Jeremiah 3:12 - Meaning and Application

There is a great deal of gospel in these verses. They show both God’s steady readiness to pardon sin and receive repentant sinners, and also blessings that would belong especially to gospel times. These include the forming of the gospel church by bringing in God’s scattered children, the ending of the ceremonial law, and the joining of Jews and Gentiles, pictured here by the joining of Israel and Judah when they returned from captivity.

The prophet is told to call out toward the north, because this is a call to backsliding Israel, the ten tribes carried into Assyria, which was north of Jerusalem. God wanted them to know he had not forgotten them, even if their brethren had. At the same time, this exposed Judah’s stubbornness, because Judah kept refusing the calls already given to them. It was as if one were calling to people many hundreds of miles away in the land of the north, people who would be no harder to reach than these unbelieving and disobedient people. In one sense, backsliding Israel would be quicker to accept mercy than treacherous Judah. This may also look ahead to the preaching of repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (Luke 24:47).

A call to Israel in the land of the north is also a call to others in that place, as many as belong to God’s chosen people by grace. When some thought Christ might go to the scattered Jews among the Gentiles, they concluded that he would also teach the Gentiles (John 7:35). The same kind of thought fits here.

Here is an invitation to backsliding Israel, and through them to backsliding Gentiles, to return to God, the one they had turned away from (Jeremiah 3:12). “Return, you backsliding Israel.” Again, “Turn back, backsliding children” (Jeremiah 3:14). They are told to repent of their backslidings, come back to their duty, and return to the good way they had left.

With this invitation comes encouragement. “Repent and turn back, and your sins will be wiped away” (Acts 3:19). They had brought God’s displeasure on themselves, but if they return, he says, “I will not make my anger fall on you.” God’s anger is ready to fall on sinners like a lion on its prey, and no one can rescue them. It is also like a great weight of lead, sinking them beyond recovery into the lowest hell. But if they repent, his anger will turn away (Isaiah 12:1). “I will not keep anger forever, but I will be reconciled, because I am merciful.” We who are sinful would be lost forever if God were not merciful. But his goodness gives us hope that, if repentance undoes what we have done against him, he will pardon us and take back what he has said against us.

They are also told how to return (Jeremiah 3:13). “Only admit your guilt.” Own your fault, take shame to yourself, and give glory to God. The promise, “I will not keep anger forever,” already shows this. They will be delivered from the lasting anger of God, from the wrath to come, but on very easy and fair terms: only confess your sin. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.” It will make sinners’ condemnation worse that the terms of pardon were brought so low, and still they would not accept them. If the prophet had told them to do something hard, would they not have done it? How much more when he says, “Only admit your guilt?” (2 Kings 5:13).

In confessing sin, we must own the corruption of our nature, the wrongness and disorder within us. We must own our actual sins, that we have sinned against the Lord our God, offended him, and wronged him. We must own the many times we have sinned, that we have scattered our ways to strangers and run after idols under every green tree. Wherever we wandered, we left behind the marks of our foolishness. And we must admit the worst part of our sin, its refusal to obey God’s law. The evil of sin is the worst thing about it. “You have not obeyed my voice.” That is what must humble us most.

These backsliding children also receive precious promises, if they return. These were partly fulfilled when the Jews came back from captivity, and perhaps many from the ten tribes joined the two tribes and returned with them. But the prophecy reaches its full meaning in the gospel church, when God gathers his scattered children together.

“Return,” God says, “for though you are backsliders, you are still children. Though you are a treacherous wife, you are still a wife, for I am married to you” (Jeremiah 3:14). He will not deny the bond. In this way God remembers his covenant with their fathers, that marriage covenant, and for that reason he remembers their land too (Leviticus 26:42).

He promises to gather them from all the places where they are scattered and bring them to Zion (John 11:52). “I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and bring you to Zion” (Jeremiah 3:14). All who return to their duty by repentance will also return to their former comfort. God will kindly receive those who come back to him. More than that, it is his special grace that takes them out from among the rest who keep on in their backsliding. If he had left them where they were, they would have been ruined.

Among those who have turned away from God, only a few return, very few compared with the whole, like the few gleanings left after the vintage. One of a city and two of a family is a small number. Christ’s flock is a little flock, and few find the narrow gate. Yet of those few, even though they are scattered, not one will be lost. If there is only one in a city, God will find that one. He will not be overlooked in the crowd, but will be brought safely to Zion, safely to heaven. The scattered Jews will be brought to Jerusalem, and those from the ten tribes will be as welcome there as those from the two. God’s chosen people, scattered through the world, will be brought into the gospel church, Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, that holy hill where Christ reigns.

He also promises to give them leaders who will be a blessing to them (Jeremiah 3:15). “I will give you shepherds after my own heart,” a phrase that points back to David, about whom it was said that the Lord had sought out a man after his own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). When a church is gathered, it must also be governed. “I will bring them to Zion,” not so they can live however they please, but to live under discipline, not like wild animals roaming at will, but like sheep under a shepherd’s care. “I will give them shepherds,” meaning both rulers and ministers, since both are God’s appointed means for supporting his kingdom.

It is a good thing for a people when their pastors are after God’s own heart. That means they are the kind of leaders we should want, men who make God’s will their rule in all they do and try to follow his example as far as they can. They rule for him and, as much as human weakness allows, they rule like him.

