Our Daily Homily

Devotional For

July 11

      He wrote a copy of the law of Moses. Jos 8:32
      
      If we view this act typically, it is very significant. These things happened to Israel as a type and foreshadowing of great spiritual realities. Canaan is an emblem of the heavenlies, that blessed condition of joy and peace and spiritual power which is ours in Jesus, and becomes ours to enjoy, when we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. It might have been supposed that in the land of promise there would have been no need for the holy law of God, as given at Sinai, and repeated in Deuteronomy. But it was not so. So, even in the heavenlies, the law must be written again.
      
      Jesus said, I came not to destroy, but to fulfill (Mat 5:17). - Not to abrogate, or set aside, or supersede the holy law, but to reenact it after a more spiritual sort, and to secure, not an outward, but an inward compliance with its precepts. Our Lord complied, not only with the moral, but with the ceremonial law; and His great aim and purpose was to honor and magnify it in the hearts of His people.
      
      The Apostle Paul says that the ordinance of the law will be fulfilled by those who walk after the Spirit (Rom 8:4). - It is holy, just, and good; and they who are carnal and sold under sin cannot by their own resolutions and efforts comply with its demands; but when the soul is yielded to the Holy Spirit, He works in us the will and the power.
      
      The Epistle to the Hebrews says that it will be written on our hearts (Heb 8:10). - This is the provision of the new covenant; God's law written, not on stone, whence it might be obliterated; not on metal, whence it might be melted; not on the memory, whence it might fade: but on the tablets of the heart, where we shall love it.