If you’ve been to a graduation ceremony recently, you’ve probably heard Jeremiah 29:11. If that is your only exposure to Jeremiah, you’re likely thinking that it shouldn’t be too difficult to relate the gospel, filled with hope, to such a beautiful book like Jeremiah.
But Jeremiah 29 is one of the few “sunny” sections in the book. Yes, it has hope interspersed throughout, but Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet for a reason. There are some absolutely brutal and hard to swallow sections in this book. There are times when it feels like God’s presence is far from the situation — and yet woven through all of this is the hope of the New Covenant.
Yes, you can see the gospel in Jeremiah. This is how.
I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory.
The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record.
The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth.
We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story.
Jeremiah, often called the “weeping prophet” lived during one of the most tumultuous times for Judah. It was a period marked by idolatry and rebellion against God. Yet, at the beginning of his ministry, there were no signs that God was judging the nation. Things were looking up for them in regards to economic security and military conflict. In contrast to the prevailing message of the day, Jeremiah spoke of God’s judgment on Judah. He predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon. It sounds like Jeremiah’s message emphasizes the “bad news” with very little “good news.” But it is in the midst of these dire warnings, Jeremiah also gives hope and the promise of redemption.
Jeremiah's call to be a prophet displays this duality. In Jeremiah 1:9-10 he is told that his ministry will be “uprooting and tearing down” as well as “building and planting.” Much of his ministry seems to be about the “tearing down,” but chapters 29-33 are some of the most explicit gospel proclamations in all of the Old Testament. These chapters are particularly rich in hope. Jeremiah 29:11 isn’t for graduates, outlining God’s plans to help you thrive in college or the work force; it is a beautiful declaration that in spite of the judgment, God was not finished with His people.
Jeremiah 31 introduces us to the concept of a new covenant. In this new covenant, after the exiles return, God will write His law on their heart and produce transformation from within. This promise of internal transformation and a renewed relationship with God directly points to the gospel message fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises of Jeremiah 29-33.
The exile would introduce a few perplexing questions. Will God forever forsake these people? How can a holy God live among a sinful people without compromising His righteousness? Is there any way to be restored, without God compromising His holiness? Is God willing to let His name be defamed, to be seen as weak and impotent, in order to judge His people? Will God let Babylon win for a season and His people relegated to dust and ashes?
Jeremiah presses into the tension of these questions. He doesn’t shy away from portraying Judah’s rebellion and God’s unwavering holiness. Nor does he mute the painful reality that Babylon, not Judah, would be the instrument to carry out His plan in the world. This truth opens up another slew of questions which would be picked up by prophets like Habakkuk. Jeremiah gives us glimmers of hope, and the middle section (29-33) on the restoration and hope points to a future rescuer. While the cross is not explicitly mentioned in Jeremiah, the need for it is implicit in his prophecies.
The blood of Christ is the seal of this new covenant which Jeremiah foretold. Jesus is the Branch from David’s line, who pays the penalty for sin, and enables God to remain just while justifying the sinner. Thus, the book of Jeremiah not only foretells judgment but also lays the groundwork for understanding the gospel.
In Jeremiah we see the ravages of the fall. Jeremiah paints a picture of the depth of human sin — that often the most “religious” among us can be the most wicked. We are deceived and deceiving of others. And this wickedness requires divine justice. But it is here, in the midst of this judgment, that we see the hope of redemption as well. Help will come from outside.
There will be hope after the exile.
“But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
We preachers like Jeremiah 20:9. It likens God’s Word to a fire within us — one that cannot be held within. We like to compare it to Acts 4:20, where Peter and John just couldn’t help but preach the gospel. We might bring this verse out when we’ve just preached an entire sermon in answer to a simple question; we’re preachers with fire in our bones, it’s just who we are.
But I’m not convinced it’s saying what we think it is. Look at the surrounding context. Jeremiah does not delight in this fire in his bones. It is a heavy burden and one which causes him to curse the day he was born. If he had his preference, Jeremiah would keep his mouth shut and avoid all the trouble speaking God’s Word has gotten him. He feels like God has betrayed him. He wants to just keep quiet but the Lord won’t let him. The suffering of silence and unfaithfulness is worse than the suffering of speech.
How might we proclaim the gospel from a passage like this?
Our first step is to acknowledge what this passage is actually saying — God’s Word is unwelcome. And because of this, it has painful consequences for a prophet like Jeremiah. Things weren’t always this way. At the start of creation, God’s Word was a delight. Walking in the cool of the Garden and conversing with the Lord was a time of sweet enjoyment. Sin ravaged this. Now we run away from God’s Word instead of towards it. That is why Jeremiah is having the problem that he is.
And Jeremiah himself is questioning whether or not faithfulness is worth the suffering. He feels used by God. He’s struggling with anger towards him. None of that happens before the fall. This, then, is part of what Jesus is restoring. He is restoring a delight in the Word. There will be a day when this fire in our bones is nothing but a delight — much like sharing good news ought to be.
Jesus is also redeeming all those broken-hearted feelings which those like Jeremiah had. Those feelings of betrayal, of being used by God, of being battered and broken and getting no respite — they will, in light of Christ, be seen as a light and momentary affliction. This is where God is taking us. And as we meditate upon these precious gospel truths it becomes a different fire — the fire of good news, the same fire that Peter and John couldn’t help but proclaim. But a fire that still carries with it consequences in our fallen world.
But someday it will be different.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain Images/Rembrandt
Mike Leake is husband to Nikki and father to Isaiah and Hannah. He is also the lead pastor at Calvary of Neosho, MO. Mike is the author of Torn to Heal and Jesus Is All You Need. His writing home is http://mikeleake.net and you can connect with him on Twitter @mikeleake. Mike has a new writing project at Proverbs4Today.