Why did GOD call His commandments a covenant of love?
GOD calls His commandments a covenant of love, good for a thousand generations. The commandments He is referring to were given on Mt Sinai. How can it be both a covenant of love and a covenant of bondage? Galatians 4:23-25
Deuteronomy 7:12
ESV - 12 And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.
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Tim Maas
Supporter
I would say that it was because love (toward God, as indicated by actions obeying the first table of the commandments, and toward one's neighbor, as indicated by actions obeying the second table) is the fulfillment of all that God requires of us. (Jesus made this same point in Matthew 22:34-40.) The commandments represented bondage only because of humans' inherent, universal sinfulness, which the Law was given to make apparent to us, leading to repentance and faith in Christ.
Shirley H
Supporter
When we accept the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, we understand the grace and total love of God. Think of Paul the apostle. Before the appearance of Jesus to him on the road to Damascus, Saul, Paul was persecuting Christians. See Acts 9. Paul, under the religious rules of the Pharisees, believed he was doing a good thing. Romans 1:1-4: "Paul a bond servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Bond servant means "slave." We are slaves of love bought by the blood of Christ. When we accept the grace of God, and believe what He tells us, we awaken the faith implanted in our hearts and receive the Holy Spirit. It is a voluntary action. This is unlike Exodus 21:1-6. That was forced slavery, well-known in times of the Roman empire. The scripture I believe is saying that without the actions of Jesus, many of us would remain in our lost, unsaved state and would spend eternity without the loving presence of God. Jesus changes our lives completely. We become not perfect, but have new desires, a new attitude, and are no longer lost in our sins. We enjoy the freedom of our safety in Jesus.
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