NOTES for Jer 7:9-10

God addresses His word to the Israeli people through the prophet Jeremiah. His indignation is provoked by the fact that people, who don’t fulfill the commandments (and do not even try), coming to the Temple, consider that everything is in order with them, - because they belong to God’s people. God is categorically against such an idea "collective salvation", when all are separately sinners, but "saved" together.

Doesn’t it seem to you, that such a representation of two and a half centuries ago hasn’t disappeared? Doesn’t it happen that we think that the most important for our salvation it is to be in "the true" church, to be in it "as everyone", and then we cannot only be considered sinner, but also continue being one? There is no need in the personal faith, in personal relationships with Christ, in deep repentance and in longing for holiness. There is no personal responsibility for our deeds and our thoughts - because salvation belongs to us, accordingly to the membership to the church. But from God’s point of view it is all the opposite: our membership in "the true" Church, in the Body of Christ is defined by our personal relationship with Christ and our personal responsibility before Him.

God cannot reproach the inhabitants of Jerusalem for insufficient religiosity: they offer sacrifices, pray, and even remember the One God among the other gods and believe in Him—yet they have “turned their backs to Him, not their faces.” From God, as from the other gods, they want help, blessing, anything at all except God Himself. They want to speak, but not with Him—only to Him: they want Him to listen to their requests without making them listen in return. They “did not incline their ear,” though He had asked, “Obey My voice.” All of this is an indictment of ordinary religious consciousness everywhere, not only that of ancient Jews. People need the idea of God so that there is someone to whom they can pray; this is natural religiosity. But they do not need a God whom they must listen to—not merely by observing commandments and rituals, but by truly coming to know His will. This is a religiosity that is not natural but genuine: the kind God desires from the human person.

Jeremiah continues to prophesy, and again across the centuries we feel ourselves to be his contemporaries. How many centuries have passed since the call not to keep repeating words about the temple sounded, and now we again risk replacing spiritual life with restoration work! Meanwhile, in our own land there are enough of the same injustices that existed in ancient Judah. And according to the word of the prophet, later repeated by the Savior, a temple without the true conversion of those who visit it becomes a den of robbers, a thieves' lair. And what good is confidence in one's own salvation if it is soaked in superstitions and unwillingness to bring true repentance?

It is interesting that among the injustices mentioned, the oppression of the foreigner comes first. In our time anyone who decides to speak, for example, about the situation of "guest workers" will receive a united and massive rebuff: "Who is oppressing them? What are they doing here? They would run anyone over themselves!" But for a people called chosen, keeping the commandment to treat newcomers from other lands with respect was important precisely in order to preserve faithfulness to their election and not to return to the self-perception of practically all pagan peoples at a certain and very long stage: only we are people, and everyone else is no one knows what.

But the Lord does not want us to return to paganism, even if we continue to perform all the required temple rituals. Those who replace true following of the Lord and keeping His commandments with rituals will be rejected by Him.

The Jerusalem Temple, with its sacrifices and worship, will not protect Judah from the coming catastrophe, because the people have turned away from God, practice lawlessness, and worship pagan gods. The coexistence in a person of outward piety and inward unfaithfulness to God is perhaps one of the most dangerous things. After all, Christ most sharply rebuked not tax collectors and prostitutes, but pious hypocrites. The only salvation from this is a constant turning toward God, a readiness to hear and carry out His will.

Jeremiah's sermon, delivered at the entrance to the Temple (v. 2), raises several questions. For example, it is not entirely clear what "Baals" (v. 9) he is speaking about, given that this concerns a time when King Josiah's religious reform had already become an accomplished fact. It is not excluded, of course, that the sermon was delivered under one of Josiah's successors, when pagan cults again began to spread in Judah and pagan altars appeared even in the temple court. But here, it appears, the issue is rather the household cults that even Josiah could not overcome.

Paganism, as is well known, always penetrates deeply into everyday life, and it is especially difficult to fight it there, because everyday life is entirely determined by the spiritual content of the lives of those who arrange it. That is why public, official religiosity often differs noticeably from domestic, everyday religiosity. Apparently, a significant part of those newly minted "Yahwists" who appeared in such numbers in the country after Josiah's reform remained essentially pagans, while not doubting their own orthodoxy for a minute.

Such a situation was worse spiritually than open paganism: pagans at least know who they are and are not deceived about themselves, while the imaginary "Yahwists," like those whom Jeremiah addressed, on the contrary remained in a pleasant delusion about their religiosity. Yahwism was, perhaps, for these people not the foundation of spiritual life but merely a kind of national ideology; in Yahweh they saw the Patron of the country and the people, who nevertheless did not touch their hearts, so that in their everyday life there was still room for the Baals and for the cult of the Great Goddess (vv. 17-18).

But such Yahwism became the basis for the rapid growth of a distinctive religious nationalism. The inhabitants of Judah were convinced that nothing threatened them: in Jerusalem they now had the only place on earth where sacrifices were offered to the true God, and therefore neither they nor their country had anything to fear (vv. 3-4). In addition, they were, as can be seen, completely sure that salvation from troubles and the messianic Kingdom were guaranteed to them by definition, since they were the people of God, regularly attended temple worship, and took part in sacrifices, while not thinking at all about keeping the commandments or even about at least leaving behind the pagan cults so dear to their hearts (vv. 9-10). This kind of self-confidence spiritually devalues any cult, as the prophet reminds his fellow countrymen (vv. 21-24).

Such were the fruits of a religious reform carried out from above: the external result was achieved comparatively easily and quickly, but the people's spiritual state turned out worse than before. Now paganism, which had left the streets of Jerusalem and hidden itself in the homes and hearts of the city's inhabitants, was joined by self-confident nationalism thickly mixed with very superficial Yahwist religiosity. This mixture made repentance impossible and catastrophe inevitable.