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The Love Principle - Study 20: Love as Covenant

  • 1 day ago
  • 16 min read

Deuteronomy 4:32-40 NIVUK

[32] Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? [33] Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? [34] Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? [35] You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. [36] From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. [37] Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, [38] to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. [39] Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. [40] Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time. 

I have never understood how some American TV shows have portrayed weddings. At the heart of every wedding is the critical moment when the bride and groom make audible vows to each other and sign their marriage papers. On the surface, making promises and signing contracts aren’t normally considered as romantic. No-one takes their lover out to a date where they'll sign paperwork together. However, in the context of a wedding, it’s the most important part. It’s actually the part of the wedding when the bride and groom are legally bound together. What they say and what they sign are very important.


But in many American TV dramas and movies, the act is cheapened. The bride and groom don’t make vows. They might make romantic declarations, some even to comic effect, but they aren’t vows. They aren’t promises to love each other and be faithful.


They may be romantic, but they actually have no value.


At the heart of marriage is a piece of legal paperwork: in our case signed by more witnesses than most crimes to help us with the visa application we filed around a month later after we got married.


That contract is very important. Not romantically, but practically.


Similar to a wedding, at the heart of our love relationship with God is a contract. Or, as our Bible calls it, a Covenant. 


At the heart of God’s relationship with His people is also a Covenant.


Now, I’ve worked for years as a translator. I’ve seen more than a few contracts in my time. Each contract contains personal information about the people involved (or the companies) so that they can be identified. You can sometimes learn a lot about the people involved in the contract from this information 


And we can do the same from the Covenant God had with His people. These facts help us to learn more about how He loves us, why we should love Him and what this means for how we should live.


So although a study of ancient Jewish law might sound terrifically dry and boring, I want us to see that this is not like that at all.


It is, in fact, a study that helps us get to know our God better.


And that is never boring.


Let’s look, then, at three aspects of this contractual relationship, and the God who instigated it, starting with The God Who Spoke.


The God Who Spoke 

Deuteronomy 4:32-36 NIVUK

[32] Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? [33] Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? [34] Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? [35] You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. [36] From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.  

When my daughter was small, a few weeks before the London Olympics of 2012, we went to see the Torch Relay pass through the city of Glasgow. She was really excited to see that local actor James McAvoy was playing a part in the relay. He played one of her favourite characters in one of her favourite movies. But as we stood on Buchanan Street, we didn’t hold that much hope of seeing him.


Until he came right past us with the torch. And stopped to take pictures with that torch. With us.


As people started to crowd around, he could see that a situation was developing that would cause my daughter to be afraid, and so he called out to the crowd to ‘Let me have a picture with this wee lassie.’


And so my daughter, not even ten years old, got to have a picture with a Hollywood actor, who, to her, was Mister Tumnus from ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’, but also went on to star in several Hollywood action movies.


And right now she is studying in the same university where he studied.


When famous people speak, people listen. When powerful people speak, people pay attention.


When God speaks, it’s an even bigger deal.


After all, this is the God who created the entire universe just by speaking (Genesis 1).


But these verses refer to an event where God’s words were accompanied by the most awesome special effects:


Exodus 19:16-19 NIVUK

[16] On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. [17] Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. [18] Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. [19] As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. 

And then, out of the cloud and the thunder and the lightning and the rumbling and the loud trumpet blast, we see this:


Exodus 20:1 NIVUK

[1] And God spoke all these words.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/113/exo.20.1.NIVUK)


What came next is, of course, the Ten Commandments. We have studied them because they are how God wants us to show our love to Him, our neighbours and ourselves.


But what Moses taught in Deuteronomy is that the very existence of these Ten Words is God showing His love to His people.


Because He spoke them.


Out of all the nations of the earth, many of which were stronger or larger or more cultured than them, God chose to speak to the Israelites and teach them His ways so that He might make them a people for Himself.


