But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD.
I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
The promise of God to us is that he will be personally involved with every person. He himself will be within us and will guide us. Our approach to the law changes from one of flesh to one of Spirit. The written letter remains but our hearts are changed. It is no longer simply an unattainable external standard. More and more it becomes our internal motivation and desire.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
To know the LORD used to be quite an external thing. It was a matter of correct observance. But here the paradigm shifts. It isn't typically that people become aware of the LORD or enter into relationship with him without guidance. But it is no longer a matter of explaining a set of behaviors, rules, or ways or worship. We invite people to meet Jesus knowing he is there to be met. We are all meant to know Christ the way the Father reveals him to Peter:
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
Jesus wants us to know that this revelation is fundamental. Yet he still gives us the Church to safeguard us from our own ability to misunderstand. Just because we come to know the LORD personally does not qualify us to expound every aspect of dogma. If this were true there would be no dissension in the Church. Nor is this to the point of the relationship he desires to have with normal everyday Christians. He gives us the Church so that we can trust and be confident in every aspect of what we believe.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven.
We could, for instance, know Jesus, but still try to talk him out of the cross. Perhaps we do in fact do this at times. But Jesus is there, in his Church, to remind us of the truth again and again, to show us why it is necessary and why it is good.
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples
that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
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