Following the word “turn” (שוב) through Jeremiah’s prophecy.
“‘Return [שוב],
O faithless [שבב, from שוב] sons,’ declares the LORD; ‘For I am a master to you, and I
will take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion
Baal, the false Canaanite god with
which the idolatrous Israelites were so enamored, has its name from the word
for “husband” (בעל for both “Baal” and “husband”),
or “master” as it is translated above. The Lord will later, when
promising the new covenant, identify Himself as the sole husband of His people:
“‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the
covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I
was a husband [בעל] to them,"
declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:31,32). The new covenant, in which God is
still husband to His people, cannot be broken, for its faithfulness was gained
through the imputed righteousness and active obedience of Jesus Christ, the
Bridegroom (Matthew 22:2; John 3:29; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Ephesians 5:25-27;
Revelation 19:7-9; 21:9).
This is a passage about the remnant.
Jesus will draw on this language in the “Little Apocalypse” (Matthew 24:40,41;
Luke 17:34-36), which I believe describes the gathering of the Church by the
effectual calling of the Gospel in that generation between the old and new
covenant (up to the final destruction of the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70). Our
Jeremiah passage and the Matthew/Luke references are consistent with how the Prophets
used the idea of “remnant.” God called His elect-who-would-be-faithful from
among those who were His in name only.
God calls His people by the “shepherds”
(pastors) He gives His people as gifts (Ephesians 4:7-11). These are the
“messengers” of Matthew 24:31//Mark 13:27 (αγγελος, translated “angels” in our
English translations) who are used of God to gather and feed the Church by the
proclamation of the Word. They give the Church the needful food for its
survival, “knowledge and understanding.”
And so we preached, praying even as we speak forth the call to gather from the four winds: "...we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:9,10).
And so we preached, praying even as we speak forth the call to gather from the four winds: "...we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:9,10).
