"Verse Hebrews 8:10. This is the covenant — This is the nature of
that glorious system of religion which I shall publish among them after those days, i.e., in the times of the Gospel.
I will put my laws into their mind — I will influence them with the
principles of law, truth, holiness, and their understandings shall he fully enlightened to comprehend them.
And write them in their hearts — All their affections, passions, and appetites, shall be purified and filled with holiness and love to God and man; so that they shall willingly obey, and feel that love is the fulfilling of the law: instead of being written on tables of stone, they shall be written on the fleshly tables of their hearts.
I will be to them a God — These are the two grand conditions by which the parties in this covenant or agreement are bound:
1. I will be your God. (Sanctification = Obedience)
2. Ye shall be my people. (Justification = Grace)
Adam was the representative man.
A certain law was given him.
That covenant our first father broke.
--To be saved by the works of the law is impossible, for under that covenant we are already lost.
--But divine mercy has interposed and provided a plan of salvation from the fall.
That plan is another covenant, a covenant made with Christ Jesus the Son of God, who is fitly called by the apostle, “the second Adam,” because He stood again as the representative of man.
--Now, the second covenant, so far as Christ was concerned, was a
covenant of works quite as much as the other. It was on this wise. Christ shall come into the world and perfectly obey the divine law.
He had certain works to perform, upon condition of which certain blessings would be given to us. Our Lord has kept that covenant.
I will put my laws into their mind — I will influence them with the
principles of law, truth, holiness, and their understandings shall he fully enlightened to comprehend them.
And write them in their hearts — All their affections, passions, and appetites, shall be purified and filled with holiness and love to God and man; so that they shall willingly obey, and feel that love is the fulfilling of the law: instead of being written on tables of stone, they shall be written on the fleshly tables of their hearts.
I will be to them a God — These are the two grand conditions by which the parties in this covenant or agreement are bound:
1. I will be your God. (Sanctification = Obedience)
2. Ye shall be my people. (Justification = Grace)
Adam was the representative man.
A certain law was given him.
That covenant our first father broke.
--To be saved by the works of the law is impossible, for under that covenant we are already lost.
--But divine mercy has interposed and provided a plan of salvation from the fall.
That plan is another covenant, a covenant made with Christ Jesus the Son of God, who is fitly called by the apostle, “the second Adam,” because He stood again as the representative of man.
covenant of works quite as much as the other. It was on this wise. Christ shall come into the world and perfectly obey the divine law.
He had certain works to perform, upon condition of which certain blessings would be given to us. Our Lord has kept that covenant.
His part in it has been fulfilled to the last letter.
There is no commandment which He has not honored, there is no penalty of the broken law which He has not endured.
He became a servant and obedient, yea, obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
He has thus done what the first Adam could not accomplish. God on His part has solemnly pledged Himself to give undeserved favor to as many as were represented in Christ Jesus.
The blessings of the new covenant are grounded purely on mercy in forgiving unrighteousness and sins.
Q: Has God, in showing mercy to the sinner, ceased to be just?
Q: Has He dishonored His holy law, and will He henceforth pass over the violation of it?
A: God is true. He changes not. The conditions of salvation are ever the same.
There is no commandment which He has not honored, there is no penalty of the broken law which He has not endured.
He became a servant and obedient, yea, obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
He has thus done what the first Adam could not accomplish. God on His part has solemnly pledged Himself to give undeserved favor to as many as were represented in Christ Jesus.
The blessings of the new covenant are grounded purely on mercy in forgiving unrighteousness and sins.
Q: Has God, in showing mercy to the sinner, ceased to be just?
Q: Has He dishonored His holy law, and will He henceforth pass over the violation of it?
A: God is true. He changes not. The conditions of salvation are ever the same.
Under the new covenant the conditions by which eternal life may be gained are the same as under the old—obedience.
The sinner is helpless to atone for one sin. The power is in Christ's free gift, a promise appreciated by those only who are sensible of their sins and who forsake their sins and cast their helpless souls upon Christ, the sin-pardoning Savior.
He will put into their hearts His perfect law, which is “holy, and just, and good” Romans 7:12.
To be God's people implies that they should give God their whole hearts, serve Him with all their light and strength, and have no other object of worship or dependence but Himself.
--Any of these conditions broken, the covenant is rendered null and void, and the other party absolved from his engagement.
[1.] He will be to them a God; that is, He will be all that to them, and do all that for them, that God can be and do. Nothing more can be said in a thousand volumes than is comprehended in these few words: I will be a God to them.
[2.] They shall be to Him a people, to love, honor, observe, and obey Him in all things; copying out His example.
I. As to THE PRIVILEGES OF GRACE.
The first privilege is that to as many as are interested in it there shall be given an illumination of their minds. “I will put my law in their minds.”
law, not merely on their understandings, where it may guide them, but in their hearts where it shall lead them.”
-*-To write on a heart must be difficult work, but to write in a heart, in the very center of the heart, who can do this but God?
A man cuts his name upon a tree in the bark, and there it stands, and the letters grow with the tree, but to cut his name in the heart of the tree—how shall he accomplish this?
And yet God does divinely engrave His will and His law in the very heart and nature of man!
II. FOR WHOM HAS GOD MADE THIS COVENANT?
I said He made it with Christ, but He made it with Christ as the representative of His people.
--Christ has died a glorious death, and He shall have a full reward for all His pain."
Adam Clarke / Matthew Henry /Charles Spurgeon / Ellen White