"THE HOLIEST OF ALL" part LXI

THE CENTRAL BLESSING OF THE NEW COVENANT THE LAW WRITTEN IN THE HEART.
Hebrews 8: 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days, says the Lord;
I will put My Laws Into their mind, and on their hearts also will I write them.

The Continuation of the SIXTH SECTION
Hebrews 8:1-13.
The New Sanctuary and the New Covenant.

BY THE REV. ANDREW MURRAY

We have seen what the fault was of the old covenant, But they continued not in My Covenant. We have seen that the one object of the New Covenant is to repair the fault of the old. There is henceforth no more need of the word, But they continued not. The one distinguishing characteristic of the New Covenant is to be, there is Grace for those who enter it to continue. The great mark of the Priest after the order of Melchizedek is--- He abides continually. The great mark of each of His people is meant to be too--- His abiding continually.

But are we not, some one will say, all living under the New Covenant, and yet is not the ordinary experience of Christians still the same as of old, But they continued not? Alas, it is so. And how, then, with the provision of the covenant? Is it really to be taken so literally? And if so, has not the New Covenant failed just as the old did, of securing the continual obedience God desired? The answer will be found in what we have more than once pointed out The Hebrews were Christians (after the day of Pentecost) under the New Covenant, but with their life in the old. The New Covenant does not do violence to man's will. It is only where the heart sees and believes by receptivity what God has promised, and is ready at any cost to claim and possess it, that any Blessing can be realized. With most Christians there is not even the intellectual belief that God means His promise literally. They are so sure that their views of man's sinfulness and the necessity of always sinning are correct, that the teaching of God's word in regard to His purpose to make an end of the but they continued not can never enter the mind. Others there are who accept the Truth, but through unbelief enter not into the full possession. And the whole state of the Church of Christ is such that but few live in the full experience of what the covenant means.


Let us meditate on its promises, and specially on its chief promise, its central Blessing, I will put My Laws in their mind, and write them in their hearts, in the adoring faith of our great High Priest upon the Throne, who as Mediator of the New Covenant is its Surety that every word will be made True. It is in Him, whom He has by Oath appointed Priest in the Authority and power of an Endless Life, that God says: This is the covenant I will make after these days: I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. In chapter 7 verse 16, we saw what the difference is between an external Law (the priesthood of Aaron) and an inner Life (the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek). The one is impotent, the other mighty. And we saw how even God's Law (given through Moses and Aaron) failed of securing obedience, because the heart was not right. The promise of the New Covenant is to convert the external Law into an inner Life, to put it so in the heart that it shall be its inmost Life, so that, as naturally as the heart wills and lives and acts on earth, it shall will and live and do what God demands. Why does an acorn so spontaneously grow up into an oak? Because the law of the oak is written in the heart of the acorn. The life of every creature acts with delight in accordance with the Law of its Creator, that is, its inner nature. God and His Holiness, Christ and His Holy Spirit, if they belong to us, must be as near to us, as essentially within us, as truly inherent in our own life, as our own thinking, willing, and feeling. And so God promises that He will put His Law in our minds and write it in our hearts, in such a Way that it shall be our inner nature, our very Life, and we shall act according to it as naturally as we think or live. Yes, He will do it. So that we can say, even as His Son did, Your Law is within My heart; I delight to do Your Will, O God.

This is the covenant I will make, says the Lord. God has given His own Son with an Oath to be of that Covenant the Surety! And of that Covenant He, the High Priest upon the Throne, is the Mediator! Oh, what think you? Will God fail in the very thing the Covenant was devised to provide? Will He disappoint us in the one thing in which, as it deals with our experience, the New Covenant is to be Better than the old? In the one thing His heart and our heart longs for, to serve Him in Righteousness and Holiness all the days of our life, is this one thing the very thing we are not to realize? God forbid. He has said--- This is the Covenant I will make; and His Will is do it.

Let us look up to the Mediator of the Covenant, our High Priest upon the Throne in the Heavens. When He was with His disciples on earth, the Law was not yet put into their hearts. How often they failed in humility and love and boldness. But when He sat down upon the Throne, He sent the Holy Spirit from Heaven in their hearts, and all was New. They were full of humility and Love and great Boldness. The Law of God was in their hearts as the power of a Life that Knew, and Loved, and did His Will. Christ dwelt in their hearts by faith. The Authority with the power of the Endless Life from the Throne of God had taken possession of them. Oh, let us not doubt. Let us plead God's promise, I will make a New Covenant. Let us Trust God's Son, the Surety of the Covenant, and Receive God's Spirit--- we shall be brought into the Covenant, and into the Sanctuary together, and have Grace to continue, to abiding continually. ("IF" we faint or waver not away from the Hope of this great promise.)

1. Just as truly us there Is a Sanctuary above, there Is a Sanctuary within. In the old sanctuary the chief object in the Holiest of All was the Law, in the ark covered by the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. It is the Law now written In the heart sprinkled with the Blood that makes it a Sanctuary. It is the heart that is thus made a Sanctuary that enters the True Sanctuary.
2. Is not the reason that some who seek earnestly, fail of the Blessing, that they seek to grasp it in their own power, and do not yield to the Holy Spirit to work it in them. It is God who says, I will make the covenant. He must by His mighty Authority with power do the operation and do It in each heart. Our place is deep dependency, with patient waiting, and implicit reliance on His mighty power.
3. Remember that all He has to do as Mediator of the New Covenant, He does because He is Minister of the True Sanctuary. He sends out of the Sanctuary the Spirit of Heaven into our hearts it is this that puts God's Law within us.
4. The whole Law Is fulfilled in one word: You shall Love. Where the Love of God is shed abroad In the heart by the Holy Ghost, the Law of Love Is written in the heart.
6. The soul of man has no other near or far from God, but as its will unites with God's Will, and works with It (God's Will).