The lengthy oracle against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51 presents an encouraging picture for the exiled people of God because it declares that even the most terrifying human power of the day will be brought to nothing by the God of Israel. And because Babylon becomes a symbol for earthly powers opposed to God and his people, this prophecy continues to be relevant for the church and helpful in reminding us that no matter how powerful and insurmountable human opposition to God and his gospel might seem, there will come a day when even the last enemy, death, will be brought to nothing by Christ.
A secondary point that bubbles up in these chapters is the fact that the restoration of God’s people is intertwined with the downfall of God’s enemies. Or, to say it another way, there is only one arena in which God works out his purposes. While God in his grace may make a distinction between his people and his enemies at times, there is no thought in the Scriptures that God’s people will somehow be separated from the wicked and dealt with in some alternate dimension. There is one arena, the heavens and the earth, in which God works weal and woe, and often these things are tightly intertwined.
A good Biblical example of this idea is given to us in Exodus. Throughout the ten plagues that God brought upon Egypt through Moses, God’s power over the false gods of the Egyptians was on display. Importantly, at critical points, the text explicitly mentions that a distinction is made between the people of Egypt and the Hebrews in the outworking of these plagues. The first time this distinction is noted in the text is in anticipation of the fourth plague of flies (Exod 8:22). Again, with the fifth plague against the livestock, a distinction is explicitly made (Exod 9:4), as with the seventh plague of hail (Exod 9:26), and the ninth plague of darkness (Exod 10:23). Finally, with the tenth plague against the firstborn, a distinction is once more made, but with this final plague the distinction was coupled with a specific act of faith that God’s people had to do. The Passover celebration was not optional for God’s people because the blood of the sacrificed lamb, which was smeared on the doorposts of the Hebrews’ homes, substituted for the death of the firstborn in that house. In that way, salvation and judgment were intertwined because the Lord, as it were, visited every house, though he only struck down the firstborn in the houses in which no lamb had been substituted.
There is a conceptual parallel in our Lord’s kingdom parables. While Jesus does not explicitly pick up Passover imagery in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt 13:24-30), this idea that the deliverance of God’s people is intertwined with the downfall of God’s enemies is very much present. Because Jesus positively identifies the field in the parable as the world (Matt 13:38), we are immediately cast into the frame of mind that there is only one arena, one field, in which God works out his purposes. The literal intertwining of the roots of both good and bad seed concretely picture the connection between God’s people and his enemies which cannot be severed until the final judgment, which is the harvest (Matt 13:39). At the point of harvest, a final distinction can be made. What we should appreciate is that the tenth plague of the Exodus foreshadows or prefigures what the final harvest in the parable of the wheat and tares represents. And both of these support the idea that is presented in Jeremiah 50-51 that the deliverance of God’s people is intertwined with the downfall of God’s enemies.
At the level of the individual, we should recognize in all of these situations that there are enormously powerful and also complex forces operating through time and space. This recognition should humble us, to a degree, when we endeavor to be an enlightening and preserving influence in the world. If the deliverance of God’s people is intertwined with the downfall of God’s enemies, then God is certainly the primary actor who is driving the events of history toward his own good purposes. We may make a limited impact on an individual level, but we are caught up in something much larger than each of us, individually considered.
Corporately, the church certainly has more influence insofar as it serves Christ according to its mission. But we as the church must be mindful of our position in but not of the world. The church cannot uproot and leave the field for another, because there is only one field, one arena, in which God is working out his purposes. Therefore, as the church, we need to meaningfully inhabit this field, declaring to anyone who will listen that God is at work and will one day send his harvesters.
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