Jeremiah 31:34

"And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more."

"They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, etc. ..." (Jeremiah 31:34), Keil and a number of others thought that the principle of men teaching other men the truth about God was here nullified, "Because the sinner is placed in direct relationship with God through the Holy Spirit,"[14] but we know that Keil cannot possibly be correct in this, since Christ himself ordained that, "They shall all be taught of God" (John 6:45); and the Great Commission itself commanded that "all nations," "the whole creation," must be taught.

Of the dozens of scholars whose works we have been privileged to read, only George DeHoff gave the true explanation of what is meant here.

"Under the new covenant of Christ men are taught before they become Christians. Then they obey the gospel. Under the old covenant a child was a Jew as soon as he was born and had to be taught this fact after he was old enough to understand."[15]

The significance of this passage is very great. It means that no untaught person can be a Christian, hence no infants in the true sense are Christians. "Ye must be born again," Jesus said; and all infants have been born only once. Infant membership allows many unregenerated people to grow up in various churches without regard either to their faith or obedience, opening the gate for many outright unbelievers to gain and exercise power in some so-called Christian communions.

Another tremendous untruth sometimes imported into the doctrine of the New Covenant was announced by Payne Smith, as follows: "The Gospel cannot be a formal code guaranteeing certain blessings to those who obey it; because it begins with an offer of unconditional pardon: and it is in the sense of this full unmerited love which so affects the heart as to make obedience henceforth an inner necessity."[16]

Variations of this colossal error are today found in the writings of hundreds of commentators, If indeed, as Smith said, the Gospel is not something which men must obey, why did the greatest of the apostles declare that, "Christ shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire with tens of thousands of his holy angels taking vengeance upon them that know not God, and them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ?" (2 Thessalonians 1:8). If, as Smith said, the human heart is so impressed by unmerited, unconditional forgiveness that it will automatically obey God, why are there so many backsliding Christians?

Furthermore, there is not a line in the whole Bible that even hints that God's salvation is "unconditional." Did not Jesus Christ say, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved?" (Mark 16:16); and even there, baptism is by no means the only condition, but it stands as a synecdoche for the full catalogue of Christian obligations. Why cannot men think? If salvation is unconditional, God alone is responsible for the loss or salvation of every man who ever lived; but again, an apostle declared, "That every man must give an account of the deeds done in the body" (2 Corinthians 5:10). Let God be true and every man a liar!

The forgiveness of sins is the grand hallmark of the New Covenant. Never before in the history of mankind was there anything like it. When angels sinned, there was no forgiveness; when any of God's laws were ever violated, there was never any forgiveness; there is no forgiveness in nature; there was not even any forgiveness under the Mosaic Law. Why? Because, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin" (Hebrews 10:4). In all of those Old Testament passages where forgiveness of sins is promised, the reference is actually to the Messianic age.

Note also that God "remembers no more" the sins that are forgiven, an achievement that sinners themselves cannot accomplish.