The Moral Law of God 1

These are the notes on the podcast on the Moral Law of God by Brother Ezekiel Asis.

³¹ “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, ³² 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. ³³ 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. ³⁴ 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

NOTE: The context of Jeremiah 31 is the promise of the New Covenant in the house of Israel

Because of the disobedient of the nation of Israel, they broke the covenant, and God promised them that He will give them a New Covenant

And this covenant is much greater than the Old (v. 32)

Verse 32 – 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.

Issue: What is being referred to as “Law” in verse 33?

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. 

The key to answering this question is to see the similarities and distinctions between the Old and New Covenant.

In the Old Covenant, the law is written in the two tablets of stone

But in the New, the law was written in the hearts of the elect

POINT: The distinction between the Old and New covenants is the medium where the Law is being written. However, the similarity of the two Covenants is the writing of the same Law of God

[1689 LBCF and WCF 19.5]

“The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it; neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation. ( Romans 13:8-10; James 2:8, 10-12; James 2:10, 11; Matthew 5:17-19; Romans 3:31 )”

TEACHING: As the Manifestation of God´s Immutable Character, the Moral Law is the Standard of the Righteousness of God in all Covenants

Romans 7:12

“So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”

[Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, 77] – “The law is the express idea, or representation of God’s own image; even a beam of his own holiness, which cannot be changed or abolished.”

Hebrews 9:5 – Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things, we cannot now speak in detail.

“This law, as unto the substance of it, was the only law of creation, the rule of the first covenant of works; for it contained the sum and substance of that obedience which is due unto God from all rational creatures made in his image, and nothing else. It was the whole of what God designed in our creation unto his own glory and our everlasting blessedness. What was in the tables of stone was nothing but a transcript of what was written in the heart of man originally; and which is returned thither again by the grace of the new covenant, Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3.”

John Owen on Hebrews 9:5