Jeremiah 31:7

"For thus saith Jehovah, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish ye, and praise ye, and say, O Jehovah, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall they return hither. They shall come with weeping; and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn."

"Save thy people ..." (Jeremiah 31:7). This indicates that "eternal salvation" is the culmination of God's promises here. The remnant of Israel... (Jeremiah 31:7). This expression forbids any notion that the whole nation of apostate racial Israel were meant to be included in these glorious promises.

In both this and the preceding paragraphs, God assured Israel of his "everlasting love." With the utmost tenderness, God mentioned his fatherhood of Israel, and Ephraim's being his firstborn. None of this great and everlasting love belonged to racial Israel in any exclusive sense. These wonderful expressions of God's love are merely the Old Testament counterpart of the great New Testament principle, that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).