Why does Paul write "the work of the law written in their hearts" instead of "the law written in their hearts"? And is there a difference?

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Casey, Chicagoland, OPC

I've likened it to an engraving (think 10C on stone tablets).

The Fall (think Moses casting them down) ruined the law-work on the heart, making it unreadable. However, no fall of man could eliminate the SIGN that God's finger had written. His WORK is still evident among the ruins. And the further evidence of it is, that men still retain and apply fragments of divine morality--precisely what will be the specific points of justice God will use to condemn them on the last day.

It is precisely those points where man's self-constructed morality aligns with the divine morality that he creates for himself the noose that will hang him, for as Paul says, "his conscience now excusing, now condemning him." Man fails to live up to his own standards, but especially where those self-made laws are written using the fragments of divine truth blindly picked up--there he is found liable to eternal Justice.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


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Rev. Winzer recently stated here:

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Heidi
Indianapolis, Indiana

Patience must dwell with Love, for Love and Sorrow
Have pitched their tent together here:
Love all alone will build a house tomorrow,
And sorrow not be near. -Christina Rossetti

Bruce, if I'm understanding you right, you're saying that the law per se is not written on everyone's heart; rather, it is the ruined remains of the law which is evident by works that approximate the law?

I think that's pretty close summarizing what I've said. It is the WORK of the law that they cannot deny, that is certainly present in them. Whether one wants to describe that as perhaps some might be doing, as a thing hateful and thus "unrecognizable", or as smashed (as I said) but still undeniably evidencing the Author's handiwork.

First of all, thank you very much for your post. It was extremely informative.

But it still prompts a question in me: how does this tie in with the fact that specific commands are binding on all men at all times, e.g. keeping the Sabbath? Or even the entire first table of the law?

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Ben Maas. . . . .Facebook
In college, attending First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Ada, OH, and
Belle Center Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA), Belle Center, OH
When at home, attending Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC), Mansfield, OH

“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.”
-Jonathan Edwards-

The moral law, the Decalogue, is a summary of the moral whole of God's will. If you break any portion of it, you've broken the whole. Remembering the sum is a convenient way of keeping God's will before the mind. People should be keeping God's will, broadly conceived.


Suppose I am to be judged for breaking the law of the land, and I am a terrific lawbreaker. I have broken laws both on purpose, and unintentionally. I have broken laws that I knew were laws, and broken laws I had no idea I was breaking. I broke laws where there were witnesses and where there weren't.

Eventually I'm caught. And I (my conscience) volunteer to testify against myself for any crime I committed, provided I knew at the time it was against the law and I still meant to do what I did.

Is the government going to prosecute me for every crime? How shall they try me? There are crimes they have reason to believe I committed, and yet they lack the important factor of "intent" to commit a crime. And FYI, "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is not an unqualified legal maxim.

Why spend time on those charges on which I will expend every effort and penny fighting, as I never thought I was doing wrong? There is a mountain of charges right here, which my conscience will serve very well as a witness for the prosecution. No persuasion necessary.

Just choose one, and convict me. And I will go away for the duration.


God's charges will be comprehensive. But I think that long before he gets way down the list to those crimes for which first he must teach the violator's conscience to rue, that person's conscience will long since have testified against himself a thousand times, for sins he knew were evil at the time he committed them.

The sting of hell is much worse for the sins committed NOT in ignorance, but against conscience. These were "well-deserving" sins, and the charges were known to be waiting ever since the moment he chose to sin against the "right".

So Paul is basically saying, "There are tons of sins for which people are responsible, and they know it. They may not have the written law, but they still know from their consciences what crimes they have committed"?

As you implied, crimes done in ignorance are moot in a sense. No one can claim to be innocent because a few crimes were done without knowledge of the law. However, this still leaves a few questions.

Maybe what I am craving to learn right now is exactly how we are to understand the punishment of people who broke laws they did not know they were breaking. God is perfectly just and will punish every sin accordingly. So how might He go about punishing a Sabbath-breaker who has never read the Bible? Would He? Would He perhaps punish them for not resting one day in seven (as that is the moral principle) and not necessarily for neglecting Sunday (as that is known only through the Bible)?

These are the questions I am wondering about.

Perhaps with "few stripes" vs. many (Lk.12:48). The rest is, I think, straining at a gnat.

While it is difficult for me to come up with scenarios that show how a heathen could be punished for failing to honor the moral tenets of the 4th commandment, I don't think I (or you) need to, as long as we realize that it would be very simple to do. As long as he felt an obligation to set time aside exclusively for devotion, that it was a moral duty and he ignored it, that should be enough, ISTM.

Again, I would point out that even if God has seldom used that particular command to show a man that he was guilty, and deserved to go to hell, it doesn't take away from the value or the morality of the command. On this side of death, I suspect there have been a few that were CONVERTED when they were made aware of their guilt regarding the Sabbath-command. And if that, why not CONDEMNED on the other side of death?

The bottom line is, there's enough that he DOES know regardless, to convince him that he is in exactly the place he earned, with a just penalty to go along with it.

Your posts are seriously filled with wisdom. Thank you very much.

I asked is because there are some who teach that all men already have the law written on their heart. So I thought there might be different opinions given in answer to the question.

In the OT. the priests had to make a sacrifice for sins of ignorance.
All sin commited everywhere will be punished. Romans 1 indicates that men had a knowledge of God, and turned from it. They were already dead in Adam, turned from God and his law both by nature and by practise, so God gave them over. The law like a mirror that is broken is still there[ the works of the law] as many have already posted in this thread.
When Jesus sets us free[from sins dominion], Jn8, we are free to serve and obey the law to the glory of God.

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Anthony D'Arienzo
Sunday School Teacher
Hope Reformed Baptist Church:
Medford, N.Y.

I had forgotten about this thread. I do believe some describe the law written on the heart of all men in the sense of the law being structured in human nature as rational. However, I do appreciate and agree with the distinctions Rev. Winzer pointed out. I think though there is more that can be done to show how the "work of the law" is written on the heart.

I hope to pick up on this more after a bit more consideration.

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~Beth Ellen Nagle~
Lakeside Church -Wales, WI (PCA)
Married to John
One wonderful daughter, Chaela Joelle


My work in digital art and photography: http://www.puritanboard.com/members/...ms-images.html

I would appreciate a bit more elaboration what the "work" of the law written on the heart. It is yet a bit nebulous to me as to what others understand by using this expression. Can you give examples? Thanks.

Edited: Works to work

Its not "workS" but "work".

If I "work" metal or stone or wood or..., it means I do something to it, stretch, pound, hammer, draw, cut, engrave...

The "work," perhaps impression or engraving (?), of the law in the heart--that's the point.

Patrick Fairbairn's Revelation of Law in Scripture is still worthy to be considered the top of the class treatment of the subject. He has an exposition of Rom. 2:13-15, in which he states:

This explanation clearly distinguishes the work of the law from the witness of conscience, and carefully notes that the work is "the practical operation of the law appearing in the conduct" rather than some Pelagian idea of inherent moral rectitude.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Please bear with me. Just to clarify, are we saying we know the Law by looking at our actions? Is it manifested in the relationship between action and conscience in either approving or accusing?

It is not that man knows the law as if he somehow has an unfallen sense of the moral duty God requires of him, but his propensity to live according to moral standards, albeit selfish ones, as when he "judges others," Rom. 2:1, indicates the effect of law upon him.