Jeremiah 15:5-6 – Who Else but God?
5 “For who will have pity on you, O Jerusalem?
Or who will bemoan you?
Or who will turn aside to ask how you are doing?
6 You have forsaken Me,” says the Lord,
“You have gone backward.
Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you;
I am weary of relenting!
"If humans had a sense of proportion," judges Ben Taub in the New Yorker on the rate of urbanizing natural habitat, "they would die of shame."
Although the Bible doesn't necessarily agree with Taub's priorities, it concurs with his conclusion. The wages of sin is death. He also agrees with him that we rarely exhibit what he calls a sense of proportion. We rarely and only briefly grasp the extent to which we have offended the majesty of God.
Knowing the damage of sin's impact and are resulting sense of perpetual entitlement, God at times in the book of Jeremiah enacts approaches that are unusual against the overall tenor of His Word. Twice already, He has told Jeremiah to stop praying for his people. In Jeremiah 15:5-6, the love of God elsewhere celebrated as unfailing is anthropomorphized to be tinged with weariness. He says He is weary of relenting and challenges His wayward people to ponder who will care for them now.
This dimming of the wattage of His smile toward man His image-bearer forces us to ask that question. If God doesn't pity us, who will? Moreover, even if we find an advocate in an idol or another group of people, as Jeremiah chronicles the Israelites have in their culture of lying, adultery, and idolatry, how effective will the advocacy be compared to God's? Are not the dregs of His "weary" pity more potent than the most ardent appeal from anyone else?
Perceiving the theological start of Jeremiah 15:5-6 through the lens of the New Testament, we can concur. The foreigner He chides for her entreaties which would take the bread of His restorative efforts toward the Israelites and give it to foreign dogs has the idea. Undeterred, she bounces back that even the crumbs of His favor are better than she can expect elsewhere.
Likewise, if there are degrees of His zeal toward us as we try to understand him in the human terms to which we can relate, we are better off with His comparatively reluctant concession than with the results from anywhere else we have sought solace.
But then, better yet, we have known what God is like when weary. When a little weary, Jesus still sat and talked with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He still was enthusiastic toward restorative efforts and the need for them. When very weary, when as He said in the garden of Gethsemane that He was sorrowful unto death, His root purpose was STILL to do His Father's will by redeeming the elect just as guilty as any who wearied Him in Jeremiah's day. With nearly His last breath on the cross, in fact, Jesus spent His expiring energy on empathy. He declared our forgiveness, for we know not what we do.
Concurrent with a sense of proportion to the extent of our offense, then, which can come only from Him, He also brings new life. As even the residue of His empathy was enough to rescue His own, we experience now the fullness of His favor. As the Father sees us, He sees the righteousness of Christ. We are already, Paul declares in Ephesians, seated with Him in Heaven.
What we haven't experienced of our full glorification and inheritance, the Godhead withholds for our good and our mutual, eternal pleasure with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His heart is wearied no longer. He has declared His work finished.
Or who will bemoan you?
Or who will turn aside to ask how you are doing?
6 You have forsaken Me,” says the Lord,
“You have gone backward.
Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you;
I am weary of relenting!
"If humans had a sense of proportion," judges Ben Taub in the New Yorker on the rate of urbanizing natural habitat, "they would die of shame."
Although the Bible doesn't necessarily agree with Taub's priorities, it concurs with his conclusion. The wages of sin is death. He also agrees with him that we rarely exhibit what he calls a sense of proportion. We rarely and only briefly grasp the extent to which we have offended the majesty of God.
Knowing the damage of sin's impact and are resulting sense of perpetual entitlement, God at times in the book of Jeremiah enacts approaches that are unusual against the overall tenor of His Word. Twice already, He has told Jeremiah to stop praying for his people. In Jeremiah 15:5-6, the love of God elsewhere celebrated as unfailing is anthropomorphized to be tinged with weariness. He says He is weary of relenting and challenges His wayward people to ponder who will care for them now.
This dimming of the wattage of His smile toward man His image-bearer forces us to ask that question. If God doesn't pity us, who will? Moreover, even if we find an advocate in an idol or another group of people, as Jeremiah chronicles the Israelites have in their culture of lying, adultery, and idolatry, how effective will the advocacy be compared to God's? Are not the dregs of His "weary" pity more potent than the most ardent appeal from anyone else?
Perceiving the theological start of Jeremiah 15:5-6 through the lens of the New Testament, we can concur. The foreigner He chides for her entreaties which would take the bread of His restorative efforts toward the Israelites and give it to foreign dogs has the idea. Undeterred, she bounces back that even the crumbs of His favor are better than she can expect elsewhere.
Likewise, if there are degrees of His zeal toward us as we try to understand him in the human terms to which we can relate, we are better off with His comparatively reluctant concession than with the results from anywhere else we have sought solace.
But then, better yet, we have known what God is like when weary. When a little weary, Jesus still sat and talked with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He still was enthusiastic toward restorative efforts and the need for them. When very weary, when as He said in the garden of Gethsemane that He was sorrowful unto death, His root purpose was STILL to do His Father's will by redeeming the elect just as guilty as any who wearied Him in Jeremiah's day. With nearly His last breath on the cross, in fact, Jesus spent His expiring energy on empathy. He declared our forgiveness, for we know not what we do.
Concurrent with a sense of proportion to the extent of our offense, then, which can come only from Him, He also brings new life. As even the residue of His empathy was enough to rescue His own, we experience now the fullness of His favor. As the Father sees us, He sees the righteousness of Christ. We are already, Paul declares in Ephesians, seated with Him in Heaven.
What we haven't experienced of our full glorification and inheritance, the Godhead withholds for our good and our mutual, eternal pleasure with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His heart is wearied no longer. He has declared His work finished.
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