2.14.08 Were You There? - Study Guide Notes

Today's Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34

TNK Jeremiah 31:31 See, a time is coming -- declares the LORD -- when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, though I espoused them -- declares the LORD. 33 But such is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel after these days -- declares the LORD: I will put My Teaching into their inmost being and inscribe it upon their hearts. Then I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No longer will they need to teach one another and say to one another, "Heed the LORD"; for all of them, from the least of them to the greatest, shall heed Me -- declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities, And remember their sins no more.


In the upper room during the Last Supper, Jesus took the cup and after giving thanks he said, "this is my blood of the NEW COVENANT which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin." Jesus was at this moment signaling that God was about to fulfill the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31 through him. This is a cataclysmic event: the Temple is being replaced with God's people as the place God resides.

That is why we say the church is not a building but a people. For we are conduits of God's love that is poured out all over the earth. God's message is no longer confined to a central place, but has been decentralized in order for it to cover the world with the Gospel.