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[30] Behold, days are coming -- the word of HASHEM -- when I will seal a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah: [31] not like the covenant that I sealed with their forefathers on the day that I took hold of their hand to take them out of the land of Egypt, for they abrogated My covenant, although I became heir Master -- he word of HASHEM. [32] For this is the covenant that I shall seal with the House of Israel after those days -- the word of HASHEM -- I will place My Torah within them and I will write it onto their heart; I will be God for them and they will be a people for Me. [33] They will no longer teach -- each man his fellow, each man his brother -- saying, "Know HASHEM!' For all of them will know Me, from their smallest to their greatest -- the word of HASHEM -- when I will forgive their iniquity and will no longer recall their sin.
Christians use verses 30 and 31 to 'prove' to us that God promised that our Torah will be replaced by a "New" Torah, the Christian New Testament.
Answer for yourself: Is this view held by Gentile and Messianic Christianity correct?
However, consider the ignored half of this prophecy: verses 32 and 33. The new covenant is not a new Torah, but that the Torah, the original Torah, will be placed in our hearts and everyone in the world will know HASHEM.
The Hebrew word for "law" as used in verse 33 of Jeremiah 31 is as follows: 8451 towrah (to-raw') Strong's Numbers or torah (to-raw'); from 3384; a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or Pentateuch (1st 5 books of the Old Testament) KJV-- law. law, direction, instruction
Answer for yourself: Don't you think it rather strange as a typical Christian which has been fed Paul for your whole life and his "gospel", that you find yourself under grace and not under Law; that this New Covenant (when it occurs and probably you already believe it has begun) in reality consists of the Laws God put in one's heart which you have been told you are not under by your Pastor?
Answer for yourself: If the Christian New Testament was really the fulfillment of this prophecy, why are their so many atheists in the world?
Answer for yourself: Why do Christians spend millions of dollars to missionize?
Nobody is supposed to say "Know HASHEM," because everyone will know Him, according to verse 33.
Answer for yourself: How can be in effect today with such witness against it?
The Christian may attempt to answer that verses 32 and 33 are talking about the second coming, but it's absurd to say that there is at least a 2,000 year gap between verses 31 and 32. There is no indication of this gap in the text, quite the opposite, in fact. It appears as one prophecy. The Christian answer is illogical, and born of desperation.
Understand that it's okay for the Bible to predict an event to happen 2,000 years later. The issue is splitting a prophecy. The prophecy of verse 32 continues in verse 33, and the entire prophecy should happen at once. Christians, when confronted with such conflicts within their religious belief system maintain that verse 32 was fulfilled thousands of years ago, but verse 33 is yet to be fulfilled. There is no reason to assume that God intended these 2 verses to be different prophecies, seperated by 2,000+ years.
Secondly, verses 31 and 32 of Jeremiah chapter 31 do not speak of a new Torah, but a new 'Briss' (or 'Brit' in other Hebrew dialects).
1285 beriyth (ber-eeth'); from 1262 (in the sense of cutting [like 1254]); a compact (because made by passing between pieces of flesh): -confederacy, [con-] feder [-ate], covenant, league.
Answer for yourself: What is strangly lacking from this Hebrew definition for "covenant"?
There is not one mention of the Law or Laws of God.
A Briss is not a set of laws, but a treaty, an agreement, a covenant. If the word was intended to mean 'Torah,' the word 'Torah' would have been used in verse 32. It was not!
We never find the word Briss to refer to Torah/Laws/Commandments.
Answer for yourself: So is God telling us through Jeremiah that He is resending the previous Law or Laws to give us "new"ones? Not at all. To attribute that this is the meaning of the passage goes great injustice to the revelation of God through the prophet Jeremiah. In fact to do so is to create a new religion other than that given to all mankind by God.
According to the Christian 'proof,' Briss must means Torah. You need to recognize that if Briss could mean something else, like 'treaty,' there is no longer a proof from here to their New Testament. Understand that in order to live by a "new" set of laws whereby you live by grace and not by Law, then it becomes necessary to replace the first Law given by God in order to have a "new" Law that replaces it. Thus the need to define "bris" as law instead of relationship.
Let's use the Christian's definition of 'Briss' as "law" and see if there were any other Torahs that were given as well (besides the Tanach and the Christian New Testament. After each example ask yourself: Does this make sense? If you find that it does not, then be fully persuaded that the Christian definition is wrong and their theology in such issues as well.
Let me conclude this short article with a summary statement. If, as Christianity professes, that we are under a New Covenant, understand that nowhere within it, according to Jer. 31, are the Laws of God replaced with new laws whereby the older Laws have ceased to be required by God. The only thing is this, and this I hope will shock you: this "new" relationship God desires to have with His people is one whereby they observe and keep the laws of God which are written on their hearts (heart in Hebrew is the mind), and I found it rather hard to keep the laws of God in my mind while in a church because they were never taught. Not only that but I found myself brainwashed repeatedly by being continually taught that we were no longer under the law, but under grace. Yet all the while we as Pastors reassured the people that they are under covenant with God, when the stark reality of it to me today, is that ignorantly we repudiated the ONLY COVENANT which mankind ever had by nuliffiying the Laws of God both in belief and conduct. And this primarily can be blamed on a New Testament which continually misquoates, mistranslates, and takes the Jewish Scriptuares out of context in order to pervert the truth whereby they appeal to Prophetic authority for credibility for theif false doctrines. May God forgive us for not loving Him more whereby we study sufficiently to see these tragic mistakes which capture good people who love God, but in the sad and final result, make them law-breakers as well as covenant-breakers. Shalom.