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
I understand the text before and after, but the portion of not needing to teach neighbors or relatives just felt confusing. Isn’t that evangelism?
Great question! In the previous covenants, the Old Covenants, God’s law wasn’t written on the hearts of his people. It was written on stone tablets. The promise in the New Covenant, as recorded by Jeremiah, is that God’s law will now be written on the hearts of his people instead of on stone tablets. That’s the key difference.
This means that all true believers will know the law, in the sense that it’s written on their hearts. Knowing, in this sense, means more than intellectual knowledge, but an intimacy with God where his desire (or law) for your life is now your desire. This is what it means for the Spirit of God to have impressed upon every Christian God’s law. Obviously, there’s still a need to be taught God’s Word, to be discipled, to repent when we sin, and so on…yet Jeremiah’s prophecy indicates that there will be a difference in the new covenant given that the law is now written on people’s hearts.
So what about unbelievers today? Given that they do not believe in Jesus, they do not have God’s law written on their heart (this comes after a person believes). Thus, we are to evangelize and share the gospel with them so that they might believe and have God’s law written on their heart.
Or, to explain it another way, unbelievers are not included in the words “neighbor” or “brother” in verse 34. Why? Because “neighbor” and “brother” would only include those who believe in Jesus in the context of Jeremiah’s words. Not every person living in a neighborhood or every relative in a specific family. They have a specific and limited meaning: those who believe in Jesus.