“ ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,’ says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,” for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them’ says the Lord. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’ “ (Jeremiah 31:31-34, NKJV). “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” (Matthew 5:17. NKJV). “ ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’ “ (Matthew 22:36-40. NKJV).
All the Messianic prophecies (and they were many) in the Old Testament were fulfilled specifically and precisely in Jesus Christ. Because Jesus did not always follow ‘the letter of the law” as the Jews had added to and amended the Ten Commandments, they accused Him of breaking the law. He healed on the Sabbath Day. He allowed his disciples to pluck grain and eat on the Sabbath because they were hungry. Instead of making the law burdensome and weighty, Jesus summed up the heart of the law in His statement in Matthew 22:36-40. He told the lawyer from among the Jews that all of God’s covenant commandments could be summed up in two major statements: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…soul…mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jeremiah’s prophecy of God’s writing a new covenant with His people and writing it on their hearts was fulfilled in Jesus’ life and teachings. He taught us how to be practical in keeping God’s Law. He stated that He did not come to destroy it but to make it fuller, more applicable and practical for daily life. Incredibly, Jesus summed up the essence of the teachings of the law and the prophets when he taught us to “Love God…and love your neighbor.” Behind the Law stands these two principles of right relationship with God and with our fellowmen. Love can never be adequately portrayed in rules and laws. God’s commandments of love have been there all along. The concept had been lost in much interpretation of the law and making it a burden instead of a joy to live by. Jesus showed us how to live out teachings of the law and the prophets—and the New Covenant written on the heart that Jeremiah told us about. Only with the aid of the Holy Spirit can we meet the requirements of love which fulfills the Law.
c Ethelene Dyer Jones; Thursday, December 16, 2010
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