The Old Testament Scriptures repeatedly state that the covenant terms written on the tablets of stone were made only with Israel. We saw this truth in chapter 1 when we looked at the first occurrence of the words ‘Ten Commandments’ in the Bible. The Scripture is quite clear that the Ten Commandments, as a covenant document, were given only to the nation of Israel: 

And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and WITH ISRAEL. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. (Exod. 34:27, 28)

When Moses refreshed Israel’s mind concerning their covenant relationship with God, he specifically stated that the covenant (Ten Commandments) was given to Israel at Horeb. This is clear in the following text:

The LORD our God made a covenant [Remember the covenant terms are the Ten Commandments or tablets of stone] with us at Horeb. The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. (Deut. 5:2, 3 NASB)

Moses insists that the covenant was “not made with our fathers,” meaning the patriarchs,^[1] but with the people that came out of Egypt. He then repeats the words of the covenant, or Ten Commandments, that God wrote on the tablets of the covenant at Sinai.

The prophets saw the coming of a New Covenant and spoke of it in glowing terms. Whenever they contrasted the Old Covenant with the New Covenant, they always stated when and with whom the Old Covenant was made. Notice this in the classic passage in Jeremiah: 

Behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel …not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt …(Jer. 31:31, 32 NASB)

The following points are clearly set forth in this passage:

1. God said that he was going to make a new covenant…. “I will make a new covenant ….”
2. The New Covenant was going to be different in nature from the Old Covenant it replaced. “…. not like the covenant I made with their fathers…”
3. The Old Covenant being replaced was made at Sinai and made only with Israel. “…made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt…”

How is it possible to read these words in Jeremiah and say, “God was not actually promising to make a new and different covenant with Israel; he was really promising a new administration of the same covenant they were already under”? It seems to me that such statements contradict what Jeremiah said. The rest of the Bible concurs with Jeremiah when it speaks on this subject. The following passage from 1 Kings appears to be going out of its way to affirm the facts we are setting forth:

There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, WHEN the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, WHEN they came out of the land of Egypt. (1 Kings 8:9)

The phrases ‘tables of stone’, ‘Moses at Horeb’, ‘made a covenant’, and ‘children of Israel’, in this text are the same key ingredients that we always find connected with the Ten Commandments. This passage of Scripture uses the word ‘when’ two times. We could put a period after ‘children of Israel’ and not lose the thought or argument. The last phrase, “When they came out of the land of Egypt,” in the sentence is almost redundant. The Holy Spirit must have wanted to impress this point on our minds.

The New Testament Scriptures always connect the Old Covenant, or Ten Commandments, with Israel alone.

Hebrews 8:8-9 is the inspired apostolic interpretation of Jeremiah 31:31, 32. There is no question in the mind of the writer of Hebrews concerning: (1) when the Old Covenant was made; (2) with whom the Old Covenant was made; (3) or the fact the New Covenant would be different than the Old Covenant. The passage is clear:

“…the time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel …It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out Egypt…” (Heb. 8:8, 9 NIV)

I do not wish to belabor a clearly established fact or beat a dead horse. However, I simply cannot understand how sincere people who believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible can refuse to accept and use the words that the Holy Spirit inspired and used. Let the reader judge for himself: (1) Did God specifically promise to make a new covenant, or did he promise a new administration of the same covenant? (2) Was the Old Covenant made with Israel at Sinai or was it made with Adam in the Garden? What does Scripture say? The great difference between the nation of Israel and the Gentiles was that of ‘having the law’ as a covenant and the gospel as a promise, as opposed to ‘not having the law’ and being without a covenant or hope (Ephesians 2:11-21).

The following text is a key passage on this particular point:

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness… (Rom. 2:14)

The word ‘law’ in this passage has to refer to the tablets of stone as a covenant document. It cannot refer only to ‘conscience’ since Paul has already established in chapter 1 that all men (Jew and Gentile) are without excuse, and earlier in chapter 2 has determined that any man (Jew or Gentile) who exercises moral judgment of another person is himself then subject to judgment. All men have some sense of ethical duty. Paul is talking about a law that some men definitely do not have. Furthermore, if all men, Jew and Gentile alike, do indeed ‘have the law’ in the sense that Paul uses the word in this passage, his argument still does not make sense. He is contradicting himself. Paul’s point in the context of this passage is to show that the Jews are more guilty than the Gentiles. The basis of his proof is that the Gentiles ‘without the law’ live better lives than the Jews do ‘with the law’. The Jews alone have the special gift of the law as a covenant document. And the specific law that he is talking about is the law written on the tablets of stone as covenant terms. This is an example of the tables of the testimony, or Ten Commandments, being used as a witness against Israel to show her greater guilt.