As Moses taught elsewhere:


Deuteronomy 7:7-8 NIVUK

[7] The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. [8] But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Now, this might seem that it has a very specific Old Testament application, but that isn’t the case. Paul actually taught something very similar to, of all people, the Corinthian Gentiles in Greece:


1 Corinthians 1:26-31 NIVUK

[26] Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. [28] God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, [29] so that no-one may boast before him. [30] It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. [31] Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’

The mind-blowing fact is that God has spoken to us. We have His Word, the Bible. We did not deserve it. We could not deserve it. But the very fact that we have it is an act of love and grace on His part.


And the fact that He has taught us how to live is also an amazing act of love and grace. As Moses said, the fact that we have His Word requires not only amazement and wonder and worship, but also our love and our obedience.


Words are not enough. Love requires action.


So we have seen, then, that the very fact God spoke to the Israelites, and us, was an act of love – and still is. This act of love ought to prompt us to obey Him.


The second thing we see from these verses is that God is The God Who Loves.


The God Who Loves

Deuteronomy 4:35-38 NIVUK

[35] You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. [36] From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. [37] Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, [38] to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

There is no accounting for taste.


On more than one occasion, I have met someone with their significant other and wondered what on earth they see in them.


Have you ever had that experience?


Some people might say something similar to my wife!


To be honest, when it comes to God’s love, we might feel the same.


Here it says that the Lord chose the Israelites because He loved their ancestors. That’s fine, but have you seen what they were like?


Abraham lied twice to the leaders of nations where he was hosted (Genesis 12:10-20, 20).


His wife Sarah came up with the plan for Abraham to marry her servant as a secondary wife, and then ill-treated her when she became pregnant (Genesis 16:1-6).


Isaac made exactly the same mistake as his father (Genesis 26), and made the classic parental mistake of playing favourites with his children (Genesis 25:28). 


Jacob was, to put it mildly, a bit of a character. He conned his brother (Genesis 25:29-34) and his aged father (Genesis 27), before fathering a chaotic family that resembled a soap opera, full of jealousy (Genesis 29:31-30:33, 37), sexual misdemeanours (Genesis 38) and violence (Genesis 34).


Not to mention theft and deception (Genesis 31).


If we knew a family as dysfunctional as this, we would tell our children to avoid them as a bad influence.


Yet God loved this motley crew. He worked out His purposes through them. He set them apart to be the forefathers of His chosen people.


This speaks volumes to me.


There are many days when we look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder what on earth God saw in us. We don’t even like what we see, let alone love it. So how could God love us?


That’s when we remember verses like this:


Romans 5:6-8 NIVUK

[6] You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:7-10 NIVUK

[7] Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. [8] Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. [9] This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. [10] This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The fact that we are unworthy of His love is rather the point. That’s what grace is: it’s love for the unloved and unlovely and unlovable.


We Christians often make the big mistake of believing that the God of the Old Testament and the New Testament are somehow different, or that they are the same, but somehow He changed His approach: the Old Testament is about law; the New Testament is all about love and grace.


But that just isn’t true. What we see here, in the books where the Law is laid down, is an act of both love and grace. God loved a thoroughly unlovely bunch, who may have had faith (Hebrews 11:8-22), but their lives were far from a model of consistency. They often made mistakes and got things very wrong. Their mistakes reverberate down the centuries – and still do.


And yet God loved them.


He loved them then and He loves us now.


So here, in the heart of a book of the Law which we associate only with the Israelites being told what was acceptable and what we not, we see a beautiful example of God’s grace in speaking to the Israelites, and His love for them. And we see that these both apply to us.


But there’s still more. We also see The God Who Chose.


The God Who Chose

Deuteronomy 4:37-38 NIVUK

[37] Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, [38] to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

I remember the day I was interviewed for the job I have now. I had nine interviews before it. I had no issue getting interviews. That was never the problem. I had a problem passing interviews.


So when I left interview number ten, I was utterly convinced that I had blown it. I knew I’d done the best I could. It was just that I didn’t think my best was good enough.


Until one phone call when I had moped sadly home confirmed that I had got the job. I was a little confused at the beginning. I couldn’t work out why, after nine interviewers had said they didn’t want me, the tenth had finally said that he did. I didn’t understand it, but I was really happy that he had.


