In 2012, NASA’s Voyager space probe passed out of our solar system and entered interstellar space. At nearly 16.3 billion miles traveled over almost 50 years, it is presently the most distant manmade object in outer space, and yet it has traveled less than half of 1% of a light year. The next nearest stars are many orders of magnitude more distant than that, and we know of stars that are farther still. Yet we know that our cosmos is far, far larger than even this.

At a depth of nearly 36,000 feet, the Challenger Deep is the lowest known point on the planet Earth. Sunken at the southern end of the Mariana Trench in the Western Pacific, only a handful of explorers have ever ventured to its depths, and only then with highly specialized equipment, often not exploring in person but via submersible drones that can withstand the crushing oceanic pressures. Yet even that distance barely represents a quarter of the earth’s outer crust, and its mantle and core are far beyond our reach.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever fully explore every crevice and corner of creation. To some, this is a crushing reality. But connected to this one biblical promise, it becomes one of the most tender hopes we can hold onto.

Thus says the Lord: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.”

Jeremiah 31:37

Jeremiah 31 represents a pivotal point in the prophetic book. For twenty nine chapters, Israel has received reprimands, charges of sinfulness and idolatry, calls to repentance, and prophetic descriptions of grave consequences. God’s people are told, in no uncertain terms, how, when, and why they have failed to uphold their end of God’s covenant with them. Their failure is categorical.

(Israel, in a characteristic attempt to say, “Nuh uh!”, immediately resorts to prophet homicide. It didn’t take, but they really did have an honest go at it.)

Yet despite their failure and its impending consequences, the tone of the book turns dramatically in chapters 30-31. Although Israel will still receive the promised punishment, God reveals a new hope. He offers the promise of a new covenant for his people. He says that this future new covenant is not like the old covenant that they have repeatedly broken, but is new, different, better, stronger. And no matter how badly God’s people continue to mess up, it won’t stop this new covenant from coming.

And he outlines it in these terms:

  • “I will abandon you the very moment you can reach the end of the universe.”
  • “I will cast you off the same day that the sun stops shining and the sea lays perfectly flat.”
  • “I will give up my Bride as soon as she can bore through the earth’s crust and mantle to reach its molten core.”

or in other words,

  • “I will never cast off, I will never abandon. It would take the impossible for you to outrun my mercy and forgiveness; it would take me ceasing to be who I am for me to stop loving those who belong to my covenant.”

Or even more succinctly,

  • “Do the impossible. Then I’ll stop loving you.”

In ancient mythologies, the gods of Greece and Rome established impossible tasks for humanity to prove themselves as heroes and champions. Only the best, most powerful, craftiest and most cunning could overcome the impossible challenges of Zeus, Hades, Aphrodite and Athena. The gods of the ancients contended against mankind — at times to sharpen them, yes, but more often on their whims, or to punish, to torment, restrain, and force them into subservience.

Yet our God is different. When he sets impossible challenges, it isn’t to provoke us. Rather, his impossible tasks make it impossible to fail, not succeed. With him, even the most weak, weary and broken sinner is sheltered by this impossible challenge in Jeremiah 31. Even the most miserable and destitute can reach out and take hold of this solid covenantal promise. The terms of God’s covenant give us invincible eternal security.

As we behold God’s vast creation, we are reminded of the vastness of God himself, and how small we are beside him. We could explore the deepest reaches of outer space, dive to the deepest caverns in our ocean, drill straight down to the earth’s core, yet even then we would not find one place where God had lost what he said he would keep. No matter how badly we fail to uphold our end, he will always keep those he holds. He will never cast out.

Israel only heard this promise, but they never saw it. They lived in faith and died without seeing the promise come about. Now in Christ, we have not only heard the promise of this new covenant, but we have seen the promise clothed eternally in flesh. Christ himself gives us the new covenant, and we have him forever. If Israel found hope and security simply in hearing, how much more should we take our hope and security from having and holding? How much more can we rest in seeing and knowing Christ?

How much more should we believe that he will never cast out?