The Old Covenants

Redeeming Love Written By: Deanna Ellis

The LORD passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations.”

The LORD said, “Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the LORD—the awesome power I will display for you.” (Exodus 34:6-7;10 NLT)

Have you ever seen the movie Redeeming Love? It is based on the book of the same title by Francine Rivers who wrote a novel from the book of Hosea. Hosea was a prophet who God told to marry Gomer, a promiscuous woman, a prostitute basically, who would be unfaithful to him, leave him, and abuse his love. Yet God told Hosea to love her, and not only love her, but after she leaves him and commits adultery, he buys her back from whom she had sold herself, brings her back into his home, and forgives her. This is what I see when I view this passage, the culmination of the story of Moses and the 10 Commandments.

In context, this was the Moses’ second trip up the mountain. When he came down from the mountain with the first stone tablets of the 10 Commandments, he found Aaron and the Israelites dancing, worshiping, and sacrificing to the golden calf they had recently fashioned. In appalled disgust, Moses smashed the-new-inscribed-by-the-finger-of-God tablets at the base of the mountain and then gave the people a taste of his anger. I cannot imagine how Moses felt having spent the last weeks in the very presence of God Almighty to come back to such faithless filth and debauchery. I cannot imagine how God felt witnessing such betrayal by people who He had, not so long before, rescued and redeemed from 400 years of slavery. Yet God in his great mercy and at the appeal of Moses’ prayers, forgave.

I see two things in these verses:
1. God’s character is Love. God abounds with love, faithfulness, compassion and mercy. He longs to bless us. He longs to show his glory and his power in our lives. He longs for us to know Him and trust Him with all that we are and have.
2. God’s character is Just. He offers forgiveness to all, but sin has consequences. In the Old Testament, God forgave looking forward to the Cross of Christ. Today, God forgives looking back to the Cross of Christ, but it is all about the Cross and the Blood of Jesus that enables a just God to cleanse an unjustifiable people from sin and shame and guilt. If we could only grasp how much God loves us to die to give us a new heart and transformed life. It is only through the blood of Jesus that I can say: I am no longer that sinner. I have been made new, and my old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20 NLT)

Today I pray 1. that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened, 2. that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, 3. what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,   4. and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised Him from the dead… (Eph 1:18-20) AMEN!