God’s Words in Our Hearts

KEY VERSE: “The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” —Deuteronomy 6:4,5

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Deuteronomy 6:4-15

THE Lord said that the words he spoke to the children of Israel at Mount Sinai should be in their hearts. (Deut. 6:6) The heart is used in the Scriptures to picture the seat of life or strength; hence it means mind, being, spirit, or one’s entire emotional nature and understanding. So, in effect, Jehovah was saying that the words should be treasured up in their memory, rooted in their judgment, and should be foremost in their affections. For them to be thus affected it was necessary for them to recognize that the precepts were holy, righteous, just, and a manifestation of God’s character.

Some among the children of Israel were properly motivated by this expression of God’s character, and prominent among these was the Prophet David. In Psalm 119:97-104 we read: “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. … I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. … Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.”

This was the attitude God would have been pleased to see manifested by all the nation of Israel, but we know this was not so. Because of their hardness of heart and pride, they considered the Law a burden and became obsessed with the letter of it rather than with its spirit. The Apostle Paul expressed the hapless plight of the Jew: “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to [correct] knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” (Rom. 10:2,3) Because of their unbelief and disobedience the nation was cast off with respect to the promise that God made to their father Abraham. (Gal. 3:8-29) The Heavenly Father turned to the Gentiles to take out of them the balance of the seed of blessing.

The Apostle Paul, however, in Romans 11:25-27 gives a brief preview of God’s plan for the nation of Israel, giving them assurance that in due time the Lord will deal with them in a way that will result in their blessing. “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”

The Deliverer which shall come out of Zion will be Jesus and his church, who will be the mediators of the New Covenant promised to Israel. It is under the operation of this New Covenant that God’s laws and precepts will finally be written in the hearts of the Israelites, and also in the hearts of all mankind.

The Apostle Paul quotes from the wonderful prophecy made to the Jews in Jeremiah 31:31-35, and specifically identifies Jesus as the mediator of this new and better covenant. “But now hath he [Jesus] obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second … I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel … not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.”—Heb. 8:6-10

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