Psalm 103:17-18–The Lord Loves Those Who Keep His Covenant

Psalm 103:17-18–"But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments."

There is a severe tendency when reading this passage (and the multitude of verses like it) to read the lovely part at the beginning while neglecting the latter conditional components.  But in truth it is the contingent aspect of this passage that makes it so important.

At the onset, one thing must be asserted: God loves everyone.  This is unambiguous and, quite frankly, irrevocable.

Now that that's out of the way we get to the hard part: God's love is not equal.  While this may seem provocative it flows from relational definitions.

Some people know God as their Father just as He knows them as His children.  These people, the people of the Covenant of Christ, are–in a quite literal way–His.  This means, among a who litany of things, that the people who He has deemed to call His, who He has called to live covenantally, God loves them, for lack of a better term, differently than everyone else.

It is this 'difference' that warrants the entirety of the aforementioned passage.  The people of God, who are called to live according to His covenant, have commandments to fulfill.  It is upon the satisfaction of these commandments that righteousness is received, just as it is upon our fear of Him that His love is applied steadfast.

Much, much more could be said but suffice to say this passage is anything but easy to stomach while it remains rather straightforward: fear God and keep His covenant.

Psalm 103–God's Great Love To Those Who Keep His Covenant

Psalm 103:17-18: "But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children's children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments."

There is but a hint of conditionality in this passage, a sort of contingent relationship between God and those who love Him.  But I submit that this is present in all love.  Consider, for instance, the love of romance.  Is it not true that if one partner avoids and disrespects the other for any amount of time, not only will it create relational friction but it may also cause the other partner to pull away.  This is, after all, but a shadow of the love that God has for us in Christ, but it is a poignant example of why God can in love say that His steadfast love remains on those who fear Him and keep His covenant.  It is not, as it were, a contingent sort of love but it is a function of that which is love.  Unconditional love, it turns out, has conditions.  Even the mother who will always love her son and desire the very best for him will turn her back on him if he so repeatedly disregards or spurns her love.  This is an inescapable truth of love itself.  We would do well, then, to fear the Lord and to keep His eternal covenant in love and faithfulness!

Covenant Membership: A Matter of Justification

Romans 3:28: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."

This verse comes as part of the primary argument of the book of Romans, the main point being that justification is not a matter of ethnic distinction or even religious rites.  On the contrary, justification is a matter of faith, more directly, faith in Christ Jesus.  And while justification is one of the major considerations of Paul, and through Paul the Holy Spirit, it can be easily misconceived as something other than to what Paul is referring.  Because of this, a brief note about justification is in order.

For starters, justification is a dense word dealing with the legal tenders of humans, but it can be reduced to a single phrase: covenant membership.  In this way, justification means covenant covenant membership.  So, the major argument of Romans is a matter of what makes someone a member of the covenant of Christ.  In this, then, 'works of the law' refers not to works-based-righteousness; it refers to what makes someone a member of the covenant.  In other words, 'works of the law' is synonymous with circumcision and other Israelite rites.  This alludes to the juxtaposition present in this verse, arming justification by faith with justification by works of the law.

This is still so relevant to Christians today.  We often consider our faithfulness to the covenants of God as a matter of things we do or have done, as in, if I go to church and know the right Scriptures then I will prove me as a member of the covenant of Christ.  But Paul, and the Holy Spirit that inspired this passage, is saying something different altogether.  No longer is covenant membership a matter of 'works of the law' a.k.a. circumcision.  Now justification is a matter of faith alone; faith in Christ Jesus.  In this way, the covenant and its promises have been opened and made available to all those who have faith.  And as a gentile Christian all I can say is: "Amen!"

Covenant Works of Love

I have become determined in my theological structure to state that there is no room for individualism. By individualism I mean any personal effort thought to contribute in one way or another to God's acts of redemption.

I need to say this clearly: this does not mean that the human being does not have an obligation to to work.  Rather, our work performs no salvific function.  We do not work to earn salvation; we work because we are saved.

