God's Law Within - Written on Our Hearts!

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” - Jeremiah 31:31-34, ESV

"Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." - Hebrews 8:6-12, ESV

Torah is a collection of written laws (commandments, judgments, and ordinances). It specifies what God expected of the Israelites - what to do, and what not to do. This was the essence of the Old Covenant.

The New Covenant, however, would be different. God's laws would be internalized - written on the hearts of his people. Toward that end, Jesus Christ pulled two great commandments from Torah and told his disciples that they comprehended ALL of the 613 individual written commands of Torah! Henceforth, God's people would be guided by an obligation to love God with their whole mind and soul, and to love each other as themselves!

In his epistle to the saints at Rome, Paul explained it in terms of the Old Covenant requirement for Israelite males to be physically circumcised. He wrote: "For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." (Romans 1:25-29, ESV) Notice how Paul juxtaposed the written code with the internal attitude of the person.

A little later in the same epistle, Paul returned to the Christians proper relationship to Torah (written law). He compared a wife's obligation to her husband as long as he was living, and her freedom from any continuing obligation to him after his death, with a Christian's obligation to Torah. He wrote: "Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code." (Romans 7:4-6, ESV)

Toward the end of that same epistle, Paul echoed Christ's teaching that love fulfilled the requirements of God's law. He wrote: "Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13:8-10, ESV) In other words, following a list of dos and don't won't suffice for Christians. As Christ said, love demands more than refraining from physically murdering someone or being physically faithful to him/her!