestock. This oracle, of course, was delivered to the people in exile. In verse 28 the prophet recalls (again) words that were given him decades ago when he was first called by God to this ministry (see Jeremiah 1:10). The time for tearing down is almost over; the time for rebuilding has come.
Verses 29-30 quote a proverb that is also cited in Ezekiel 18:2. The proverb was a complaint: children have their teeth set on edge because their parents ate sour grapes. Even so, the current exiles are complaining that their suffering is the result of the former generation's sins. Notably, Ezekiel argues this point. Jeremiah is more subtle -- he just encourages them to hope for the day when they will "die for their own sins." Not much of a hope, really.
But then, sarcasm aside, the prophet tells them where their hope does lie. Not in being responsible for their own sins rather than those of their parents, but in being transformed by a new covenant of grace and forgiveness. The Lord will do this -- change their hearts, so that faithfulness and obedience will no longer be alien concepts. The motivation will come from within. Such a work of God is what Christians usually have in mind when they speak of "sanctification" -- not moral perfection that renders one incapable of failing, but inner renewal through which God's Spirit transforms from the inside out.
The result of the new covenant is the same as the old: "I will be their God and they will be my people." But the strategy for implementation, this prophet suggests, is different. Rather than knowing the law, written on stone, they are to know God, the lawgiver, who will write the law on their hearts. Keeping the law will not be the means through which people are encouraged to "know the Lord" (v. 31). Knowing God (apart from the law?) comes first; then, people who know God will be moved to live in accord with what God puts in their hearts.
The other remarkable component of this new covenant is that God will forgive iniquity and remember sin no more! God not only forgives sin, but forgets it. Humans cannot do this. We can forgive, but we always remember -- always, in the back of our minds perhaps, we keep score. The scripture says that when God forgives sin, it is forgotten. God is famous for omniscience, but ultimately this "holy amnesia" is more wondrous still. God, as it turns out, does not know everything. God may know less than you do. You know your sins, forgiven or not. God has forgotten them.
2 Timothy 3:14--4:5
This exhortation to faithfulness comes on the heels of an expose of certain figures "of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith" (3:8) and a bold declaration that, indeed, "wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived" (3:13). All these references are to persons within the church. False teachers and scandalous con artists abound.
So, Timothy is called to continue in the faith that he learned as a child and has himself confessed as an adult. There are several keys to this. The first is to remember that he is part of a community with a tradition. He is to remember those (plural in Greek) from whom he learned what he now believes (v. 14). This would include his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5), the apostle Paul, and probably others. He is not alone in his struggle to remain faithful.
Second, he is to stay grounded in scripture. Salvation does not come through the scriptures but through faith in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, the scriptures not only declare this faith but also provide sound teaching that will prevent people from being deceived by a variety of errors. Notably, the scriptures may be experienced either positively or negatively. Just as God spoke through Jeremiah to build up and to tear down (Jeremiah 1:10; 31:28), so the scriptures continue to encourage and to rebuke, as necessary.
Third, Timothy is not to allow "contextualization" of God's message to alter its essence. He is to be persistent in proclaiming the biblical message "whether the time is favorable or unfavorable." The whole problem is that people have "itching ears." The reason there are so many false teachers and con artists is that people "accumulate" teachers who will "suit their own desires," tell them what they want to hear. It's easy to fall into that trap.
We know, of course, that there is a need for innovation in the church, for creativity in ministry. It could be said that the folly the Pastoral epistles warn against has little to do with style; the concern is that the substance of the message not be lost. But Marshall McLuhan taught us in the '60s that often "the medium is the message"! So, we dare not draw too clear a distinction between "style" and "substance" without asking: "What is being received? What message is coming through?"
The timeless, biblical word of truth has the power to "convince, rebuke, and encourage," but there may be times when it must be taught with "utmost patience," when flashier alternatives beckon.
Luke 18:1-8
Four weeks ago, we had a parable involving a dishonest manager (Luke 16:1-13). Now, Jesus uses the image of an unrighteous judge in a parable about prayer and faith. These religious stories featuring unsavory characters strike many as odd. Actually, the parables describing God as a shepherd, as a poor woman, or as an irresponsible, co-dependent father (see Luke 15) may have been just as shocking in Jesus' own day. The Gospel of Luke makes ample use of such provocative portraits.
Parable interpretation always gets in trouble when it departs from the simple point or points that the parable intends to make. Jesus does not indicate here that God is like an unrighteous judge. The parable is not an allegory or even an analogy in which the judge stands for God. It is simply a story involving heroic perseverance. The focus of the story is on the widow, a completely powerless individual who will not give up. She seeks justice but the deck is stacked against her. She is powerless, yet she persists in seeking justice anyway, out of sheer stubbornness. Eventually, she "wears down" the powers of evil and they give up. One thinks of Rosa Parks.
Jesus encourages his followers to persevere in prayer and not lose heart (v. 7). The point is not that they will eventually wear God down to the point that God reluctantly gives in and answers their prayers. The point is that the forces of evil and injustice eventually fold, so that stubborn persistence in faith pays off.
As such, the story seems to offer pragmatic advice for survival in this world. But Jesus' further comments cast it all in an eschatological light. Unlike the widow in the story, we might not always see wrong redressed in this life. Ultimately, God must grant justice from heaven, and this will come with the parousia of the Son of Man. The text assumes that, already in the first century, some thought this justice was delayed. How much more, as we enter a third millennium, might we ask, "How long, O Lord?"
