The beginning of this knowledge was laid by the preaching of the Son of Man. Like a sower, He sowed in mankind the seed of the word of God, which springs up differently in different souls (Mt 13:3-23).
The continuation of this sowing, or planting, was then entrusted to the apostles and their successors. This work has been carried on through many centuries, “until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Eph 4:13).
But the Prophet Jeremiah contemplated this work not in its gradual accomplishment, but in its final result. Therefore he said in the person of God, “All shall know Me.”
Nor was the Prophet Jeremiah alone in contemplating the future in such a way that gradual development escaped his vision. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself saw Satan “fall like lightning from heaven” (Lk 10:18).
That is, He saw him deprived of power over the world as swiftly as lightning falls from heaven. Yet in reality Satan is deprived of his power gradually.
He was still active when he asked to sift the apostles like wheat (Lk 22:31). He was active when he hindered the intentions of the Apostle Paul (1 Thess 2:18).
The Prophet Isaiah said that “the whole earth was filled with the knowledge of God.” He connected this with the rod coming forth from the root of Jesse (Is 11:1-10), that is, with the birth of Christ.
Yet the whole earth will not soon after that be filled with the knowledge of God. Only before the Second Coming of the Savior will the Gospel be preached in all the world (Mt 24:14).
Although the prophets of the Old Covenant contemplated the future with the vividness of the present, they did not know the times and seasons in which their vision was to be fulfilled.
Therefore the Apostle Peter speaks of the prophets in this way: “The prophets who prophesied of the grace appointed for you searched and inquired concerning this salvation. They searched what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating” (1 Pet 1:10-11).
Therefore let us not ask Jeremiah when the time will come when “each shall not teach his neighbor.” If we wish to know when this will be, let us turn to the sacred writers of the New Covenant.
By the power of Christ they remove from our heart the veil that lies upon it when the Old Covenant is read (2 Cor 3:14-16). From them we learn that the time of perfect knowledge of God has not yet come.
The Apostle Paul says, “Now I know in part; then I shall know, even as I have been known” (1 Cor 13:12). This will be when “that which is perfect” comes, when perfection arrives (1 Cor 13:10; cf. Phil 3:12-14).
From the same Apostle we learn that the time for abolishing teaching has not come. In this same Epistle to the Hebrews he persuades Christians to obey their guides, who will have to give account for them (Heb 13:17).
It follows that the Apostle cites this passage from the holy Prophet Jeremiah not to reject teaching. He cites it to confirm the doctrine that the Old Covenant has been abolished and replaced by the New.
“When he says, ‘new,’” the Apostle reasons, “he has made the first obsolete; and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Heb 8:13).
In what do the prophet and the Apostle see the insufficiency of the Old Covenant and the superiority of the New? According to the prophet (Jer 31:32), the insufficiency of the Old Covenant was revealed in this.
The fathers of the people of Israel did not keep faith with that Covenant, and for this they were rejected by God. This unfaithfulness had its cause in the manner in which the two covenants were inscribed.
The New Covenant is inscribed by God “in the minds and hearts.” The Old was inscribed on tablets of stone. Man himself, by the effort of his will, had to write it on the tablets of his heart (Prov 3:3).
Human efforts are too little for this. This is why the Old Covenant was insufficient. This is why, in the New, divine help is given for this purpose, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which regenerates and establishes man in spiritual life.
In the New Covenant the Lord draws men to Himself by the power of His grace (Jn 6:44). He makes them a new creation (Gal 6:15), so that they are taught by God Himself (Is 54:13).
Thus they learn to walk in His commandments and keep His ways (Ezek 36:27).
The sectarians will say, “From this it is clear that teaching is no longer needed.” We answer: no, it is not clear. In all these passages of Scripture it is not affirmed that every trace of sinful corruption is completely erased in the man renewed by grace.
On the contrary, the Apostle Paul teaches us that together with the law of God, written in our minds and hearts, there is also another law there. It “wars against the law of my mind and brings me captive to the law of sin” (Rom 7:22-23).
Often we love to read in our hearts not the law of Christ, but the law of sin and the flesh. Or we mingle the one with the other, darkening truth with falsehood.
This is why teaching, reproof, and the exhortation of pastors remain necessary for us. The Prophet Jeremiah contemplates the future victory of the spiritual law over the law of sin, and of truth over falsehood.
For this reason he says, “Each shall not teach his neighbor.” But we, still engaged in the struggle, must cry out with the Apostle, “Who will deliver us from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24).
In the Church’s teaching and edification we must seek instruction and strengthening for the struggle against sin and error.
The prophecy concerning the abolition of human teaching will be fulfilled only when the prophecy immediately preceding it in Jeremiah is fulfilled: “I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:10).
We read the following about the fulfillment of this prophecy in John the Seer: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them. They shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God’” (Rev 21:1-3).
These are the people to whom Jeremiah’s prediction refers: “They shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest.” This is the time when that prophecy also will be fulfilled: “Each shall not teach his neighbor.”
THEOSIS