Book 3 of Musings The Eternal Moral Law

God writes His law in our mind so we will understand it and in our heart so we will delight to do it.

I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. (Psalms 40:8)

I have written quite a bit about the transition from the Law of Moses to the new covenant.

The Law of Moses can be written on stone, paper, or any other suitable surface. The new covenant can be written only on the mind and heart of the believer. This fact says a lot to us about the difference between the two covenants.

When the writer of the Book of Hebrews tells us that the Lord will put His laws in our minds and write them on our hearts, He does not mean the Law of Moses. He means His eternal moral law that existed long before the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses is an abridged form of the eternal moral law, a form that can be written on stone, parchment, or paper.

The eternal moral law existed, as I have stated, before the Law of Moses; it coexisted with the Law of Moses; and will remain unchanged when the Law of Moses is but a distant memory. The Law of Moses was added to control sin until the One would come who, through His atoning death and triumphant resurrection, would make it possible for God's law to be created in us.

The eternal moral law of God is written on the mind and heart. How then is it different from our conscience?

Our conscience is an adamic form of the eternal moral law. Just as we must be born again into a transcendent humanity, so it is true that our adamic conscience must be greatly expanded until we are able to judge good and evil as God judges good and evil. This is what it means to grow in Christ.

Spiritual maturity is the state of being in which that which is wicked is rejected and that which is righteous is embraced.

The eternal moral law of God reflects God's judgment of good and evil, and therefore it never changes.

As we count ourselves dead with Christ on the cross we are freed from our obligation to the Ten Commandments and the other aspects of the Law of Moses. Now we are to follow the Holy Spirit as He writes God's eternal law in us.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is the Word of God, and therefore is the embodiment of the eternal moral law of God. As we follow the Holy Spirit He slays our adamic nature and establishes Christ, the Word, the Law of God, in our mind and heart. The Spirit writes the law in our mind so we can understand it. The Spirit writes the law in our heart so we will reject that which is evil and embrace that which is righteous and of God.

To have Christ formed in us is to have the law of God formed in us. To have the law of God formed in us is to have the knowledge of good and evil formed in us.

Current Christian teaching has it that now we have received Christ we are under no law but "the law of love." This is not true. We are having the moral law of God created in us so, like the Lord Jesus, we instinctively will reject that which is unrighteous and unclean and will embrace that which is righteous and holy.

We are of little use in the Kingdom of God until we have the spirit of judgment active in our personality.

Christ is not formed in us instantly but line upon line; commandment upon commandment. Every day we have the opportunity to reject our sinful nature and to do what the New Testament commands. Therefore every day there is the opportunity to have another line of the law of God written in us.

There is no more important aspect of salvation than that of having the law of God written in us. This is the new covenant. The forgiveness of our sins is included in the new covenant, but the main work is that of enabling us to distinguish right from wrong.

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. (Hebrews 8:10)