"Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel, thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry." [Jer 31:4]
In the Law, The LORD told Israel they were not to “offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring,” [Lev 17:7] but were instead to offer their sacrifices exclusively to Himself. He made it clear that when they offered to other gods, it was akin to adultery, calling it whoredom. The LORD warned them far in advance through Moses that they would eventually “go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land…and will forsake me.” [Deut 31:16] In Hosea, a prophet we often remember for marrying a harlot named Gomer as a picture of Israel and God’s relationship, writes under the influence of The Holy Spirit,
“Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts.” [Hos 2:2]
And,
“My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.” [Hos 4:12]
Israel, like an unfaithful wife, had “played the harlot with many lovers:” [Jer 3:1]they had dealt treacherously with God, departing from Him and trusting in other gods, other nations, and even “after [their] own heart and [their] own eyes,” another form of the same spiritual infidelity. [Num 15:39] Again and again the people rejected God in favor of other lesser and inferior gods, and because of this, the One, True God would destroy them, and even still yet plans to judge them; for it is written, “thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.” [Psa 73:27]
But though Israel persisted in spiritual fornication with The LORD, their first husband, and in fact still do, God promises to restore them. He says,
“For thy Maker is thine husband; The LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called….For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith The LORD thy Redeemer.” [Isa 54:5, 7-8]
Even though Israel has been unfaithful, yet God still desires them as His wife. Though they have departed from Him many times, engaging in what is the spiritual equivalent of sexual unfaithfulness, God yet loves them and desires to restore them and build them up. This should be immeasurably comforting to us, for it shows us The LORD’s incredible mercy and forgiveness. We, as Gentiles, are not immune from this type of infidelity; sadly, even we have at times departed from God and played the harlot. This is most certainly not the ideal, but as it is with Israel, so too with us, our Beloved and Glorious Father and our Groom, Jesus Christ, draw us back again and again. As He says to them, and to us, “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” [Jer 31:3]
In the passage for today, we see a beautiful glimpse of this everlasting mercy which God alone possesses. Notice the title The LORD uses for His people, when He says, “O virgin of Israel.” Here in Jeremiah, our Father is speaking in context of the “New Covenant;” [Jer 31:31] a covenant far better than the one set up with Moses, which was merely “a shadow of good things to come.” [Heb 10:1] For in this covenant, The LORD promises,
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith The Lord…I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” [Heb 8:10, 12]
God promises in the New Covenant, which is written as it were “in [Jesus’] blood,” [Lk 22:20] and which is not just for Israel but for Gentiles as well, that He will no longer remember our sins. Because of Jesus’ glorious work upon the cross and because of His resurrection, The LORD chooses to forget all of our rebellions and sins and whoredoms: He blots them all out in the deep, red, precious blood of Christ. Praise God! Indeed, as David also exults, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered[!] Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin[!]” [Rom 4:7-8] Is it not such a blessed and encouraging truth that God forgets our sins? That God truly “is love,” [1 Jn 4:8] for love “does not take evil into account” when dealing with us, [1 Cor 13:5] is proved here when, through the New Covenant’s lofty promises, He forgets all our sin. And how much more when we see what God says to Israel, and to us, when He softly calls them, “virgin of Israel!” For we see in this, that though Israel was a flagrant spiritual prostitute in their past; though she was a whore and a gross, spiritual adulteress; yet God, in all His tender love and mercy, calls her a virgin!
Truly, our God is serious when He says He will “remember no more” our iniquities and sins. Whatsoever we were in our past – whatever adultery or wickedness or uncleanness clung fast to our souls – yes, no matter what it was: now, in Christ Jesus our Lord, we are “a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” [2 Cor 5:17] and that old name by which we were called in time past is no longer, for Christ our Groom promises, “to Him that overcometh will I give…him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written.” [Rev 2:17]
In Jesus Christ, we are brand new, and we are beloved of The Father – no longer rebels or prostitutes or drunkards, but new and beloved, forgiven of all sin. Again, in Jeremiah, we are promised,
“I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth…” [Jer 33:8-9]
May we always and sweetly remember this truth; for God’s word “abideth for ever,” [1 Pe 1:23] and we are forever made new according to that same word. Though we were once living in sin, as carnal men and women: “children of disobedience” and “children of wrath, even as others,” [Eph 2:2, 3] yet now in Christ we “have been washed, [and we] have been sanctified, [and we] have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” [1 Cor 6:9-11] And because we have received such glorious forgiveness from God for the sake of Christ’s blood shed for us, may we extend that to others, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Let us no longer view our brethren after the flesh but after the spirit; as Paul writes,
“For the love of Christ urges/compels us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh...” [2 Cor 5:14-16]
Bright And Morning Star 