It’s exhausting to keep trying over and over again for a goal you can’t accomplish. All Israel had to do was be holy! All they had to do was keep the Law that God had given them to set them apart from evil! But they could never pull it off. Through countless cycles of facing consequences and begging God for forgiveness, and countless short-lived covenant renewals and revivals, they never managed to serve the Lord as they were supposed to. Is there any hope?
Even in Jeremiah, the Bible’s most depressing book, there indeed is a declaration of hope. God had covenanted with his people before, essentially as a transaction of glory, but it failed because Israel had continually failed to pay their due. But a new covenant for Israel was in store; God had great plans in mind. No longer would he place a divine rulebook in front of a sinful people; he would soon remake the people altogether! They would have righteousness and love in their hearts, and they would love God so much that they would want what God wants! And best of all, his relationship with them would be restored, and love would hold dominion. “I will be their God,” the Lord says, “and they will be my people.”
This should sound familiar. It is the transformation, the remaking of a people, that Christ accomplished. Jeremiah witnessed to it centuries prior: those who are in Christ are no longer bound to a book of rules and a threat of consequences. Rather they walk with the Holy Spirit so as to know God and become creatures of natural righteousness. This raises the question for us: which covenant are we following? Do we see faithfulness as completing a holy checklist and just doing the right things? Or is the law in our hearts, leading us to zealously want God’s goodness as new creations?
The event Jeremiah prophesied is twofold, and we’ve only seen the first part so far. We are not yet perfected; we still await the day Jesus once and for all makes all things new and abolishes every sin. But until then, let us not forget that we are part of a new covenant, not the old. So stop trying to be perfectly righteous on your own. It’s not a goal you can accomplish. But we do have Jesus, and through Jesus we are made new, so that our sinful hearts are repaired. Righteousness is now attainable—not because we love the law, but because we know and love the redeeming, reviving writer of righteousness himself.
