Hard Passages - Part 10

Psalm 51:10-11 "Create in me a clean heart" is the most quoted part of this passage but this really is not a prayer for us who live in the New Covenant--it was an appropriate Old Covenant prayer for David. This prayer follows David's sin with Bathsheba. In this Psalm, David has seen the consequences of his sin and he is appealing to God's mercy. In Jeremiah 17:9 it says "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?". What is the heart? The center of life--if your heart stops beating, you will die. In the Jewish world, the word heart represents the whole person. Today, the center of the heart is in Jesus. Matthew 5:17-18 says "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." This is often held up as a proof text that we need to abide by the Ten Commandments. The passage points directly to Jesus, who came to fulfill the Old Covenant and usher in New Covenant.