He is God, Who keeps His covenant...

Deuteronomy 7:6-8:13 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

⁷ “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸ but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰ but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

¹² “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. ¹³ He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. ¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples

8 “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. ² You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. ⁵ Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. ⁶ Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; ⁸ a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. ¹⁰ When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

¹¹ “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; ¹² otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, ¹³ and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

In today’s text Moses is reminding the Israelites of all the things God has done for them. He speaks of God’s oath to their forefathers, His covenant with the people. This covenant was a covenant of blessings or curses. In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, it says:      “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; ¹⁶ in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, ¹⁸ I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. ¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, ²⁰ by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

This covenant, the promises of God to the people were contingent upon the behavior, the actions of the people. God would hold to His end of the covenant and bless them as long as they were obedient to Him. On the night He was betrayed, as He shared His last meal with His disciples, Jesus said:    “this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28)   This new covenant which Jesus instituted was not dependant on the actions of the people. No longer are the promises and blessings of God contingent upon the behavior of people. Under the new covenant it is now solely dependent upon what Christ has done not what people do. On the cross Jesus said:  “It is finished”  The new covenant was fully in effect through the finished work of the cross.

Today, as believers, we celebrate the empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death. When we think of the new covenant which Jesus initiated and established for us through the cross, we should look at the resurrection as God the Father’s seal, His authorization of the covenant which Jesus initiated. The resurrection validates everything that Jesus said and did. Because of the resurrection we are assured that the covenant He established is an eternal covenant, a promise to all people. This covenant, the blessings or curses are no longer dependent upon our actions, what we do, but rather on what Christ did for us. Through Christ and the finished work of the cross we are forgiven, redeemed from sin. God no longer sees us as sinful according to our own action but as righteous through the cross. Through Christ we are reconciled to God and we are restored to all that God originally intended. In the beginning: God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. ²⁸ God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”(Genesis 1:26-28)

The old covenant and its blessings and curses were for the Israelites and were contingent upon their actions. The new covenant is no longer based on our identity or our actions. It is based upon God’s love.    “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16) The resurrection is God’s validation, His seal on the promises and blessings of the new covenant. While this covenant is no longer dependent upon our actions, there still are blessings and curses under this covenant. As believers Jesus calls and commissions us, this day, the day we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection, and every day, to share the good news of the gospel. Jesus says:  “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ¹⁶ He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.  The blessings of the new covenant in Christ are not based on who we are or what we do, they are based on who Jesus is and what He did. The blessings and promises of God are for all who believe.

Thank You Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior and redeemer. Thank You Heavenly Father that You sent Jesus, Your Son, that through the finished work of the cross I could be redeemed, reconciled and restored, not based on what I do but on what He did for me. Thank You for the empty tomb. As the song says:

God sent His son, they called Him, Jesus;
He came to love, heal and forgive;
He lived and died to buy my pardon,
An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives!

Chorus
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,
Because He lives, all fear is gone,
Because I know He holds the future,
And life is worth the living,
Just because He lives!  (Bill Gaither)

Holy Spirit, empower me and enable me to live and speak the truth, that others may come to believe and receive the promises and blessing of God through the covenant of Christ and the cross.      Amen.