I thought about the sermon text today: Jer. 29. (given by Rev Dr Bill Barnes 02/24/14) and I asked myself: What did God mean by his plan for good?
When God said, I have plans for you, for your good and for your welfare … but just wait in Babylon, a while, while in exile, that he would bring them out back to the land to prosper them… (notice, what I think, Jeremiah gives as a condition in the fulfillment of the prophecy: only after they seek God with their whole heart.)
I was wondering what “good plans” does God have? Like a person I met at a wedding on Saturday who told me how God had led them to purchase a second house on the big island of Hawaii and how they found a special church there, etc, etc. I thought: nice of God to plop you in paradise.
What about the 20,000 children dying of bad water every day? Where is God’s good plan for them?
What’s God’s good plan for all of us — after all we die anyway?! What is God’s good plan for those with terminal illnesses?
What about the Christians killed in persecution and conflicts all over the world? What is God’s good plan for them?
Still I wondered, then what did Jeremiah mean to say the God has good plans for those in exile or anyone in exile? Perhaps the prophecy was only meant for the exiles in Babylon, and we should not apply it to ourselves.
This is what came to me:
1. The exile did not end just because Cyrus sent them back to the Land. Jeremiah’s prophecy may have been partially fulfilled in this, but not completely, or you can look at the return and living in the land as NOT the fulfillment, which was still awaiting.
Prophecy is many times like looking at a mountain range. It is fulfilled in the low lying foothills, but you can see beyond higher mountain, and even higher mountains when the same prophecy will be fulfilled in the distant and yet unclear future. Even if the return was equivalent to the low lying foothills, the prophecy was still to be fulfilled in the distant future.
2. The exile continued right up to the 1st century AD, when, as NT Wright says, the Jews still regarded themselves in exile. Read in the Gospels: Mary, Zechariah, Simeon and Anna in the birth narratives of Luke — they tell you that the exile had not yet ended, they were waiting for the exile to end.
3. So therefore, in the eyes of the 1st century Jews in Palestine, the prophecy of good future plans through Jeremiah was not yet fulfilled even when the Jews were allowed by Cyrus to return
4. How was the prophecy fulfilled: the Gospels reveal it is fulfilled in Jesus. First, bringing the Kingdom on Earth in the first advent, and in completing the good plan to redeem the creation and us in our own resurrection in the second advent.
5. Therefore, the PLAN that Jeremiah said God had for their good (and also our good) was what you have been theme-ing, Roland, that Story of God’s plan to redeem creation, starting in Genesis and spreading all through the scripture to Revelation. Maybe Jeremiah and the Jews in Babylon were only thinking of return to the Land, but I think God meant the PLAN was the sending of a Redeemer and Savior and the future redemption of creation and us (Rev. 20-21). Jeremiah and the Jews only saw the Plan partially, but it was already in Scripture in the seed of Eve who would crush the Serpent. It was already seen in God’s covenants with Noah and Abraham. It was already seen in the Davidic covenant.
Only two chapters after God’ good plan is mentioned in Jer 29, the plan is mentioned again in Jer 31 — there the plan is MORE THAN just a return to the comfortable and cherished homeland, it has to do with a new covenant. This was like a hole ripped in the top of the corrupt creation — The plan was more than hoping that God would make my life better in this life. It was something universal, gargantuan, all-encompassing (not just taking me to heaven when I die).
And in his Pentecost sermon in Jerusalem Peter said the plan in Jer. 31, and also revealed in Joel, was fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus said at the Last Supper that his body and his blood were creating the NEW Covenant — even that which Jeremiah predicted.
We get to know the good plan God has for us, as we get to know Jesus.
Following Jesus, we start experiencing the Good Plan of the Coming Kingdom, which has already invaded this world. It is wrong to promise it will be realized completely in this life.
Yet, we know that we see God’s good plan only partially in this life. But we have a “glorious hope.” It is not just that our lives be better in this life. Our hope is in God’s good plan of redemption which will ultimately be consummated. That even though we die, He will bring us to life again, but in glorified bodies without sin and corruption, wiping away the tears these brought, with death, pain, grief and crying ended once for all . (Rev. 21:4).
This is our future hope — that one day, the Lord will redeem creation and us fully and completely and we will once again walk with the Lord in the Garden amidst everything he created, which he declared good — this is the goodness of his plan, and which we will enjoy — this is what the prophecy of Jeremiah ultimately means and looks forward to — “a plan to bring about the future you hope for.” (Jer 29:11) For we hope for a world of peace, love, with no pain, dying, crying, grief and tears.
Jack