Scripture Reading: Jer. 2:13; 17:9; 13:23; 23:5-6; 31:33
In this message I have the burden to speak a word concerning the spiritual sequence in the Bible and in the book of Jeremiah. Once we see the spiritual sequence in the Bible, we will realize that Jeremiah was written according to this sequence.
The Bible shows us first that God is the source in every way. After He created man, God presented Himself to man as the real and sole object for man to seek after, that is, the tree of life (Gen. 2:9).
Although God placed man in front of the tree of life, wanting him to partake of that tree, man was seduced and attracted to the other tree — the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:17; 3:1-6, 11). By eating of the fruit of this tree, man became fallen, and sin entered into him. After that, the history of mankind was nothing but a history of sins, with all the nations sinning continually in every way. Then God selected the children of Abraham to be a chosen people, but eventually they became the same as the nations. This continued until the end of the Old Testament.
Jesus Christ came as the righteous Shoot. Wherever He went in His ministry He encountered sin, death, demons, and evil spirits. Just as God presented Himself as the tree of life in Genesis 2, so Christ also presented Himself as life in the Gospel of John. He presented Himself to people as the bread of life (John 6:35, 48), that is, as the tree of life, and He told them that He came that they might have life (10:10). Then He went to the cross to die for man in order to accomplish redemption for man. Through this, God has a standing to forgive man and to justify man. Eventually, this Jesus Christ became man's redemption and man's righteousness for man to receive justification from God (1 Cor. 1:30). Based upon this, Christ as the embodiment of God has entered into us to be our life, even to be our inner law of life.
Before He died on the cross for our redemption, the Lord Jesus established the new covenant. At His table He enacted a law to be the new covenant (Luke 22:20). All the New Testament books from Acts through Revelation tell us what the new covenant is. The content of this new covenant is the Triune God within us to be our life, our life law, our life supply, our life capacity, and our everything that we may be constituted with God in His life and nature and thereby become His increase, His enlargement, to be His fullness for His eternal expression. First, this expression is the church; second, it is the kingdom; and eventually, in the new heaven and new earth, it is the New Jerusalem as the ultimate consummation of the new covenant of God to express God in a corporate way to the uttermost for eternity.
In the new heaven and new earth, this corporate expression will be observed by the nations, which will live around the New Jerusalem and walk by its light (Rev. 21:24).
These items from Genesis through Revelation show us the spiritual sequence in the Bible.
Now we need to see that Jeremiah wrote his book of prophecy according to the sequence of the spiritual things recorded in the Bible.
First, Jeremiah shows us that God presented Himself to Israel as the source, the fountain, of living waters to be their rich supply. But Israel forsook Him to take their own way, to hew out for themselves cisterns of rock (Jer. 2:13).
Having forsaken God as the source, Israel became evil, manifesting the wickedness within them and having a heart that was deceitful above all things and incurable (17:9). Not only so, their nature was so evil, wicked, and corrupt that nothing could change it (13:23). They became just like the people whom Jesus met in the four Gospels.
In 23:5 and 6 Jeremiah prophesied that a righteous Shoot would be raised up to David to face the situation and meet the need, and His name would be called Jehovah our righteousness. This implies redemption and also justification, for it is this One who redeemed us and became our righteousness that we might receive God's justification. In this way our situation with God has been appeased.
Now, based on Christ's redemption and God's justification, with Christ as our righteousness, God is free to enter into us as the Triune God, as Jesus Christ, as the life-giving Spirit. He has come into us to be our life, our life supply, our life law, our life capacity, and our everything that we may be constituted with God in His life and nature to be His enlargement, His increase, His fullness, for His expression. We will be such an expression of God first in the church age, then in the age of restoration (the age of the millennial kingdom), and ultimately and consummately in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. The New Jerusalem will be the embodiment of God's new covenant. The new covenant, therefore, will ultimately issue in the New Jerusalem.
We have seen that Revelation 21:24 speaks of the nations around the New Jerusalem. Jeremiah also speaks of the nations in chapters forty-six through fifty-one. Actually, the nations in the new heaven and new earth will eventually come from the nations concerning which Jeremiah prophesied. This is a further indication that the book of Jeremiah is complete, even all-inclusive.
Why does Jeremiah prophesy concerning the nations? He does this because God needs them. On the one hand, God needs a people to express Him; on the other hand, He needs another people to look at, to behold, this expression. We may say that those who express God are the "actors" and that those who witness this expression are the "spectators." For the fulfillment of His purpose, God needs both the actors — His chosen people — and the spectators — the nations. Therefore, the book of Jeremiah, following the spiritual sequence in the Bible, includes Jeremiah's speaking concerning the nations. In this matter he is the same as Isaiah, Daniel, and Zechariah. As we will see, the principle is the same with the books of the Minor Prophets.
