Robin Smit
Face to Face IN Christ
Jeremiah 32:40: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.
So, first off, the words "will make" are in a perfect completed tense in Hebrew... FINISHED! It's an ETERNAL covenant, there has NEVER been a time that it didn't exist!
Jeremiah 32:40 goes on to say that He will NOT turn away from us or from doing good to us. Why? Because of the ETERNAL covenant that He made with us BEFORE we were ever created. There was NEVER anything man could do that would cause Him to turn away from us. NOTHING that would cause Him to not do good to us! And, right there, after the words “He will not turn away from us or from doing good,” is Aleph Tav (in Greek it's Alpha Omega - it's Jesus, the Christ, the great I AM, the Beginning and the End!!). He can NOT turn away from us or doing good because He is GOOD, and we are sons, we are His!
The end of this verse tells us that HE put His reverence or fear in our hearts (our minds, our thinking, our awareness) so we will not turn away from Him.
This word fear is yara in Hebrew. The literal, concrete meaning of yara is a "flowing of the gut." It is a feeling, in the sense that when we are so afraid, we can feel it in our gut. This "feeling" is the meaning of this word, yara. In the New Testament, Jesus talks about this flowing of the gut! In John 7:38, He tells us that the Spirit IN us flows out of our belly like Living Waters! He put His Spirit IN us so that we would not depart from Him.
The phrase "so they will not" is l'bilti in Hebrew. And the ancient root means to flow away from. The word depart is sur and is a turning of the head to another direction.
Oh, what a beautiful verse! He isn't saying that He put fear in our hearts so that we would be OBEDIENT to Him and not turn away. He is saying that His Spirit keeps us FACE TO FACE with Him. And there is NO turning of His face away from us or our face away from Him. BOTH are an impossibility!! Why? Because IN Christ, we are FACE TO FACE with the Father, Son, and Spirit. FINISHED!!
David said, “Where can I go from Your Presence?” It’s an ETERNAL covenant that is without beginning or end… it just ETERNALLY was, is and, will be — it was never bound by time or space!
