What Jeremiah sees is as if the Lord has become an enemy to
the nation. The devastation is so
complete he can only imagine the Lord as enemy of Israel. Is He an enemy? The covenant the Lord has with the nation is everlasting
but that does not mean that enjoyment of the covenant benefits and blessings in
not contingent. The nation must be
faithful because they represent Him to the world and His Name is at stake. When they have become apostate and unfaithful
He warns through the prophets up to a point and then, when that warning is not
heeded, He stays His hand of protection from their enemies and destruction and
exile happen. Has there ever been a time
when Israel was not in the sights of their enemies? That should tell you something about the
Lord's protection.
Given that the covenant is an everlasting covenant, how do
we interpret the parable? Will God truly
give the vineyard to others as in permanently?
What is the vineyard? Is it the
city? Is it something more than
that? I think we can say that we, as
Paul says, have been grafted into Israel, not replaced her in the
covenant. To the extent that the nation
was coexistent with the land, obviously she has lost her vineyard, particularly
in Jerusalem. This situation has now
existed for two millennia, a long exile of bitterness at the occupation of the
city of God. We should consider the
vineyard metaphor and what it means for us as well. Does it mean that we have been given a great
gift of the Holy Spirit poured out that allows us to be fruitful in evangelism
and missions? We should have greater
confidence in our evangelism and not live so much in fear and doubt. We have the greatest story of all and we have
the gift of the Spirit.
In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul
admonished them to exercise church discipline in connection with a man who was
involved in sexual sin. His advice was
to put the man outside the church, not fellowship with him, that he might be
forced to deal with the reality of sin. In
our confession we say that the remembrance of our sins is grievous unto us and
the burden of them is intolerable but is that always true? Sometimes the only thing we can do to win our
brothers and sisters back from sin is to separate ourselves from them. Sometimes the only thing God can do is stand
apart, be silent. Here, Paul says that a
repentant sinner is to be welcomed back into the fellowship of the church, that
we might practice forgiveness for those who repent, forgiving others as we
ourselves are forgiven. We are not
enemies within the body of Christ, we are forgiven sinners who hate sin but
love sinners, like us. We have but one
enemy and he is not flesh and blood.
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