Fleeing the Babylon Within (Jer. 31:31-34)

[31] “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, [32] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. [33] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. [34] And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV) 

The heart of the born-again believer in Christ cannot help but shout for joy at the infinitely valuable gift that has been given to us through the new covenant. The Son of Man bled and died on Calvary’s cross—not to pay for any sins of His own, but to pay for the sins of others. The righteous, holy One of God died to give life to unrighteous, unholy enemies of God, so that by His own blood He might purchase a people for His own possession. 

The history of the children of Abraham is nothing short of 2,000 years of incontrovertible proof that our greatest dangers do not come from foreign armies, tyrannical leaders, or severe famines, but from our own wicked and deceitful hearts. All throughout the desert wanderings, the greatest danger that the children of Israel faced was not a lack of life-giving food or water, but their own evil, and unbelieving hearts that led them to fall away from the living of God. And though they entered the Promised Land under God’s mighty hand, they broke their covenant with Him and as a result, were carried away into exile in Babylon.  

But it is here in Babylon, when the judgment of God had reached its zenith, that these unimaginably hopeful words by the prophet Jeremiah were uttered. A new covenant unlike the old! A new covenant that the finger of God would write on the tablets of human hearts! A new covenant that promised hope of an eternal future with God who would permanently deal with sin and make them a people who would never wander from Him again. And this kind of hope, is far greater than any hope that freedom from oppression or debilitating suffering can offer. 

Man’s greatest problem has never been how to escape from the city of Babylon, but how to escape from the Babylon within. We can flee the wicked cities of the world and try to live in law-abiding utopias, but we will never escape from the world of unrighteous that is contained within our human hearts. Because of sin, the tendency of the human heart is never to worship the God in whose image and likeness we are created, but rather a god who is created in our own image and likeness. The ultimate question of the Bible was never how to get God’s people out of Babylon, but how to get Babylon out of God’s people. And the joy we have as Christians is knowing and experiencing how this ultimate question has been answered. Because of what our Lord Jesus did on the cross, we rejoice that the curse of sin has been broken and that there is no more condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus! 

How essential the new heart is! For without it, obedience to the law of God is impossible. Pursuing it on our own will only lead us to die with the unattainable demands of the law of God on our lips—but absent from our hearts. The Law shouts “Give!” but the Gospel shouts “Gone!” How grateful we are for this Gospel that frees us from the impossible demands of God’s holy law. How grateful we are for our precious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who saved us from our sinful selves! 

Christian, when was the last time that you considered your own helpless state apart from God’s help? Do you feel deep gratitude for our God who performed spiritual heart surgery on you to remove your heart of stone and to give you a heart of flesh? Do you glory in the fact that when you cried out for mercy, when you were drowning in the cesspool of your own sin, that He came and saved you and made you His very own? Do you weep tears of gratitude, knowing that when you could not keep His God’s holy law, He did it for you?  

The boast of the Christian believer can never be, “Look at what I have done for Christ!” but rather, “Look at what Christ has done for me!” There is no such thing as humble people in this world—only HUMBLED people. Humbled people who have been given new hearts that beat with eternal love and reverence for their Saviour, Lord and King. 

Written by: Samuel Chua