Kingdom Principles

Kingdom Principles

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33). This unchanging purpose of the King was fulfilled in the new covenant through Jesus Christ. NATURAL LAW VERSUS WRITTEN LAW God intended law to be natural. To understand the Kingdom of Heaven, it is important also to understand the distinction between natural law and written law. First of all, written law is necessary only when natural law is absent. If we human beings were all law-abiding by nature, there would be no need for written law. But as we saw above, our rebellion against God destroyed the rule of natural law in our lives and made written law (as well as human government) necessary to protect society and restrain evil. Second, the purpose for written law is to restore natural law to the conscience. Because of our rebellion against God, we lost our instinctive knowledge and understanding of natural law. Our con sciences became corrupt and our likeness to our Maker became tar nished and distorted. Things that were natural in the beginning now became “unnatural.” For example, we consider generosity to be a virtue, a positive quality we admire in others and aspire to in our selves. Why? Because it is not a “natural” human trait, at least not anymore. God never commanded Adam to be generous and giving. Why not? Because giving came naturally to Adam. A generous spir it was inherent in him because he was made in the image of God, his Creator, and God is generous by nature. But after the rebellion, mankind became greedy, obnoxious, abusive, mean, stingy, and hoarding. We needed a law to restore to our conscience the concept of giving.

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