Bible notes
Jeremiah 31.31-34; John 12.20-33
Old Testament Jeremiah 31.31-34
This well-known passage is rightly regarded as one of the most important in the Hebrew Bible, containing the fourth and future covenant.
In reality, this represents a variation on a theme. God is not a perpetual legislator but a Go-d concerned to continue in covenant relationship with his people. Thus Jeremiah is not criticising the earlier covenants, though he does by implication comment drily on the failure of people within Israel to keep to the covenant. There is a distinct moral development evidenced here. Jeremiah focuses more on personal obedience and selfunderstanding, with a greater interest in individual responsibility, and less on the external manifestation of the covenant. This is accompanied by optimism that, when the time is right, people will want to obey the covenant as their dutiful response to God. This purple passage is quoted in full in the New Testament (Hebrews 8.8-12) and it may well have inspired Jesus himself.
Gospel John 12.20-33
John puts a theological interpretation on the ministry of Jesus, hinting at his descent from heaven (3.13) and future return to heaven (6.62). Jesus predicts his death with confi dence in John, commenting also on its saving signifi cance. In this passage – which in tandem with John 17 replaces the Last Supper in John – the Evangelist makes Jesus the universal Saviour who embodies God’s presence and draws all people to him.
It may be difficult to reconcile the Christ of the Fourth Gospel with his presentation in the Synoptic Gospels. Don’t be alarmed at the differences. None of the Gospels gives us a contemporary eye-witness account of Jesus. All the evangelists were theologians and interpreters of the story of Jesus. The basic message of this passage is easy to ascertain. It is that Jesus’ death has saving signifi cance; and that, in following God’s will to the last, he calls his followers to a path of suffering service.
The focus of the Gospel is that the advent of the divine Son marks a moment of crisis or judgement for the world. How one responds to Jesus is made the criterion of one’s own standing before God.
Growing and changing
Becoming the good news Week 5
The element that is ‘new’ in Jeremiah’s prophecy of ‘the covenant that God will make with Israel’ is that ‘I will put my law within them’. This is not a rejection of the law, and within Judaism in Jesus’ time there remained a hope that in the Messianic age the law would be better interpreted and observed than ever before. Indeed the Jews of Jesus’ day who belonged to the Qumran sect, known to us from the Dead Sea Scrolls, already described themselves as ‘members of the New Covenant’ and bound themselves ‘by oath to return to the law of Moses’ (Damascus Document 6.19, 16.1-2). God graciously called and delivered the people and gave them the law, and they thankfully and obediently responded by keeping its precepts. When it is written on the heart, the law is not just rules to keep in order to gain www.rootsontheweb.com username: palms21 password: 6sheep 15 rewards and avoid punishments. Instead its precepts, ‘rejoicing the heart’ and ‘enlightening the eyes’, are ‘sweeter also than honey’ (Psalm 19.7-10). When a young man told Jesus that he had kept all the commandments ‘since my youth’, Jesus ‘loved him’, telling him to give his riches away; ‘then come, follow me’ (Mark 10.20-21). Just keeping rules can be as sterile as an unplanted seed, but responding to God’s call will bear much fruit. ‘The law ndeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (John 1.17), and the Gospel keeps them together.
Q In the other three gospels, Jesus prays in Gethsemane, ‘Remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want but you want’. What is different about John’s portrayal of Jesus in today’s passage? Which portrayal do you find more comforting, or more unsettling?
Q What is ‘sweeter than honey’ to us?