Written on the heart means what?
It's often said that the difference between the New
covenant and the Old is that the Old was written on stone tablets and
that the New is written on human hearts. That'll hardly do! Was the
Mosaic covenant written only on stones or was it written on
human hearts also? The notion of words written on stone slabs seems
simple enough. There are the stone tables and there are the letters
carved out on them. Was the Mosaic covenant such that it could never be
other than words written on stone slabs? On the occasion of restoring the
10 commandments God says this in Deuteronomy 11:18, "Fix these words of
mine in your hearts and minds…" (see 10:16 and 11:13). This appears to
say the words on the stone could be recorded on their hearts. The
psalmist (37:30-31) was sure this was true of a righteous man, "The law
of his God is in his heart" and in fact one psalmist thought the law of
God was in his own heart (40:8). In Isaiah 51:7 God speaks to those
among his people "who have my law in your hearts."
The image of
people having words written on their hearts was so commonplace that it
was a part of proverbial speech. Proverbs 3:3 urges the son to keep love
and faithfulness always present and "write them on the tablet of your
heart." The same is said of the teaching of the teacher in 7:3 so having
something written on the heart was a common experience, however
"mysterious" such things always are. So when Jeremiah (31:33) mentions
this as part of the future blessing in the days of a new covenant he
hasn't said anything new in using the expression.
The promise that God
would write his laws on the hearts under the new covenant is no new
thing either. The ancients knew very well who it was that worked good
things in the hearts of sinners. David begged, "Create in me a clean
heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). Another (86:11) pleaded, "Unite my heart to
fear thy name." Another begged (119:36), "Turn my heart toward your
statutes." He insists that he will run (not walk) in the paths
of God commandments when God has enlarged or set his heart free
(119:32). In fact, when Israel proved herself to be a rebellious nation
Moses saw their self-chosen condition as the absence of God's blessing.
Here's how he puts it in Deuteronomy 29:4, "But to this day the Lord
has not given you a mind [heart] that understands or eyes that see or
ears that hear." But see Deuteronomy 5:28-29, which makes it clear that
Israel is answerable.
We often hear that the difference between
the Old Covenant and New is that God didn't give Israel the heart to
keep the Old Covenant but that he does give the NT church the Spirit so
they can keep the New Covenant. This won't do. As we can see from the
texts above, God's blessing of a heart that loves and keeps his
commandments is no exclusive eschatological gift confined to the New
Covenant arrangement. It has always been and will remain true that the gifts of God are precisely that—gifts, that people can refuse.
We
know that God hardens the heart and we also know that the sinner
hardens his own heart. We know that God writes his laws on our hearts
and we also know that we write his laws on our hearts. Ezekiel 18:30-31
says this: "Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not
be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed,
and get ["make"] a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O
house of Israel?" God here insists that they get [make] a new
heart but he also insists that he is the one that gives a new heart and
spirit (11:19-21 and 36:26-27). In 11:17-20 God speaks of the
restoration of his people and their obedience from the heart that he
generates in them but we need to note 11:21 which shows that some in the
restored people don't offer the new heart response. This should make us
careful in our use of texts because on the surface it looks like everyone
who is restored from captivity is given the new heart, which isn't
true, as 11:21 shows. We need to recognize "community" language and take
it seriously.
So what does it mean to have something "written
on the heart"? It surely means that what might have been external to
begin with has been internalized and become part of the inner structure
of the person. It means we have "taken it to heart." There's nothing
especially difficult about the expression. If something is done from the
heart it means that that behavior expresses the inner structure of the
one doing it. It isn't mere conformity to some external requirement. If
something is written on the heart it means that wherever else it is
written it has become part of the person on whose heart it is written.
See this from a negative angle in Jeremiah 17:1 where Judah's sin is
said to be written on the tablets of their heart. Jeremiah 24:7 and
32:39 give God the credit for the good heart that "takes to heart" what
he has to offer. The expression "tables of the heart" suggests what had
been merely external is now internalized; that is, in contrast to what
was written on some other tables (stone or whatever).
We hear of
Gentiles who had the torah's requirements "written on their hearts"
(Romans 2:15). They didn't have the torah codified and external to them
in the way Israel did, but their lives showed they had the torah
internally. It's a bit of a stretch to think that Gentiles who didn't
have the torah delivered to them could have the torah's requirements written on their hearts while the Jews to whom the torah was revealed couldn't
have them written on their hearts. That doesn't make sense. While the
tables of stone were in the Ark of the Covenant there were many in
Israel that had the covenant written on their hearts. There was nothing
about the Mosaic covenant that meant it couldn't be written there.
So
what about Paul's comments in 2 Corinthians 3 where he contrasts the
Mosaic covenant with the New covenant, saying that one was written on
stone and the other on hearts? SEE
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.