This is a covenantal thing.  God relates to humanity covenantally.  This distinction is, to be certain, a dense one but there are a couple points of reference: God initiates the covenant, claiming a people for His own.  People enter this covenant community in baptism, formerly circumcision.  Part and parcel to the covenant are promises of either blessing or curse dependent upon obedience to covenant obligations, i.e. commandments.

 If there is a place for effort it can only be in the mandate to love one another.  We have been commanded to a certain ethic and lifestyle characterized by love and faithfulness.  Understanding that we are deeply connected to God in covenant is how we can recognize that our relationship with God is dynamic and we do have to do works.  But these works are a matter of covenant obedience and faithfulness, they do not earn us anything. 

He Purchased a People

God does not choose a person, but a people.  He works with the individuals within that people.  But Scripture confirms that God does not choose individuals, rather, He chooses a people to be His own.  Certainly, God does chose specific individuals in history as representatives for His redeemed peoples: Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus.  But God chooses people not persons.

This is to say that election and predestination is not a personal ordeal, it is a community one.  It is a covenant matter.  God chooses to initiate a covenant relationship with a certain people.  This is the very essence of how God relates to man.

It's like a giant box of crayons owned by God.  Each crayon has a unique color and hue but apart from the rest of the colors it is useless, only capable of coloring monochromatically.  Understanding that we are a 'people' not autonomous individuals of faith will go a far way to reconciling this broken world and repairing broken churches.

The Law is Not Burdensome

For the past few centuries, since the Reformation of the the 16th century, the predominate theological understanding of the Bible as it pertains to the Old and New Testaments has been a distinction between law and grace.  Law begin the duty of the Old Covenant and grace being the joy of the New.

Essentially, this system of theology comes to dominate our interpretive lens and renders law, thought of as the commands of God, to be primarily an Old covenant thing but that it is no longer in effect because 'we are under grace.'  To be sure, this amputates the reality of the New covenant from its history and tragically severs the Scripture, cutting it up into law and grace.  But the text does not support this understanding of the history of redemption.

Consider this:

Israel had been enslaved for some 400 years at the hands of the Egyptians.  God hears the cries of the Israelites, whose forefather Abraham He had promised a land and a nation to, and determines to save the people.  He calls Moses to be the representative.  Some plagues ensue until finally the Egyptians release the Israelites to leave, giving them treasures and riches fro their journey away.  However, as the people approach the Red Sea, Pharaoh decides that this arrangement is unacceptable and sets out with his forces to kill Moses and claim Israel back for Egypt.

God tells Moses to strike the sea.  As Moses does, the sea parts and the Israelites walk through the sea floor on harmed.  Once on the other side, God tells them to turn back to watch as God releases His power over the waters and they come down upon the Egyptians.  God leads the people to valley below the Mount of Sinai, where He gives Moses the Law, the commandments for how the people of God are to live.

The Law does not redeem the people of Israel from the Israelites: God does.  The Law is not meritorious, as in, if a person is obedient they can merit God's grace.  No.  The Israelites understood that God had chosen them (Deut 7:7-11), and it was only by His grace that they had been saved.  The Law was the further expression of that grace.  God chose them and then He gave them His Law to teach them who He was and how they were to live as His chosen people.

The Law was never burdensome, because the Law was further evidence of God's hand of grace.  The commandments of God were the merciful commands of a gracious God revealing both His very character as well as what His choosing of the Israelites meant for how they were then to live.   This is to say that all of God's grace has encompassed within it God's commandments.  They run parallel.

As Christians, we speak a lot about the grace of God, but we often forget that God's grace has commandments to it.  Christians are to live a certain way with a particular ethic.  We should not forget that we are under covenant.  This means that God has chosen Christians and bestowed grace upon them.  But in that grace are promises, both of blessing and of curse.

If we are not obedient to the covenant commandments, we will receive the promised blessings.  And if we are disobedient to the covenant commandments, we will receive the promised curses.  This is covenant.  It is not meritorious blessings.  Rather, it is the way that God has chosen to relate to mankind.  If we forget that this situation is His idea, we will naturally neglect all of the parts that we would rather not do.

