Editors note:The Royal Law and the Covenant is my title for an email by Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director of the International Christian Zionist Center that was sent to us. It cannot explain it all in this short article, but he gives a very good rule, one I call the Royal Law. James speaks to this Royal Law, as does this article.

James 2:8  ¶If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

Here is the article:

It is a great pity that we have named the two distinct parts of the Bible the Old and the New Testament. It would have been far better to have named them the Old and the New Covenant. “Testament” often has the connotation of death and inheritance, which also obscures the fact of the two Covenants the living God of Israel so made with His people.

The Old Covenant God made with His people by way of Moses – spelled out by Him on Mount Sinai.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 34:27-28)

The New Covenant God made with His people by way of His Son – spelled out by Him on the Mount of Beatitudes.

Here is how Jeremiah prophesied the coming of this New Covenant (which sadly we today call the New Testament):

“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 lead 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)

The words: “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt” seem highly significant. God adds: “My covenant which they broke.” And although the people of Israel broke God”s first covenant, God in His great, great mercy promises through Jeremiah that the days would be coming when He would nevertheless make A NEW COVENANT with His people rather than revive the old Covenant!!

Now all this is very, very important, and significant in relation to our present time. For in our day the Jewish people who have returned, as God promised, to the land of their forefathers, are being faced with a Rabbinate that spells out exactly what Jewish men and women are expected to do, according to halacha. There is a code of more than 600 laws and bylaws, mostly based on the commandments teachings of the first Covenant with many Talmudic additions as finalized in the famous “Shulchan Aruch” an officially accepted handbook demarcating what a Jew is supposed to do or refrain from doing.

This certainly is not the New Covenant which the Lord God promised through the quoted words from His prophet Jeremiah. In truth this halachic way stands in contrast to the words about what Jeremiah describes as the New Covenant, where God promises to put His law on people”s minds and hearts. So absolutely and so evidently will He do this, that “No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ”Know the Lord,” for they all shall know Me” (Jeremiah 31:34)

The hallmark of the Old Covenant was that it was written on stones and directed to people from outside, to hearts that were mainly stony. It said: Thou shalt – thou shalt not. It came from outside people”s hearts and minds and it had to be explained and administered by Moses, elders, priests and scribes and today the rabbis who had to tell the people in each instance what the Law required of them.

That”s why the promise of the New Covenant is so refreshing. For it promises not only hearts of flesh instead of stone, but holds forth that people, after being initiated by God”s Holy Spirit into the reality of this New Covenant, would no longer need outside teachers each telling them what to do. Instead they would, by the indwelling Spirit, know it for themselves in their own minds and hearts. What an amazing liberty and intimacy between the believer and His Lord, the child and His Father!

Writing these words I have to think of how one of the authors of the New Covenant – John the Apostle – similarly describes the reality of this New Covenant when he writes:

These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. (1 John 2:26-27)

In like fashion the Apostle Paul describes the reality of this New Covenant thus:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors–not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. (Romans 8:1-17)

God Himself again and again promised the reality of this New Covenant when the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon His people and so write His law upon their hearts and guide their lives by dwelling in them.

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations.

Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!” ”Thus says the Lord God: “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. So they will say, ”This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.” (Ezekiel 36:24-35)

So this New Covenant has everything to do with the Jewish return to and the restoration of their land as is seen from these Scriptures.

Which Covenant, then, do we in the name of our God hold out to the present people of Israel who, as God promised, have returned to this their land to be initiated into a New Covenant in relation to which God promises to pour out His Own Spirit upon them with the divine result that “He will put His law in their minds and write it on their hearts?”

Paul writes significantly about the reality of this New Covenant:

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ”s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5:1-6, 16-28)

I am sure that what Paul says here in relation to the New Covenant is a hard saying for many – both Jews and Gentiles. But it is meant to open to us the new and fuller way that he describes himself:

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14)

Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things. For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him. Who are you to judge another”s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord”s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written: “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother”s way. (Romans 14:1-13)

The amazing thing however is that whereas God Himself says that His own people have broken the Covenant He made with them in Sinai that most Jewish and Christian people who are involved with the spiritual wellbeing of the Jewish nation tend towards reviving the Old Covenant in a mistaken with rather than committing themselves with God to the New Covenant He has prepared for His people rather than reviving the Old one!

Jesus Himself, in His Sermon on the Mount, stresses the importance of the Law of this New Covenant when He says:

“You have heard that it was said, ”You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

Actually most of the Sermon on the Mount is an expression or commentary on the importance of going the second mile and leading lives of love.

For as the New Covenant says: “He who loves has fulfilled the Law.” (Romans 13:8)

Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
[source: email from israelmybeloved.com]

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