Jesus turns the question around. The real question is not whether God will establish justice. God will. The real question is whether, when this justice finally comes, anyone will still be seeking it. The perseverance of faith demonstrated by the widow is to be our example: seek justice in hopeless causes. This is the kind of faith the Son of Man wants to find on earth when he returns.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 31:27-34
The lectionary has included two separate oracles in this reading, verses 27-30 and verses 31-34. The first includes a quotation from Ezekiel 18:2 and is probably a later addition to the genuine oracles of the prophet. Nevertheless, it picks up a theme from Jeremiah's call. Judah languishes in Babylonian exile. God has plucked up and broken down, overthrown and destroyed (Jeremiah 1:10), because of his people's faithlessness toward him. But now God will build and plant in Judah's future. Judgment is never God's last word.
The promise of the new covenant that follows in verses 31-34 forms God's solution to Israel's sinfulness. God had held out the invitation to his people to mend their ways and to return to him. But they would not. To every gracious invitation from God, they replied, "That is vain. We will follow our own plans and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart" (Jeremiah 18:12). In fact, they not only rejected God's grace, but mocked his word and persecuted his prophet. Their sin had such a grip on them that they no longer had any power of self-assessment (cf. Jeremiah 8:4-7), and finally, they had no power in themselves to repent and return (cf. Hosea 5:4). "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" God asked. "Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Israel's sin was written with the point of a diamond on her heart, replacing God's word that was supposed to be there (Jeremiah 17:1; Deuteronomy 6:6).
The history of Israel's sin is reviewed in verses 31-32 of our text. Despite God's grace -- despite the fact that he took his people by the hand and led them, like a father his son, out of captivity in Egypt and made a covenant with them at Sinai, and then renewed that covenant with them in the Deuteronomic reform of 621 B.C. -- despite the whole long history of God's mercy toward his covenant people -- they nevertheless broke covenant faithfulness with him. He was their husband -- to use the figure in the text -- the one who had so tenderly loved them in the wilderness (Jeremiah 2:2). Yet Israel whored after other lovers (Jeremiah 2:23-25) and gave her devotion to other gods and goddesses (Jeremiah 7:17-18, 30-31). God therefore rejected them as his people and sent them into exile (Jeremiah 12:7).
When we read the account of Israel's inability to see her own sinfulness and to repent, we find a very accurate description of our sin, too, do we not? We sinners do not see ourselves as God sees us; we think we are righteous people who do good most of the time. We rationalize our faithless ways, excuse our shortcomings, consider our day by day commitment to other goals and loves, rather than to the love of God, as necessary to our lives. Or when we do earnestly try to follow God's will and do the good, we find that we always fall short, secretly looking out for our own interests instead of for the interests of God and neighbor. In Paul's words, "We are slaves of sin" (Romans 6), unable to do the good that we would, and doing the evil that we do not want (Romans 7:19). We are captive to our selfishness, our pride, our anxieties for our own well-being. Such was the nature of Israel's life in Jeremiah's time, and such is still the nature of ours.
A merciful God did not give up on Israel, however, and he does not give up on us. Instead, God here in our text adopts the one solution for sin that is possible. He announces that he will make a new covenant with his people Israel. He will in the future change his people's sinful hearts (cf. Ezekiel 36:26-27), transforming them from the inside out, because it is from our hearts that our sin comes forth (cf. Mark 7:21-23). In place of the sin written on Israel's heart, God will write the words of his law or teaching, enabling the people to obey him in faithfulness and in love (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4-6). Their sinful past will be forgotten -- God will forgive it all -- and they will be reunited with him in a new covenant relationship of devotion and gratitude and obedience. Indeed, so thorough will be God's transformation of the hearts of his people that no one will have to teach his or her neighbor about the character of God. All will know him, in an intimate relationship like that of a faithful wife with her husband. All will cleave to him and follow him and love him with all their being. What his people could not do for themselves, God will do for them in an act of pure mercy and love.
Such was the promise that God made for Israel's future. But like everything in the Old Testament, we have to ask: Did God keep his promise? What happened to these ancient words? Were they fulfilled, or were they allowed to disappear into the forgotten mists of time?
The testimony of the New Testament is that God kept this ancient promise to his covenant folk. "The Lord Jesus on the night that he was betrayed took bread ... In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood' " (1 Corinthians 11:23-25; cf. Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). God replaced his old covenant, which his people broke, with his new covenant in Jesus Christ and thereby made it possible for his covenant people to live new lives of faithfulness and obedience (cf. Hebrews 8:8-12; 10:16-17).
God has written this new covenant upon our hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit, testifies Paul (cf. Romans 5:5). He has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, so that we are no longer slaves but heirs (Galatians 4:6-7). He "has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). Christians therefore now can live the new life of the Spirit (Romans 7:6). Though we were once slaves of sin, we now can be obedient from the heart to the will of God (Romans 6:17). In short, Christians now have the possibility not to sin -- not by their own power, but solely by the power of God working in them. "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies," Paul admonishes us (Romans 6:12), and by the power of Jesus Christ, lent to us in the Spirit, we can follow that admonition. We can in truth become new creations in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) and lead a new life of faithfulness.
Like so much in the Old Testament, Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant finds its fulfillment in the New. However, the fulfillment is "already," but it is also "not yet." It is not complete. We have been made new creations in Christ, but our perfect obedience awaits that time when the Spirit, given us as a guarantee (cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Ephesians 1:14), changes us wholly into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18), and we are presented before the Father "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing ... holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27). Similarly, our Jewish brothers and sisters await that blessed time when "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26), and we all are joined together in God's one covenant fellowship in Christ.
There is also a missionary message in this new covenant passage that must not be overlooked by us Christians. Its promise is that all people will know the Lord, "from the least of them to the greatest." But all people have not yet, in faith, received the Spirit of Christ into their hearts. And so we who, by the mercy of God, have been grafted into the new covenant as members of the "commonwealth of Israel" (Ephesians 2:12), are sent into all the world to proclaim the glad news that new life and goodness and eternal life with God are possible through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.
