Jeremiah 4:5-6:30

What’s Happening?

Judah has chosen loyalty to foreign gods and kings over trusting their God to protect and provide for their nation. So God tells Jeremiah to announce that an army will invade Judah’s borders (Jeremiah 4:5–17). If God’s people do not want him as their protector, he will give them exactly what they ask. Despite how much it pains him, he will leave them to the powers they have chosen for themselves (Jeremiah 4:18–22). And the world, as God’s people know it, will be destroyed (Jeremiah 4:23–26).

But God tells Jeremiah that if he can find just one person in all Judah willing to listen and obey, he will stop his coming judgment (Jeremiah 5:1). So he goes to Israel’s religious leaders, hoping that among those devoted to God’s words and laws he might find a faithful representative who would restore God’s covenant mercy. But there isn’t one. Judah’s leaders know they are breaking God’s commands, don’t care, and don’t believe God will judge them (Jeremiah 5:2–6). Jeremiah quickly learns that Judah has abandoned all fidelity to God and even love of one another. Judah is full of not just idolatry but evil, injustice, exploitation, and fraudulence from the top down (Jeremiah 5:26–31). To Jeremiah’s horror, he realizes there is not one faithful person left in Judah, and nothing will stop the coming exile (Jeremiah 5:7–13).

Failing to find one faithful covenant-keeper, God tells Jeremiah that every one of his prophecies will come to pass. Soon, an army will overshadow God’s people, strip them of their wealth, and drag them into exile (Jeremiah 5:14–25; 6:22–30). Jerusalem is so oppressive and violent that God will command the oncoming armies to forgo sleep and level their capital before another day dawns on their evil (Jeremiah 6:1–9). Yet Judah is so hard-hearted that they refuse to listen even when God tells them to run and escape Jerusalem (Jeremiah 6:10–21). But despite this stubbornness, faithlessness, and evil, God says his love for his people has not been entirely exhausted. He promises that some will survive the coming exile and that one day his protection will be offered again (Jeremiah 4:27; 5:18).

Where is the Gospel?

God told Jeremiah that he would halt Judah’s destruction if he could find just one faithful person who would listen to and obey God, but Jeremiah couldn’t. Sadly, not much has changed. Scripture consistently tells us that humanity has failed to live as the faithful covenant partner God intended (Romans 3:23). If the future of God’s people depends on finding one truly faithful human among us, exile and loss seem inevitable.

But despite humanity’s chronic stubbornness and faithlessness, God acted in love. God sent his Son, Jesus, to be born as a human—to live in covenant faithfulness in the way God’s people never could (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:1–5). Jesus became the one faithful Israelite, the one true human, through whom God would restore his people. He listened to God, trusted him completely, and lived in unwavering loyalty to God’s purposes (John 5:19; Luke 22:42). Jesus is the faithful representative Jeremiah was searching for—the one through whom God would renew his covenant and restore his people.

Jesus’ death shows us what God’s people—and the nations—do to the one faithful human sent to save them. He was rejected, cast outside the city, and handed over to death, entering fully into the exile and destruction that Jeremiah warned Judah about (John 19:16–17). Jesus did not avoid Israel’s exile; he carried it to its deepest point. But God did not abandon him to the grave. By raising Jesus from the dead, God declared that exile does not have the final word and that restoration has begun (Romans 8:1).

Because Jesus faithfully entered the exile of God’s people and emerged from it in resurrection, forgiveness and restoration are now available to all who are united to him. In Jesus, God’s people are brought back from exile, welcomed into renewed covenant relationship, and promised God’s ongoing presence and provision. Jesus is our faithful representative—the one good man in whom God’s promises are kept and through whom God’s people are restored.

See for Yourself

So I pray that the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to see the God who remains faithful to his covenant. And may you see Jesus as the one faithful human through whom God restores his people and brings us home from exile.