The Covenant That Changes the Heart

When Jeremiah spoke these words, he was not just announcing another message to Israel. He was looking into the future and describing the very thing God would later accomplish through Christ. These verses explain the shift from a covenant written on stone to a covenant written on the heart. It is God saying, I am going to do something in you that you could never do on your own.

Here is the passage:

Jeremiah 31:33 and 34
33 This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, Know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

What God is describing here is a completely different kind of relationship than the one Israel had at Sinai. Back then everything was external. The law was written on tablets. The commandments were outside of them, demanding obedience but never giving them the power to walk it out. The people tried, they failed, and the covenant only revealed how deeply the heart needed to change.

But in these verses, God announces something entirely new. He is not just giving commands. He is transforming the person who receives them.

When He says, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, He is talking about a work only His Spirit can perform. This echoes what He said through Ezekiel, where God promised, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you and I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees. That is Ezekiel 36, and it describes the same inner renovation Jeremiah is talking about. God is not improving the old heart. He is replacing it. He is giving a heart that actually desires Him.

Then God adds, I will be their God, and they will be my people. That is not casual language. That is covenant language. That is God saying, This relationship will not break because I am the One holding it together. This is the same promise that runs all the way to Revelation where God dwells with His people and they belong to Him forever. It is the deepest relationship a human being can have.

The line about not needing to teach one another to know the Lord simply means this. Everyone who belongs to this covenant will truly know Him. Under the old covenant someone could belong to Israel and yet have no relationship with God at all. Under the new covenant that is impossible. Every true member of this covenant knows Him personally because the Spirit has opened their heart to Him.

Everything reaches its high point in the final line where God declares that He will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. This is not God softening the penalty. This is God removing the debt entirely. The old sacrifices covered sin temporarily. Christ’s sacrifice removes it fully. The writer of Hebrews quotes this exact prophecy to show that Jesus fulfilled it in one act, once for all.

Jeremiah 31 verses 33 and 34 is the announcement of what God would accomplish in Christ. A new heart. A new Spirit. A real relationship. A people who actually know Him. And a forgiveness so complete God Himself says He will not remember the sin.

This is the covenant that changes everything. And this is the covenant every believer stands in today.