Tackling Tradition (Part 27): And No Longer Shall Each One Teach His Neighbor And Each His Brother

From Jeremiah 31: 

The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. 28 Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the Lord.29 “In those days people will no longer say,

‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
    and the children’s teeth are set on edge.

30 Instead, everyone will die for their own sin;whoever eats sour grapes—their own teeth will be set on edge.

31 

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.

32 

It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to[d] them,[e]”
declares the Lord.

33 

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

34 

No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.”

In context, Jeremiah is writing in a time of maximal apostasy relative to the covenant.    He’s prophesying that the false teachers & corrupt rulers will have been exposed & expelled, justice will have reached its apogee, and that His Law will be written so indelibly in the hearts & minds of the people that they will not teach each other.  

This text isn’t what many people think it’s about.   Some people think that the text means that they day will come when we have all mastered our sin & need no human teachers.   Is that true? 

 

It’s about a time of covenant renewal & re-establishment.  It has both positive & negative implications.    There are those who say that need no teacher but who do (false prophets & rulers in Jeremiah,  the Pharisees in John, the Superapostles & other peddlers in 1 & 2 Corinthians & Philippians, & the false teachers in 1 John), & the rest of us who hear men who say they have mastered their sins & need no teacher who are in the first category & see  through them. 

Jeremiah isn’t talking about everyone mastering their sins & no longer requiring a teacher other than the LORD.  He’s talking about the winnowing effect of covenant renewal & the defeat of errant Ecclesiastical Tradition in favor of the prevail of Sola Scriptura & the ***eventual***  mastery of the Bible correctly exegeted, exposited, understood, & applied — not a time in one person’s imner life in which they have mastered sin & now need no teacher.   

Biblical covenants are also cyclical, so this text isn’t descriptive of a pinnacle humanity reaches & then remains not a time like that for a one person.     Rather, this pattern repeats at the macro level every time the Covenant of Grace as a whole expands & at the micro level in which it moves through any number of highs & lows.    To a certain extent, Church History & Global (World) History are about these cycles.   

Moreover, pay attention to who says “I have mastered my sin & need no human teacher” in the Bible.    That would be the attitude of more than one corrupt ruler.  Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah’s word & Zedekiah jailed Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36 & 37).   The Pharisees said they could see, proving they were blind (John 5).   The Superapostles in Corinth acted the same way (1 & 2 Corinthians).   The false teachers in 1 John went down that road.  1 John 2:27 is about the simple indwelling of the Holy Spirit — the teachers John’s audience doesn’t need are those characterized by the spirit of Antichrist who are people who say they have no sin ( 1 John 1:10).

These sorts of people are not infrequently prone to think they have it all together morally & doctrinally, so they (in their own eyes) don’t need a teacher.  Beware of such people, the record shows they tend to gravitate toward teachers & peers who are more beholden to Ecclesiastical Tradition & Liturgical Philosophy than they themselves realize.     Look to the LORD, turn to & practice Sola Scriptura, stay on the Narrow Way.