Paul, in Romans 2:14 cannot be talking about a so-called ceremonial law. Whatever the law is in this passage, it convicts the conscience of sin. Conscience, by nature and without special revelation, cannot convict men of disobedience to ‘ceremonial’ laws. One evidence that the sabbath is not of the same nature as the other nine commandments is that we have never discovered a single instance of anyone knowing, by nature, the seventh-day sabbath law given to Israel alone. That particular law must always be taught as special revelation, just as it was to Israel at Sinai.^[2] Pagans intuitively know that adultery is wrong and they know they should worship God, but they never know a one-in-seven cycle or a holy seventh day until they are so instructed.

It is easy to misquote Romans 2:14. Paul does not say the law is written in the Gentiles’ hearts, but the work of the law. The purpose of the law is to “work wrath” (Rom. 4:15). God gave it for that very purpose. However, it can only “work wrath” to the degree that the law, regardless of what specific law you are talking about, is known. Paul says that certain behavior proves that there is a conviction of right and wrong in all men. This fact shows that conscience is alive and doing its work even in the Gentiles. In fact, conscience is more alive and well in them than it is in the Jew. This power of conscience “shows the work of the law written in their hearts.” The ‘work’ of the law is to accuse and excuse according to the standard it reveals; it condemns all violations of known wrong and rewards obedience to what is known to be right. All men have a conscience and they all experience, to a greater or lesser degree, conviction they have done wrong or right in some instances.

Actually, Israel ‘had the law’ but they did not have the ‘work of the law’ written in their hearts. Their consciences were seared. The Gentiles did not have ‘the law’ but they did have the ‘work of the law’ in their hearts. The law can only ‘work’ and convict of guilt if the individual has knowledge of the terms of that law. In giving Israel the law as a covenant, God enlightened the mind and sharpened the conscience. He placed conscience under the Old Covenant and its threat of judgment. This caused a very painful death to all hope of eternal life in those who truly experienced the end for which the law covenant was given, namely, genuine conviction of guilt. The same law actually ‘blinded’ the rest of the Jews in their self-righteousness and made them worse off spiritually than the Gentiles.

It was most gracious of God to give the law to kill Israel’s hope in their own efforts. However, it took a covenant of law with the power of life and death to do the job. There was not an ounce of grace in the tablets of stone, but it was most gracious of God to give them to Israel as a covenant document that could prepare the heart to receive grace!

Regardless of whether the reader agrees or disagrees with what has just been said, one thing is certain. We cannot change a passage of Scripture that emphatically states that Israel had a specific law that the Gentiles did not have into a text that says ‘all men have the same law’. That would be to destroy the text. I see no way that Paul can be referring to anything but the tables of stone as a covenant document. However, this is in no way integral to the thesis of this book.

It both amazes and amuses me to watch people waver back and forth when they cannot fit clear passages of Scripture into their theological system. If the ‘eternal, unchanging moral law’ is under discussion, then adherents to Covenant Theology will insist that the moral law (Ten Commandments) is written on every man’s heart. However, if the canon of conduct for believers today is the topic, these same people insist that, in regeneration, ‘the moral law’ (Ten Commandments) is written on the heart by the Holy Spirit. In both cases, it is said to be the same law that Scriptures clearly state was given only to the nation of Israel at Sinai on the tablets of stone.

Something seems to be a bit out of focus when all of these facets of Covenant Theology are put together. (1) If the first point is true, namely that the so-called ‘moral law’ is indeed the Ten Commandments, and that ‘moral law’ that was given to Israel at Sinai (the Ten Commandments) is indeed written on every man’s heart, then it is impossible to say the Gentiles are ‘without the law’. They cannot be without the very law that is written in them. (2) If the second point, affirming that the same law written in the heathen, and given to Israel at Sinai, is also specifically written on the heart of believers in regeneration, is true, then there appears to be a contradiction. What need is there to write something on the heart that is already there? You may ‘polish it up a bit,’ but you cannot write something on the heart that is already there.

