Then [Jesus] took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.”^[1]  The table below compares what He said next from four sources.

A new covenant (διαθήκης καινῆς) was mentioned again in Hebrews (9:13-15 NET).

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to worship the living God [Table].  And so he is the mediator of a new covenant (διαθήκης καινῆς), so that those who are called may receive the eternal inheritance he has promised, since he died to set them free from the violations committed under the first covenant.

And this new covenant is linked directly to the promise God made through Jeremiah (Hebrews 8:6-13 NET):

But now Jesus has obtained^[3] a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, no one would have looked for a second one.  But showing its fault, God says to them, “Look, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant (διαθήκην καινήν) with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds, and I will inscribe them on their hearts.  And I will be their God, and they will be my people.  And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman^[4] or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least^[5] to the greatest.  For I will be merciful toward their evil deeds, and their sins^[6] I will remember no longer.”

When he speaks of a new (καινὴν) covenant, he makes the first obsolete.  Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear.

Jesus, the mediator of this better covenant, prayed (John 17:1-3 NET):

Father, the time has come.  Glorify your Son, so that^[7] your^[8] Son may glorify you—just as you have given him authority over all humanity, so that he may give^[9] eternal life to everyone you have given him.  Now this is eternal life—that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.

Over time, Jesus’ understanding of eternal life—that they know (γινώσκωσιν, a form of γινώσκω) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent^[10]—has focused my attention on this aspect of the promise of the new covenant—And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know (γνῶθι, another form of γινώσκω) the Lord,’ since they will all know (εἰδήσουσιν, a form of εἴδω) me, from the least to the greatest.^[11]  Though I had prayed that genius-level prayer (of very little faith)—“If you’re really out there, I really want to know you,”^[12]—striking at the very heart of the new covenant and Jesus’ understanding of eternal life, I understood nothing of it.

I didn’t study to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He had sent to live that eternal life.  I searched the Bible for rules to obey—or disobey as it turned out.^[13]

Though I wrote this describing a slightly later time in my life, it was true earlier, too.  Studying the Bible to know God and to follow Jesus did not compute in my mind yet.  Now I hope, God willing, to spend the next ten thousand years or so studying the Bible to know…the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent.  There is so much I’m missing that Jesus knew, perhaps by twelve but at least, by thirty or so.

It will be nice to have face-to-face contact with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as well as the other participants.  I mentioned this to my Pastor.  He corrected me that all of the participants wouldn’t be available to me for an interview, but didn’t think my hope was that outrageous otherwise.  Of course, God may have different plans for me.  But this hunger for the Bible was a direct result of my prayer to know God, regardless that I misunderstood what it meant or how to satisfy that hunger.

Focusing on knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent does de-emphasize hell, the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10-15).  There’s no denying that.  When I said a sinner’s prayer at five-years-old I just wanted to avoid going to hell.  The rest of this—was unanticipated to be sure but—came as a sort of unwanted shock and largely unwelcome surprise.  I’ll try to highlight the difference between knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent and avoiding hell.

I heard a sermon recently presented in what I would characterize as a fairly typical example of the “avoiding hell” fashion.  A particular passage of Scripture was introduced as the answer to a question: “Why do so many people reject the Lord?”  This was reaffirmed later with the statements: “This is describing why some people accept the Gospel and why the majority do not;” and, “What we see here is the beginning of the Lord’s judgment on those who reject Him.  It is the first taste of hell and a warning of things that come if they continue to refuse his offer of grace.”

God’s grace wasn’t ignored in this sermon: “God’s grace is ever-expanding.  It reaches its full completion.  It never runs out in the generosity of God…”  It was just strictly limited: “…for those who truly do embrace discipleship, for those who truly become citizens of the kingdom through faith and repentance…”

“He who has an ear, let that person hear,” wasn’t presented as the word of the One (John 1:1-34) who said, “Let there be light.”  And there was light!^[14]  It was presented as a weak word, easily ignored: “Most won’t listen.  Most won’t understand.  Most won’t let it change their lives.”  The picture was very bleak indeed: “As long as we refuse to acknowledge how broken we are, as long as we refuse to acknowledge how much we need mercy, as long as we remain hardhearted there is no chance of salvation, zero.”

