God's Title Deed
Introduction: The Folly of Presentism
We are a people drowning in the immediate. We are governed by the tyranny of the urgent, the tyranny of the news cycle, the tyranny of what our eyes can see right now. And what we see, if we are honest, is a civilization under siege. We see the Chaldeans at the gates. The moral siege ramps are pushed up against the walls of the city, the foundations of the family are being dug out from under us, and the pestilence of godless ideologies is rampant within. And so, like good, sensible realists, we are tempted to despair. We are tempted to believe that the only sane course of action is to hunker down, manage our decline, and wait for an otherworldly rescue that has nothing to do with this time and this place.
Into this very kind of situation, a situation of utter military and political hopelessness, God gives His prophet Jeremiah a command that is, from a worldly perspective, clinically insane. He tells him to buy a piece of real estate. Buy a field in your hometown, a town that is currently occupied enemy territory. Invest your money in a future that has absolutely no empirical support. It is a command to act on God's promise as though it were more real than the Babylonian army just outside the walls. And it is.
This passage is a direct assault on our pragmatic unbelief. It is a lesson in covenantal economics. It teaches us how to pray when God's providence seems to contradict His promises, and it shows us that God's plan of redemption is not an ethereal escape plan. It is a plan to buy back the deed to the whole earth, and the down payment was made in a dirt field in Anathoth, a payment guaranteed by the blood of His Son.
The Text
"After I had given the deed of purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, then I prayed to Yahweh, saying, 'Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You... You have said to me, O Lord Yahweh, “Buy for yourself the field with money and call in witnesses”, but the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.' Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah, saying, 'Behold, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?'... For thus says Yahweh, 'Just as I brought all this great evil on this people, so I am going to bring on them all the good that I am promising them. Thus fields will be bought in this land... for I will return their fortunes,' declares Yahweh."
(Jeremiah 32:16-44, selected LSB)
Jeremiah's Faithful Perplexity (vv. 16-25)
Jeremiah has just obeyed. The money has been paid, the deed signed and sealed. And then, after he has acted in faith, he takes his confusion to the Lord. This is the proper order of things. He doesn't demand an explanation before he obeys. He obeys, and then he prays. And notice how he prays. He does not begin with his problem; he begins with his theology.
"'Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You...'" (Jeremiah 32:17 LSB)
This is theological sanity in the midst of chaos. Before Jeremiah gets to the apparent contradiction, he anchors himself in the character of God. He rehearses God's sovereignty in creation, His power, His covenant love, His perfect justice, His omniscience. He is reminding himself of what he knows to be true, regardless of the circumstances. This is the first step in praying through a crisis. You preach to yourself the truth about God.
Then, he honestly recounts the history of Israel's sin. He is not blaming God for the siege. He knows exactly why the Chaldeans are there. "They did not listen to Your voice and did not walk in Your law... therefore You have made all this harmful evil come upon them" (v. 23). He understands the doctrine of covenant sanctions. He knows that God is just.
Only after establishing these two pillars, God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, does he lay out his perplexity. "Behold, the siege ramps have come... and what You have spoken has happened... And You have said to me... 'Buy for yourself the field'... but the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans" (vv. 24-25). This is not the prayer of a doubter. This is the prayer of a believer wrestling with two realities that God has revealed. Reality One: The city is falling because of sin, just as God said. Reality Two: I am to buy a field as a sign of future hope, just as God said. Jeremiah's prayer is essentially, "Lord, I believe both of these things because You said them. Help me understand how they fit together."
God's Unflinching Answer: Judgment Confirmed (vv. 26-35)
God's response begins by echoing Jeremiah's own affirmation of sovereignty, but He turns it into a piercing, rhetorical question.
"Behold, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?" (Jeremiah 32:27 LSB)
God does not immediately soothe Jeremiah's confusion. First, He reinforces the foundation. Before we can understand God's grace, we must be absolutely clear on His authority and the righteousness of His wrath. God proceeds to confirm Jeremiah's worst fears. Yes, the city is being given over. Yes, it will be burned. And then He gives a detailed and brutal indictment of Judah's sin. This is not a general, hand-waving condemnation. He names the specifics: persistent evil from their youth, provoking Him with the work of their hands, turning their backs to Him, rejecting His teaching, and the ultimate abomination, defiling His house and offering their own children to Molech in the valley of Ben-hinnom.
