Covenant Life

Part 3 - Covenant Love

Here is another version of God's covenant promise to ancient Israel. "I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart" (Jeremiah 24:7). Knowledge of God through faith in Jesus Christ means we enter covenant relationship with God. The parallel is clear. "I will give them a heart to know Me." And, "they will be My people, and I will be their God."

When God entered into covenant with ancient Israel, He gave them the Ten Commandments. Moses reminds the people, "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone" (Deuteronomy 4:13). The God ordained response of the people to the love of God in redeeming them was written in stone. Moses noted the inability of the people after forty years of stubbornness and rebellion. "Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear" (Deuteronomy 29:4). Love of God and His word stems from hearts that know and understand Him. Hence the great promise of God. "Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live" (Deuteronomy 30:6). The people would know and love God.

Jeremiah makes the same observations. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil" (Jeremiah 13:23). Hearts void of the Spirit of God become progressively harder. The will opposed to God does not and cannot alter itself. The God ordained response of men and women to the love of God in redeeming them remains an external objective stone cold law.

Like Moses, Jeremiah knew the need for God's inner work of grace in the heart. He reiterates the promise. "'But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' declares the Lord, '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'" (Jeremiah 31:31). "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it" interprets Jeremiah 24:7, "I will give them a heart to know Me." "I will be their God, and they shall be My people" remains the same in both cases.

When God gives us a heart to know Him, He inscribes the Ten Commandments within us. He conforms our minds, emotions, and wills to this Covenant. The Law becomes light rather than darkness. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psalm 119:105). We love God's Law because we love God. "O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day" (Psalm 119:97). Jesus Christ Himself declares, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:21). John, the apostle of love, confirms these words. "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). The God ordained response to the love of Christ in redeeming us becomes warm-hearted conformity to God's covenant, the Ten Commandments. Our love expresses itself in gracious resolute accomplishment of duty. It is not a burden. It is love. It is covenant love.