What we see here is, again, extraordinary. These words were spoken forty years after the Israelites had left Egypt, led our on awesome power by their God. They had seen Egypt suffer ten plagues. They had seen the Red Sea split (Exodus 14:21-22). They had seen Pharoah’s army drowned (Exodus 14:23-28). They had sung those songs of celebration by the side of the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1-21).


Yet it didn’t take them long to start complaining (Exodus 15:22-25). 


And so from that point on a pattern emerged: a pattern of receiving God’s guidance and provision like no other nation, and yet responding to it with non-stop grumbling and complaining.


That’s why we see this in the New Testament:


1 Corinthians 10:1-12 NIVUK

[1] For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. [2] They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. [3] They all ate the same spiritual food [4] and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. [5] Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. [6] Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. [7] Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.’ [8] We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did – and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. [9] We should not test Christ, as some of them did – and were killed by snakes. [10] And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel. [11] These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. [12] So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 

Because these people even reached the very borders of the Promised Land, yet were turned back because they did not believe God could give it to them (Numbers 13 and 14).


Yet – and this is astounding – God chose them.


Not because or who they were, but in spite of who they were.


That ought to blow our minds. Because, let’s be honest, we would not choose them at all.


And if we’re really honest, would we chose us?


Yet the New Testament tells us this is true:


Ephesians 1:3-6 NIVUK

[3] Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. [4] For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

2 Timothy 1:9-10 NIVUK

[9] He has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, [10] but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 

1 Peter 2:9-10 NIVUK

[9] But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. [10] Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

This is truly an amazing truth. Like the ancient Israelites, we have done so much wrong. We are sinners, in need of grace but with no right to grace. Yet God has shown us that grace. He has spoken to us through His Word. He has shown us His love through His provision for our needs, including for our deepest need of all: salvation. He has chosen us and sought us out to have a relationship with us.


Surely it’s time we accepted His call.


Conclusion

Deuteronomy 4:39-40 NIVUK

[39] Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. [40] Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time.

One of my sisters is a nuclear physicist. In fact, she’s the Vice Dean for Physics in her university. She carries out experiments that I can’t even begin to understand. She posts photos of equipment on Facebook and, to be honest, the only thing I can think to reply is to ask her if her university is running low in cable ties because they look a little untidy. I don’t understand a lot of what she posts. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.


On the surface, this has been quite a theoretical study. We’ve been looking at an ancient Jewish law book from around seven thousand years ago. We might be asking why on earth this matters: what relevance or could have to us in the twenty-first century.


It might seem as niche and incomprehensible as my sister’s Facebook posts.


But then we see these verses. And then we understand.


Moses gave this teaching so that we might wonder at what God has done for us – absolutely. To realise that God has spoken to us, loves is and has chosen to have a relationship with us is a deeply profound thing. There can be little doubt about that.


But it isn’t just theoretical. It isn’t just spiritual.


It is deeply practical.


Because this wonderous, glorious thing should make us obey Him. It should motivate us to seek out a loving relationship with Him based on trusting Him and following Him.


That is what Moses taught.


It isn’t enough to praise Him. It isn’t enough to sing of His salvation.


We must have Him as our only God and obey Him. That is what He wants.


As Micah prophesied:


Micah 6:8 NIVUK

[8] He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/113/mic.6.8.NIVUK)


And all of that obedience – all that God wants of us – is summed up in the command to love God, love our neighbours, love ourselves.


So tell me, Christian: you who have received the Word of God, love God and are chosen by God, will you follow and obey Him?


Prayer 

Lord Jesus, I praise You and thank You that You want to have a covenantal relationship with me. Lord Jesus, I accept. I will love You, obey You and follow You for the rest of my days on earth. Amen.


Questions for Contemplation

  • What does it mean to have a covenantal relationship with God? Do you have one?

  • Did the Israelites deserve their covenantal relationship with God? Do we?

  • How does God want us to react to this relationship? What should we do? What does this mean for you?

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