'The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of
a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the
horns of your altars.'--JER. xvii. 1.
'Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by
us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in
tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.'-2 COR. iii. 3.
'Blotting out the handwriting that was against us.'---COL .ii. 14.
I have put these verses together because they all deal with
substantially the same metaphor. The first is part of a prophet's
solemn appeal. It describes the sin of the nation as indelible. It is
written in two places. First, on their hearts, which reminds us of the
promise of the new covenant to be written on the heart. The
'red-leaved tablets of the heart' are like waxen tables on which an
iron stylus makes a deep mark, an ineradicable scar. So Judah's sin
is, as it were, eaten into their heart, or, if we might so say,
tattooed on it. It is also written on the stone horns of the altar,
with a diamond which can cut the rock (an illustration of ancient
knowledge of the properties of the diamond). That sounds a strange
place for the record of sin to appear, but the image has profound
meaning, as we shall see presently.
Then the two New Testament passages deal with other applications of the
same metaphor. Christ is, in the first, represented as writing on the
hearts of the Corinthians, and in the second, as taking away 'the
handwriting contrary to us.' The general thought drawn from all is that
sin's writing on men's hearts is erased by Christ and a new inscription
substituted.