But this is the new covenant I will make
with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their minds,
and I will write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
--Hebrews 8:10 (NIV)
Right now, I feel like the passage above is one of the most beautiful in the whole Bible. It originated in Jeremiah 31, and recalls when God foretold that he would set up a new framework, a new covenant, through which to relate to His people. Hebrews 8 is all about explaining how Jesus is that new framework.
My favorite part of this passage is “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.” I really like the American Standard Version’s rendering of the original, in Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their inward parts” or the Complete Jewish Bible’s “I will put my Torah within them”. After doing just a little studying of Deuteronomy a while back, I realized that when God says “Law,” he means “Love,” just like a good mother’s “rules” are the physical manifestation of her care, and her discipline is guidance.
The thought of a “new” covenant excites me. God tried the old way, but it didn’t get his relationship with us–mankind–where He wanted. Every time I read the old testament, I am amazed at how hard and how long God tried to make that old system work. But when it didn’t, he didn’t throw Israel (stand-ins for all of us recalcitrant humans) away. Instead, he threw the system away and went to a new one. One that was harder, so much harder, for him. One that required him to sacrifice himself, utterly. One where he put himself in intimate contact with us and our painfully rebellious hearts.
It reminds me of one of my sisters, and her odyssey as a single mother of two young children. After her marriage failed and she had custody of the children, she still wanted to live her own life and focus on work and new romance. She loved her two young kids–a clingy four-year-old boy and an independent-minded six-year-old girl–so much that she fought bitterly to keep them and showered them with goodies and cuddles. But discipline was wanting. Sure, she had rules, but they were just words on a piece of paper on the wall. When it came down to it, she didn’t want to pull the energy and time from the rest of her life to sit down and teach. And when they disobeyed and bad things happened, she let her anger fly, instead of sacrificing her emotions on the altar of firm, reasoned discipline.
The trouble is, this first parenting scheme of hers didn’t work. The children ran rampant, and my sister was miserable, always feeling overrun. After a while, she realized that if she wanted to have good children, she would have to pour herself into them. She would have to sacrifice some of her life and spend it on them instead of herself. She stopped going on business trips away from home and attended after-school plays instead. She stopped talking on the phone and started paying more attention to them. She realized that she would have to deal closely with them, even at the moments they did something against her will. She would have to learn how to put her anger away and deal with them with reasoned firmness, and learn to endure their wailing and complaining until they accepted it.
The new covenant in Hebrews 8 seems like that kind of change in God’s “management” of us. A change from words on the wall to his presence in our heart. A change from a remote God’s terrible anger at our disobedience to that anger being forgotten, having been sacrificed on Christ’s cross. Instead we have the power of His Spirit’s voice, teaching us remorse. Even when we stand in the heat of rebellion against him, his Spirit stays close–painfully close, maybe, for him–ever pushing us in better directions.
Now that my sister has been practicing this closer, more focused parenting, she is much happier. Her kids are far better behaved, and there is less stress in their lives. Is God happier with his current church than he was with old testament Israel? I don’t know. But I know I am happy to have him always close, writing not on the wall but on my heart, changing my very person. Holding me close when I cry because I can’t have my way, and teaching me the greater joy of His.