Remember, we are not saved from the Law, we are saved from the curse of the Law.  There is a new law for the New Covenant in Christ.  Christians need to learn what these commandments are and we need to consider that we are the chosen people of God, under His promises and in His covenant.  This means that we need to meet Him on His terms.

Covenant Chat

The Bible is rife with covenant language and theology associated with it.  In truth, covenants are the manner with which the Lord relates to humanity, so to understand what is meant by covenant is to understand God and how He relates to us.  Therefore, this will be a brief discourse on the nature of covenants and the theological import thereof.

At the onset, covenants define relationships between a strong party and a weak party in terms of promises.  The strong party promises to the weak and the weak promises to the strong.  Theologically, the strong One is God and the weak is man.  To list the promises of God would take all the memory of the internet, but suffice to state that God promises provision, life, and presence, all boiling down to the density of love.  For humans, the promise is singular: faith.

The promises, from God, can be broken down into two categories: (1) blessings, and (2) curses.  Both are dependent upon mankind's fulfillment of their covenant obligation of faith.  If humans are faithful, they will be blessed; if humans are unfaithful, they will be cursed.  Unfortunately, the last century has seen an overemphasis on the promises of blessing to the neglect of the promises of curses.  The net effect of such a lopsided and misconceived notion of God's covenants is that faith has been thought of as either an optional perspective dependent upon the individual's whims, or faith has been reduced to a single event.

Scripture is a book of covenants, in which the various authors write of God relating to people through His fulfillment of promises, either in the form of blessings or, more prominently, in the form of curses.  The important thing is that God's covenant obligations are intertwined with humanity's obligations: if humans remain faithful to the covenant decrees they will be blessed, however, if humans are unfaithful  to the covenant decrees they will be cursed.  This may sound harsh, but either way God is proven just and faithful for He has committed Himself in covenant and has obligated Himself to relate in covenant ways.  But praise be to God that He has revealed His covenant requirements to humanity in His Word and through His Son!

Jeremiah: Necessary History

Christians have a tendency towards the New Testament.  This is a natural reaction to the fact that our faith is based on the life and work of Christ, which is chronicled in the Gospels and applied in the letters of Paul, Peter, John, James, Jude, etc.  However, as per Jesus' own words, He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to complete them (Matt. 5:17).  And if we, as Christians, are to have a greater understanding of Christ, we need to be willing to mine through the books of Old Testament for their worth, both in practical matters as well as theological.  The book of Jeremiah is one such book worth studying.  It is not only valuable for its significant contribution to prophecy about Christ but also for the history of Israel and Jeremiah himself.

Called to be a prophet as a young boy (1:6), Jeremiah grew up in a time in which Israel was in a maelstrom of tumult and turmoil (around 590 BC).  More than a century earlier, the northern kingdom, which included 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel, was conquered and taken into exile by the Assyrians.  The southern kingdom, however, based in Jerusalem, was protected by God.  The people responded in haughtiness, believing that God's providential hand could never be removed because of their covenant, despite the prophesies made by Isaiah indicting them for their sin.

As a result of such arrogance, the "prophets" of Jeremiah's time looked superciliously at the words of Jeremiah, which were prophesies of judgment to come at the hands of the Babylonian empire, newly revitalized under the leadership of Nebuchadnezzar.  As a result of such disdain for his work, Jeremiah was ignored, mocked, beaten, and even thrown in prison.  Despite such harsh treatment, Jeremiah stayed perseverant to the call that God had given him and, in the end, his prophesies were proven when the Babylonians finally sacked Jerusalem, first in 597 and definitively in 587.

Jeremiah's contribution to the corpus of Scripture is twofold: first is in regards to judgement; second, in regards to redemption.  Jeremiah preached repentance to Judah in order to maintain the covenant that God had provided for them.  He prophesied judgement because of their increasing sin and lustful sin.  However, Judah turned in pride and self-delusion away from God and was punished justly for their conceited unbelief.  But that is not the whole story.  In Jeremiah 31:31-34, Jeremiah prophesies of a new covenant that God will inaugurate that surpasses the old covenant in its scope and its effect.  As Christians, we know this new covenant to be made in the blood of Christ and introduced at the Last Supper.