Such pastors also care above all to feed the flock. They do not feed themselves and then fleece the sheep, but work for the good of those under their care. They feed them with wisdom and understanding, that is, in a wise and thoughtful way, as David fed God’s people with “integrity of heart” and “skillful hands” (Psalm 78:72). Those who are not only pastors but teachers must feed people with the word of God, which is wisdom and understanding and can make us wise for salvation.

God also promises that there will be no more need for the ark of the covenant, which had been such a glory to the tabernacle and later the temple, and was a sign of God’s presence with his people. It would be set aside, and people would no longer look for it or ask about it (Jeremiah 3:16). When the kingdom of the Messiah is established, and the Gentiles are brought in so that the church grows greatly, people will no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” They will no longer prize external forms in the same way, because they will have a pure spiritual way of worship.

With the ark set aside, the whole ceremonial law would also be set aside, along with all its ordinances, because Christ, the one all those signs pointed to, would be given to us in the word and sacraments of the New Testament instead. It is very likely, despite what the Jews say, that the ark was in the second temple, since Cyrus returned it with the other vessels of the house of the Lord (Ezra 1:7). But in the gospel temple, Christ himself is the ark. He is the mercy seat, the place where mercy is shown, and it is God’s spiritual presence in his ordinances that we now look for.

The verse uses several ways of saying the same thing, that the ark would not come to mind, not be remembered, not be visited, and none of these things would be done anymore. This is to show that the ceremonies of Moses would be completely and finally abolished, never to be used again. It would be hard for those who had been attached to them for so long to let them go, and they would not fully do so until their holy city and holy house were both brought down.

God also promises that the gospel church, here called Jerusalem, will become famous and clearly seen (Jeremiah 3:17). Two things will make it known. First, God’s special rule and presence will be there. It will be called the throne of the Lord, the throne of his glory, because his glory shines in the church, and the throne of his government, because he rules there. He rules his willing people by his word and Spirit, and brings every thought into obedience to himself. As the gospel spread, this throne of the Lord was set up even where Satan’s seat had been.

It is especially the throne of grace, because those who come by faith to this Jerusalem come to God, the Judge of all, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, that is, the one who brings us to God and secures our peace with him (Hebrews 12:22-24). Second, the Gentiles will be brought into it. All nations will be taught as disciples and gathered into the church, becoming subjects of the Lord’s throne and devoted to the honor of his name, which is both made known there and called on there.

God also promises a great change in those who are gathered into the church. “They shall not walk any more after the imagination of their evil hearts” (Jeremiah 3:17). They will no longer live as they please, but by God’s rule. They will not follow their sinful desires, but the will of God. This shows what leads people into sin, the imagination of their own evil hearts, and what sin is, walking after that imagination and being ruled by fancy and mood. It also shows what converting grace does, it turns us away from our own inventions and brings us under religion and right reason.

Judah and Israel will also be happily united in one body (Jeremiah 3:18). This was partly fulfilled when they returned from captivity and settled again in Canaan. The house of Judah would walk with the house of Israel, fully agreed, and become one stick in the hand of the Lord, as Ezekiel also foretold (Ezekiel 37:16-17). Since both Assyria and Chaldea fell to Cyrus, and his proclamation reached all the Jews in his dominions, it is reasonable to think that many of the house of Israel came with Judah out of the land of the north. At first only 42,000 returned, as Ezra records, but Josephus says that a few years later, under Darius, Zerubbabel brought back over 4,000,000 souls to the land given to their fathers. We also do not read of the old hatred and division between Israel and Judah after that, at least not in the same way.

This happy joining of Israel and Judah in Canaan was a picture of the joining of Jews and Gentiles in the gospel church. When all hostility is put to death, they become one flock under one shepherd.

There is, however, a difficulty in the way of all this mercy, but a way is found to overcome it. God asks, “How shall I do this for you?” This does not mean he is reluctant to show favor, as though he were forced to forgive unwillingly, like in Hosea 11:8-9. No, even though he is slow to anger, he is quick to show mercy. The question shows instead that we are completely unworthy of his favors. We have no right to expect them, nothing in ourselves to deserve them, and no claim on them at all. It also shows that God arranges mercy in a way that still upholds the honor of his justice and holiness in governing the world.

So a way must be found so that his banished ones are not driven away forever from him (2 Samuel 14:14). How shall he do it? Even backsliders, if they return and repent, will be counted among his children, and who would ever have expected that? See how great that love is (1 John 3:1). How should we, so low and weak, so undeserving and so hard to please, ever be counted among the children?

To those whom God counts among his children, he gives the pleasant land, the land of Canaan. It was the glory of all lands, a rich inheritance of the nations, a place the nations and their armies might have wished for and chosen over their own countries, or a land already possessed by the armies of the nations. Canaan was a picture of heaven, where there are pleasures forevermore. Yet who would expect a place in that pleasant land for a people who had so often despised it (Psalm 106:24) and who were so unworthy and unfit for it? Is this the way people usually act?

God answers the question himself: "You will call me, My Father." God himself answers every objection raised by our unworthiness, or else those objections would never be overcome. To bring returning sinners among his children, he gives them the Spirit of adoption, the Holy Spirit who teaches them to cry, "Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). "You will call me, My Father" means this: you will return to me and give yourself to me as a child gives himself to a father, and that will win my favor.

And to give them the pleasant land, God puts his fear in their hearts so they will never turn away from him. In this way, they can continue faithful to the end.