We must distinguish between the Ten Commandments as (1) the terms of a legal covenant document and, (2) the duties commanded by the individual commandments: some fall into the realm of ethics, and at least one can easily be classified as ceremonial. When we make this distinction between a unified entity and individual commandments, much confusion disappears and some difficult passages of Scripture become clear and simple. We will illustrate this point with one passage of Scripture. This passage in its context is pivotal to a correct understanding of the change of covenants:

But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (Heb. 8:6-13 NIV) 

We have already noted three distinct contrasts in verse 6. We saw the following: (1) Christ has a better ministry than Aaron, (2) because Christ’s ministry is based on a new and better covenant. (3) The covenant Christ administers is superior to the covenant under which Aaron ministered because it is based on better promises.

Verses 7-9 provide historical background and settle any discussion as to either when (at Sinai) or with whom (Israel only) the Old Covenant was made. Verse 11 continues the distinctive contrasts and shows that everyone, without a single exception, in the New Covenant community, or church, ‘knows the Lord.’ In other words, the text proves that the church born under the New Covenant has a totally regenerate membership. The same could not be said of the nation born at Sinai. Verse 10 emphasizes several important concepts:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. (Heb. 8:10 NIV) 

First, God promises to make a new covenant, and this covenant will be with the “house of Israel.” It is obvious that the promise as stated in Jeremiah 33 refers to the nation of Israel. It is not, perhaps, as clear from the text in Hebrews that the church is included in the fulfillment of that promise. We owe our understanding of that truth to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. He plainly states, in 2:11-22, that Jew and Gentile alike now constitute one new man in Christ. They are one new dwelling where God lives by his Spirit, and their condition is united. Thus, by extension, a covenant made with one is made with all. The blood of Christ that makes one new man out of Jew and Gentile is the very blood that establishes the New Covenant (1 Cor. 11:25). This New Covenant cannot be made to apply to only Jewish people or pushed into a future millennium. The people of God are now one people, drawn from both the house of Israel and from the nations, and cannot be divided. The writer is not talking about the future but the present. One of the themes in Hebrews is the priestly ministry of Christ over the church. However, that is not our subject in this book.

The second major idea in the text is God’s promise to put his laws in the mind and write them on the hearts of his New Covenant people. This raises the question: What is the difference, if any, between the word ‘covenant’ and the word ‘laws’ in this passage? Exactly what is God promising to do in this verse? Exactly what is the ‘New Covenant’ he is making and precisely what laws is he going to write on the heart?

We should carefully note that God did not say, “In that day I will give a new and better administration of the same covenant that I gave Israel. I will write the old law of Sinai into the new heart of the Christian.” That is how some theologians read this passage. Likewise, the text does not say, “I will make a New Covenant that destroys all of the Ten Commandments and allows a believer to do as he pleases.” That is what some people are accused of saying. No, the text and its broader context are talking about both a new and better covenant than the Old Covenant at Sinai, and a new experience of “the law being written on the heart by the indwelling Spirit.” If the Old Covenant believer had the same law, in the same sense, written on his heart that is written on the heart of a believer in regeneration under the New Covenant, then what is so great and different under the New Covenant? It seems all is the same under both covenants. The glory of the New Covenant has been lost.

The clear answers to these questions lie in understanding the three comparisons made in verse 6. Why did the Old Covenant fail and thereby need to be replaced by a new and better covenant? The answer is that it could not secure the necessary obedience to its terms. It could not write on the heart the desire to do the things that were written on the tablets of the covenant. It could write on stone but not on flesh (2 Cor. 3). By nature, every lost man hates God’s authority (Rom. 8:7) and even the mighty law of God cannot change that rebellion into a sincere desire to obey. The Old Covenant failed to bring sinners into God’s presence because it could not change the sinners’ hearts. It could neither conquer sin in the flesh nor could it cleanse the conscience from the guilt of sin.