To be sure, this has been a brief introduction, a cursory synopsis, of some of the important points of note in regards to the book of Jeremiah.  The purpose has been to show the significance for Christians to study and to examine the books of the Old Testament because they speak of God, and of Christ Jesus.  We should be eager to learn more about them, then, because in doing so we will be growing in our knowledge of God.  Let us then dig into the Word so as to dig into God Himself!

Qualified for Eternity

Qualification is an interesting and pervasive reality of life.  Whether one is applying for a job, looking through an online dating profile, registering for classes, or just trying to get into a night club, being qualified means that you meet the requirements necessary for whatever it is you are attempting to do or enter.  Often times, the reality is that if those qualifications are not met then admittance is refused.  And when those qualifying requirements are made plainly accesible, that refusal is just and true.

In terms of eternity, there is a steep qualification that must be met in order to enter into God's eternal presence: sin must be paid for and justified. If sin is not atoned for and propitiated, then we will be unqualified for eternal life and relegated to eternal death.  Sin is univeralsy pervasive, in that everyone is disqualified by it (Rom 3:23).

Additionally, though man would attempt to atone for his sin himself, either by doing good things in hopes that they outweigh the sin or by denying the reality of sin altogether, no one can blot out his or her sin debt; it takes a powerful work of God.  Thus, apart from the work of God in the life of humanity,  sin will remain un-atoned for and eternally damning.

Fortunately, God Himself, through the life and work of His Son Jesus, has atoned for the sin of all mankind (Gal. 1:3-5).  And now, by grace appropriated and applied by faith, humanity's sin has been expunged.  Therefore, man can become qualified to enter into God's holy and eternal presence not by man's work but by Christ's work applied to the believing man (Col. 1:11-13).  Let us then take joy in God who has qualified us by His Son to be in His eternal presence!

Children of Inheritance

When we are born, we inherit from our parents.  Be it genetic material or family traditions, every human being is a composite of inherited components that the person will carry with them. Additional to this is the inherited sin nature, that deep part of every human that is prone to sin.  This inheritance is perishable and ultimately leads to death and destruction.

Luckily, believers who, having put the sin nature to death by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, have become qualified by the blood of Christ to become heirs to something else, a new imperishable inheritance.  The New Testament puts forth a theology of inheritance that can be challenging to understand but is necessary to comprehend in order to claim the fullness of riches that we receive in Christ.

In Christ, by belief in Him and His work, we are made children of God ( Rom. 8:16-17; 1 John 3:1).  To be a child of God is dependent on one being born again of the Spirit (John 3).  It is the necessary requirement of inheritance: we must become heirs.  The natural implication of this is that in order for us to be heirs, we must be born of God.  To be born of God is dependent on the grace of God in Christ through faith. Thus, when we give ourselves fully to Christ Jesus in faith, we become heirs with Christ Jesus, adopted into the family of God.

This adoption is two-fold.  At first it is based on present blessings, as in, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, who guides and compels us to continually deny ourselves and gifts us spiritual with every good thing necessary for perseverant and loving faith, i.e. sanctification.  This inheritance is now, received upon the moment of belief and confession in Christ.

The second, and more profound, sense of our adoption refers to our eternal inheritance, the gift of being in God's presence eternally.  As Paul writes in Colossians, the "Father has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light (Col. 1:12).  Or, as Peter writes, we are born again to an inheritance that is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us (1 Pet. 1:3-4)."  Our inheritance is thus something beyond temporal or corporeal trappings.  Our inheritance is perfect and eternal.  Additionally, our qualifications for eternal inheritance is based solely on the work of Christ.

Inheritance is received upon the death of the willing benefactor.  In the case of believers' inheritance, it is Christ who has died and blessed us witha  holy and eternal inheritance.  This being clearly true, there is another who dies in order to receive the inheritance of Christ: ourselves.  We need to die so as to live and be brought into the family of God and heirs with Christ of the inheritance.  Dying to self in order to be made alive to Christ is the requisite that qualifies us to inherit the blessings of God.  Let us the die to ourselves so as to receive the inheritance of Christ!