Context for Jeremiah 8:4-9:22
God points out to His chosen people that their sin is contrary to the nature He created them with. Their rebellion is unnatural, as is all sin, and made worse by the fact that these people possess the very word of God.
We have no excuse. We have God’s Word. Most of us are literate and educated enough to understand what that Word says. Through that Word, we receive the Spirit, and through the Spirit, we receive faith. With that faith, God opens our eyes to His will and way for us.
As a result, when we stray from that will and way-yes it is sin-we have no excuse. Of course, we are forgiven by the grace of Jesus’ sacrifice, and when we repent, we are restored in that grace, but sin that continues separates us further and further from that grace until we are severed completely.
God proclaimed this reality to Judah and Jerusalem through Jeremiah, that they had removed themselves from grace, thereby exposing themselves to the consequences of the Law. They were about to be destroyed by God’s justice not because of vengeance but because they refused to be subjected to that justice under grace.
This warning stands just as surely for us today. We have no excuse. We know the will of our God. Now, we must do it.