We must not skip over this. God's grace is not cheap. His salvation is not a sentimental pat on the head. It is a rescue from a real and deserved hell. The cross of Christ only makes sense against the backdrop of the valley of Ben-hinnom. God is making it clear that the judgment is not an overreaction. It is the just and necessary wage for their sin. Before God reveals the depth of His grace, He reveals the depth of their depravity.
God's Astounding Answer: Grace Guaranteed (vv. 36-44)
And then, having laid the foundation of righteous judgment, God pivots. This is one of the great turning points in Scripture. "So now, therefore thus says Yahweh..." (v. 36). He addresses the very thing they are all saying, the observable reality: "It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon." And then He unleashes a torrent of unilateral, sovereign grace.
"Behold, I will gather them... And they shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always... And I will cut an everlasting covenant with them... and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me." (Jeremiah 32:37-40 LSB)
This is the New Covenant in embryonic form. Notice the "I will" statements. God is not offering a deal. He is issuing a declaration. He is not making salvation possible; He is making it happen. He solves the problem of their rebellious hearts not by appealing to them, but by replacing them. "I will give them one heart." He solves the problem of their apostasy not by threatening them, but by changing their affections. "I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me."
This is a direct refutation of any theology that places the ultimate decision for salvation in the hands of man. God does not put a new heart on the table and hope we pick it up. He performs open-heart surgery. He does not make perseverance a possibility for those who try hard enough; He sovereignly guarantees it by planting His fear within us. This is monergistic grace. It is God's work from beginning to end.
And He does this with joy. "I will rejoice over them to do them good and will truly plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul" (v. 41). The salvation of His people is not a grudging duty for God. It is His delight. It is the project into which He pours His entire being.
The Gospel Logic
Now, finally, the land purchase makes sense. God connects the two realities for Jeremiah with breathtaking logic.
"For thus says Yahweh, 'Just as I brought all this great evil on this people, so I am going to bring on them all the good that I am promising them.'" (Jeremiah 32:42 LSB)
The certainty of the promise is grounded in the reality of the judgment. The siege ramps are the guarantee of the restoration. Because God is faithful to His curses, we can be absolutely certain He will be faithful to His blessings. His character is unchanging. The God who is judging Jerusalem for its sin is the very same God who will restore it in grace.
The purchase of the field was the down payment. It was the tangible, historical, real-world sign that God's promises are not just spiritual platitudes. They are real estate promises. God is interested in redeeming the dirt, in restoring the land, in seeing normal life, buying and selling, signing deeds, and building a society, flourish under His blessing once more.
This is a profound type of the gospel. The cross was the ultimate fulfillment of the curse, the ultimate "great evil" brought upon God's own Son. Jesus became the valley of Ben-hinnom for us. And because God was faithful to pour out that judgment, we can be absolutely certain that He will be faithful to bring about all the good He has promised. The cross is the guarantee of the new creation. Christ's death was the purchase price for His field, which is the world (Matthew 13:44). And His resurrection was the sealing of the deed, the firstfruits of the restoration, the guarantee that one day, normal life will resume in a renewed creation, and the fortunes of His people will be fully and finally restored.
Conclusion: Buying Fields in Babylon
We live in a time of siege. The Chaldeans are loud and they are confident. And we are commanded to do things that look foolish to the world. We are commanded to marry and have children. We are commanded to build Christian households, Christian schools, and Christian culture. We are commanded to plant churches and disciple the nations. We are commanded to buy fields while the enemy occupies the territory.
This is not pie-in-the-sky optimism. It is hard-headed, covenantal realism. We do not act because the circumstances look favorable. We act because God has made promises. He has promised to give His Son the nations for His inheritance. He has promised that the knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. He has promised a new covenant, written on the heart, that cannot be broken.
The judgment we see all around us is not the final word. It is the necessary precursor to grace. And it is the very guarantee that God will be faithful to His promises of restoration. The Chaldeans are temporary tenants. The title deed to this world was purchased on a cross and vindicated in an empty tomb. Therefore, let us obey. Let us get out our silver, call in our witnesses, and buy our fields. For our God has declared, "I will return their fortunes."