The passage in question was Matthew 13:1-23, the parable where Jesus describes people as types of ground, types of soil.  The most striking thing about this metaphor is that soil is powerless to improve itself.  The Sower must improve the soil if He wants a harvest.  Still, the emphasis seemed to remain upon the powerless soil: “This is a call for patient endurance.  This is a call for wholehearted devotion.  This is a call to root out weeds in our life because those thorns be poky and they hurt.”

I say “seemed” because this sermon did an abrupt about face at the very end:

But with the coming of the Spirit we see a new age in humanity, an age in which the church has been filled with the power of God like never before, where the transformation of the power of the Spirit through Christ’s death and resurrection gives us new hope and new life to embrace the Gospel at the very deepest part of our life.  So that by his grace He roots out all those vines, all those thorns.  By his grace He deepens the soil of our heart and brings us to that place of brokenness and joy because of the healing of Christ.  The reason we can have hope as we read this, as we recognize ourselves as the ones with the hard heart and the shallow heart and the crowded heart, is because we know that we don’t live by our own strength any more.  We never did.  But now we live in the power of the Spirit.^[15]

In my opinion a sermon more focused on knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent rather than “avoiding hell” would start here and go on, maybe even to the God who of his own volition promised: “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me.  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord.  “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”^[16]

I shared this with my Pastor in case I was overly critical or offensive.  He seemed satisfied with my focus on the grace aspect of his sermon.  We talked some about a Pastor’s choice of focus, his desire to be true to both the grace and the judgment implicit in the text.  I may not have learned much about being a Pastor.  I did get a fresh glimpse into myself.

Apparently, I heard the judgment focus of his sermon (as I am prone to do) as an invitation to do-it-yourself religion.  Jesus, through his indwelling Spirit, forcibly shifted my focus away from judgment and fully onto his grace, putting some steel in my spine, as it were, keeping me trusting Him.  In other words, I am heeding the “call for patient endurance,” not by grinning and bearing it on my own but wholly dependent on the grace of my Savior.  After all, patience (μακροθυμία) is an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23).

I’ve compared the quotation from Jeremiah in Hebrews to the Septuagint as a matter of completeness.  It seemed that Hebrews 8:8b may not be a quotation from the Septuagint but an independent translation of the Hebrew of Jeremiah 31:31.  The Hebrew word וכרתי (kāraṯ) was translated συντελέσω in the New Testament and διαθήσομαι (a form of διατίθεμαι) in the Septuagint.

I struggle some with the idea that ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον and τῷ οἴκῳ both translate with the house.  I suspect that συντελέσω ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον is something more like I will complete upon the house, but don’t find any support for it other than the NET translation of the same construction in Luke 1:33.  He will reign over the house (βασιλεύσει ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον) of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.^[17]

The clause translated although I was an husband unto them (Tanakh/KJV) from the Masoretic text of Jeremiah 31:32 was translated and I disregarded them (English Elpenor) in the Septuagint.

The difference appears to be one Hebrew word: בָּעַ֥לְתִּי (bāʿal).  If the writer of Hebrews actually did an independent translation from Hebrew, I have two points of evidence hinting at what the Hebrew word translated ἠμέλησα (a form of ἀμελέω) in the Septuagint and the New Testament was before the Masoretes changed it to בָּעַ֥לְתִּי (bāʿal).

Admittedly, I may not have thought of this quotation in Hebrews as an independent translation if I were only considering Hebrews 8:9 and Jeremiah 31:32 (38:32).  The comparison of Hebrews 8:10 and Jeremiah 31:33 (38:33) below isn’t exactly a tie breaker on that score.

There is nothing significant in the comparison of the next verse to persuade me that the quotation in Hebrews was an independent translation of the Hebrew.

Tables comparing Jeremiah 31:31; 31:32 and 31:33 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing the Greek of in Jeremiah 31:31; 31:32 and 31:33 the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor), and tables comparing Hebrews 8:6; 8:11, 12 and John 17:1, 2 in the NET and KJV follow.