Law Written On Our Hearts

February 20th, 2026
by Lance Waldie

2 Corinthians 3:1-3 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? 2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; 3 being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

In Paul’s day, since traveling preachers were often unknown, they carried with them letters of commendation to assure the church where they preached that they were sincere and orthodox. Paul himself wrote recommendations for Timothy (1 Cor 16:10, 11), Titus (2 Cor 8:22ff.), Phoebe (Rom 16:1-2), and Epaphroditus (Phil 2:19-30) to encourage their reception by various churches. But did Paul himself need a letter of commendation written on his behalf to the church in Corinth, the place where Christ worked through him to save them? The false teachers—the “many” who were “peddling the word of God” (2:17)—thought so. They are the “some” in 3:1 who demanded that Paul justify himself as a true apostle with letters of commendation.

Obviously Paul needed no commendation to justify himself as Christ’s apostle to the Corinthians. Though the false teachers who had duped the Corinthians had commendations for their rhetoric and reputations as great communicators, Paul had the Corinthians themselves! Paul needed no commendation, for the once-depraved Corinthians (1 Cor 6:9-11) had been saved by his preaching Christ during his 18 month stay in Corinth! So, if by one’s fruits one is known (Matt 7:20), then Paul was certainly a true apostle of Christ by the conversion of the Corinthians to Christianity. Acting as God’s secretary, Paul wrote the truth of Jesus Christ on the hearts of the Corinthians to be read by all who came in contact with them. Thus, Paul’s ministry was commended by his works. Interestingly, Polycarp wrote to the Philippians in the second century reminding them of Paul’s labors among them, “who were his letters in the beginning.”

Not only can the ink of a letter fade away, so too can the parchment where it is inscribed. But the Corinthians were written on Paul’s heart because they were his spiritual children, deeply loved by him. They were in fact living proof of his calling as an apostle. Truly, if Paul could actually be proven to be a false apostle, then the Corinthians were not true Christians. But they were true, for Christ had worked through Paul to manifest Himself and be “cared for”—literally ministered to—by him. This means that Christ is the author, and Paul, His apostle, is the scribe who ministered to those in Corinth that God drew unto His Son for salvation (cf. John 6:44).

The fact that Paul speaks of God’s word written on human hearts by the work of the Spirit means that OT prophecy was coming to fruition. God told Jeremiah over 600 years prior, Behold, days are coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them… But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days… I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Jer 31:31-33). Likewise, God told Ezekiel, I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God (Ezek. 11:19-20; cf. 36:26).

Within the Law itself—the old covenant—God promised an unconditional new covenant that was dependent upon God’s word. Paul’s point therefore in 3:1-3 is that since the Corinthians had God’s law written on their hearts as believers in Christ, the new covenant had been inaugurated in them, and Paul was a true apostle of the God who sent Him to preach it to them.