John Calvin Commentary Hebrews 8:10

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people:" — Hebrews 8:10 (ASV)

For this is the covenant that I will make, etc. There are two main parts in this covenant: the first concerns the gratuitous remission of sins, and the other, the inward renewal of the heart. There is a third part, which depends on the second: the illumination of the mind regarding the knowledge of God. Many things here are most deserving of notice.

1. The first is that God calls us to Himself ineffectually as long as He speaks to us only through human voices. Indeed, He teaches us and commands what is right, but He speaks to the deaf; for when we seem to hear anything, our ears are merely struck by an empty sound, and the heart, full of depravity and perversity, rejects all wholesome doctrine.

   In short, the word of God never penetrates our hearts, for they are iron and stone until softened by Him; indeed, a contrary law is engraved on them, for perverse passions rule within, leading us to rebellion. Therefore, God proclaims His Law through human voices in vain unless He writes it by His Spirit on our hearts; that is, unless He forms and prepares us for obedience.

   From this it appears what avail freewill and the uprightness of nature have before God regenerates us. We do indeed will and choose freely, but our will is carried away by a kind of insane impulse to resist God. Thus it happens that the Law is ruinous and fatal to us as long as it remains written only on tablets of stone, as Paul also teaches us (2 Corinthians 3:3).

   In short, we only obediently embrace what God commands when He, by His Spirit, changes and corrects the natural depravity of our hearts; otherwise, He finds nothing in us but corrupt affections and a heart entirely devoted to evil. Indeed, the declaration is clear: a new covenant is made according to which God engraves His laws on our hearts, for otherwise it would be in vain and ineffective.

2. The second particular refers to the gratuitous pardon of sins. "Though they have sinned," says the Lord, "yet I will pardon them." This part is also most necessary, for God never forms us so completely for obedience to His righteousness that many corrupt affections of the flesh do not still remain; indeed, the depravity of our nature is corrected only in part, so that evil lusts break out now and then.

   And from this arises that conflict of which Paul complains, when the godly do not obey God as they should, but offend in various ways (Romans 7:13). Therefore, whatever desire there may be in us to live righteously, we are still guilty of eternal death before God, because our life is always very far from the perfection that the Law requires.

   Therefore, there would be no stability in the covenant unless God gratuitously forgave our sins. But it is the unique privilege of the faithful who have once embraced the covenant offered to them in Christ that they feel assured that God is favorable to them; nor is the sin to which they are prone a hindrance to them, for they have the promise of pardon.

   And it must be observed that this pardon is promised to them not just for one day, but to the very end of life, so that they have a daily reconciliation with God. For this favor is extended to the whole of Christ’s kingdom, as Paul abundantly proves in 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

   And undoubtedly, this is the only true refuge of our faith; if we do not flee to it, constant despair must be our lot. For we are all guilty, nor can we be released otherwise than by fleeing to God’s mercy, which alone can pardon us.

And they shall be to me, etc. The fruit of the covenant is that God chooses us as His people and assures us that He will be the guardian of our salvation. This is indeed the meaning of these words: And I will be to them a God. For He is not the God of the dead, nor does He take us under His protection, except to make us partakers of righteousness and life, so that David justly exclaims, Blessed are the people to whom the Lord is God (Psalms 144:15).

Furthermore, there is no doubt that this truth also belongs to us. For though the Israelites had the first place and are the proper and legitimate heirs of the covenant, their prerogative does not prevent us from also having a claim to it. In short, however far and wide the kingdom of Christ extends, this covenant of salvation has the same extent.

But it may be asked: Was there under the Law a sure and certain promise of salvation? Did the fathers have the gift of the Spirit? Did they enjoy God’s paternal favor through the remission of sins? Yes, it is evident that they worshipped God with a sincere heart and a pure conscience, and that they walked in His commandments; and this could not have been the case unless they had been inwardly taught by the Spirit. It is also evident that whenever they thought of their sins, they were uplifted by the assurance of a free pardon.

And yet the Apostle, by referring Jeremiah’s prophecy to the coming of Christ, seems to deprive them of these blessings. To this I reply that he does not expressly deny that God formerly wrote His Law on their hearts and pardoned their sins, but he makes a comparison between the lesser and the greater.

Since, then, the Father has put forth more fully the power of His Spirit under the kingdom of Christ and has poured out His mercy more abundantly on mankind, this abundance makes the small portion of grace that He had been pleased to bestow on the fathers seem insignificant. We also see that the promises were then obscure and intricate, so that they shone only like the moon and stars in comparison with the clear light of the Gospel that shines brightly on us.

If it is objected that Abraham’s faith and obedience so excelled that hardly any such example can be found in the whole world today, my answer is this: the question here is not about individuals, but about the dispensational state of the Church.

Besides, whatever spiritual gifts the fathers obtained were, so to speak, incidental to their age, for it was necessary for them to direct their eyes to Christ to possess them. Therefore, it was not without reason that the Apostle, in comparing the Gospel with the Law, ascribed to the Gospel its unique characteristics, thereby distinguishing it from the Law.

Yet, there is no reason why God should not have extended the grace of the new covenant to the fathers. This is the true solution to the question.