Written Engraven In Stones

Rom 2:14-16,

"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:

Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;)

in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel."

We are familiar with this passage, of course, and it is often used in evangelism to explain how Gentiles can know they are guilty before God and need a Savior. The Jews can study the law and know sin and, with the conviction of conscience recognize it in themselves. The Gentiles also can however, without the written law, because it is written in their hearts. For example, as Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on this passage, they have a sense of justice and equity, they have been taught pity to the miserable, conservation of public peace and order, they forbid murder, stealing, lying, etc. Going against this, then, should result in accusing thoughts and a bad conscience. Acting consistently with the law written in their hearts should result in thoughts that allow the actions along with a good conscience.

This is my shallow little excursion into this Bible passage, which will suffice for our purposes. But the last time I read it something else stood out to me, and that was a question. Where in the Bible were we ever told that God wrote the law on the hearts of Gentiles? When I read the New Testament, I always find that the Old Testament contains in veiled form the things clearly explicated in the New. This is in fact stated in the New Testament (2 Cor 3:12-18) and there is also the saying of St. Augustine in accord, "The Old is in the New revealed, the New is in the Old concealed."

So where in the Old Testament are we taught that the law is written on the hearts of Gentiles? This is quite an astonishing claim, if you stop and think about it. I do not expect that many Jews, looking at the devil-worshiping heathen nations round about them, would have imagined that the Law of God was written on the heart of every one of those individuals!

But what the Holy Spirit revealed to me from the Old Testament when this question came to mind is the fact that the law was written by God Himself on two tables of stone:

"These words the LORD spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me."  Deut 5:22

Now consider for a moment when John the Baptist was speaking to the multitude and he warned them not to trust in their physical descent from Abraham, "for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." Matt 3:9

Let's jump forward to Jesus' Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, when the Pharisees ask Him to command the multitude of His disciples to cease their praises:

"And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out."  Luke 19:40

God did raise up for Abraham children of the stones, and the stones did cry out to God and receive His mercy. These stones are the Gentiles. And therefore we see that in the Old Testament, when God wrote the law upon two tables of stone, He wrote it upon the hearts of the Gentiles (also on Israel but more on that below).

There are two further points to be made relating to this. The first is that in the chapter of the New Testament that deals particularly with these things, 2 Cor 3, we also find that the Christians are called the epistle of Christ, ministered by the apostles, written "not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart" (v.3). Does this negate what we have been saying? No, because Christians are born again and that is why we have fleshy hearts instead of stony ones. Technically, we were Gentiles but are now Christians (1 Cor 12:2, Eph 2:11-12). However, that we were once stones without life is further implied by the Apostle Peter in this beautiful passage of 1 Peter 2 (vv.4-5). We are now lively stones with hearts of flesh with the words of Christ written upon them with the Spirit of the Living God.

"To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."

"Fleshy Tables of the Heart"

The last matter that I would write about at this time is the fact that Moses came down the mount with two tables of stone. This is surely not insignificant. This tells us that the children of Israel, though receiving the law from God, were inwardly at enmity against the loving commandments of God. They need to have their hearts changed from stone to flesh before they will be inclined to follow God (see God Himself speaking in Deut 5:29), and thus the first table of stone is a warning of the inevitable and in fact imminent decline of the Israelites from obeying God's law and worshiping Him. This should not really surprise us as the law itself said certainly that Israel would turn away from God (Deut 31:14-30 and the Song of Moses in Deut 32:1-43), and we know from the book of the prophets that even during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Israel was not really sacrificing to the true and living God (Amos 5:25-26, Acts 7:42-43). It tells us what Ezekiel wrote in chapter 36:24-28 and what the Apostle Paul explained in Romans 11:30-32,

"For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all."

Israel is a table of stone that God in mercy to the Gentiles might make them a table of flesh; in turn this mercy through us will make Israel a table of flesh. And so the two tables of stone become tables of flesh through the mercy of God.

Moses with the Two Tables of Stone

Hebrews 12 speaks of the receiving of the Law by the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, and how believers in Jesus come not unto that mountain but unto Mount Sion and the city of the living God. Coming to Mount Sinai we have stony hearts but coming to the Lord Jesus we receive a new heart and spirit, a heart of flesh and His Spirit.

(vv. 18-29)

"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:

(For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:

And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

For our God is a consuming fire."

Mount Sion and the City of the Living God