From Splendor to Shadow

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The New Covenant Will Solve the Problem of Apostasy

Humbled in the sight of the nations, those who once had been favored of Heaven above all other peoples of the earth were to learn in exile the lesson of obedience. “I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished,” He declared. Jeremiah 30:11. Yet before all the nations of earth He would demonstrate His plan to bring victory out of apparent defeat, to save rather than to destroy. To the prophet was given the message: SS 246.4

He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock ... .
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, ...
Their life shall be like a watered garden,
and they shall languish no more ... .
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
Jeremiah 31:10-13, RSV

“Behold, the days come ... that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Verses 31-34. SS 247.1