Heed this carefully! The greater glory of the New Covenant is not that the standards or laws have been lowered or removed. It is not that the morality that undergirded the duties demanded on the tables of stone is no longer binding on a Christian. The greater glory of the New Covenant is that the terms that must be met in order to come into God’s presence require no obedience on our part at all. This is true simply because the very terms of the tablets of the covenant have been finally and fully met in the person and work of our surety, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our surety has both earned the very righteousness that the Old Covenant demanded and endured the awful curse of that same covenant against disobedience. The glory of the New Covenant is in the words, “IT IS FINISHED.” Paul states the glory of the New Covenant in the classic passage in Romans 4:5. Carefully follow the words and an explanatory paraphrase of that text:

However, to the man who does not work [by honoring Christ as the true sabbath] but trusts God [by ceasing to work for his standing with God and by faith alone enters into God’s true rest in Christ] who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. (Rom. 4:5 NIV) 

This is the ‘rest’ into which weary souls enter when they come under the yoke of Christ. It stands in sharp distinction to the yoke of the covenant given to Moses on Sinai. We doubt not that our Lord Jesus had this very contrast in mind when he gave that great gospel invitation in Matthew 11:28-30:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest [I will sabbath your soul]. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30 NIV)

Everything in that passage is a contrast with Moses and the old law covenant. The yoke of the covenant written on the tables of stone was a burden impossible to bear (Acts 15:10). The yoke written in the blood of Calvary is a privilege and delight to bear. The New Covenant is nothing less than Christ himself and his finished work. When God said, “I will make a New Covenant,” he was saying, “I will give you Christ to be your covenant keeper. He will both keep the law and die under its curse.” The message has now become ‘It is finished’ instead of ‘Do or Die’. The New Covenant, unlike the Old Covenant, is one of grace and not works. 

What then are the specific laws spoken of in Hebrews 8:10? Exactly what laws does the Holy Spirit write on the heart of a New Covenant believer? Hebrews 8:10 is not presenting two different sets of laws that contradict each other as if there were two kinds of morality. The text presents two sets of parallels: “I will put my laws in their minds” is a parallel contrast to “No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord.’” The second set is a parallel agreement: “I will write them [my laws] on their hearts” compares to “they will all know me.” The law written on the heart is knowledge of God. Knowledge of God is far more than mere recognition of his existence; it is love for all that he reveals himself to be. 

The New Covenant does not start at square one, but builds on what God has already revealed in the Old Covenant. Thus, it does not ‘throw away’ the duties commanded on the tables of stone, but recognizes that the stone tables were a limited revelation. They could provide revelation that would result in recognition of God’s character, but could not impart love for the God whose character they revealed. Christ reveals more of God than Moses ever could; Christ is the exact representation of God’s being, while Moses only knew as much of God as God was pleased to reveal to him. Under the New Covenant, Christ adds laws that were impossible for Moses to ever give, but that does not mean Christ contradicts Moses.^[3] It simply means that Christ speaks to hearts that love God. Hebrews compares two different motivations that grow out of two different kinds of covenants. The primary idea of ‘writing the law on the heart’ is that of a regeneration that gives a new heart that desires and is able to obey. The content of what is written is not the major point of contrast, but rather the motivation; the desire to obey from the heart.

Second Corinthians 3 is the Holy Spirit’s commentary on Hebrews 8:10. Neither of these passages teaches that God tattoos the exact words of the Decalogue on our hearts. Both passages refer to the powerful effect of regeneration which results in a new and different attitude toward God. These two passages picture the removal of the stony heart that hated the tablets of stone and all they represented. They describe the effect of regeneration in replacing the stony heart with a heart of flesh. The new heart of flesh loves all of God’s laws as they are revealed in Christ, not just one small code; simply because it loves the new lawgiver who teaches those laws.

The difference between the Old and New Covenants is not primarily in the specific duties demanded, but in the difference between law and grace as covenants. It is the difference, in some cases, of identical duties being enforced from without by fear and force, as is the case of the Old Covenant, and being constrained from within by love and a heart rejoicing in a covenant based on grace. These two passages present the difference between a conscience imprisoned under the old Pedagogue, the tables of stone, and a conscience set free under the new Pedagogue, the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

Summary

It is clear from Scripture that the Ten Commandments, as a covenant document, were given only to the nation of Israel. The phrase “having the law” often is used to distinguish Israel from the Gentiles. The Gentiles, because they were not given the law, were “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12 NIV).

The Old Covenant, which included the Ten Commandments, was a legal covenant based upon works as contrasted with the New Covenant based on the merits of Christ given to us entirely by grace. The basic difference between the Old and New Covenants has nothing to do with “two different kinds of laws” but the basis of blessing: law and works or grace and faith. The “law written on the heart” concerns the reality of a regenerated heart that loves and sincerely desires to keep all of God’s will, as it is revealed in Christ. Every New Covenant believer experiences this blessing.

---