The Law: God's Love in Disguise

Oftentimes in discussions about the Bible or God there emerges a dichotomy between the Old and New Testaments—the idea that the two somehow reveal a “different” God or at least a different side of Him. This contrast is often expressed as Law vs. Love or Judgment vs. Grace with the former term being associated with the Old Testament and the latter with the New.

Yet while it is true that the judgment of God is more obvious in the Old Testament (wholesale destruction of peoples, plagues, etc.), does it follow that the love of God is absent? I don’t think so. In fact, there are abounding examples of God’s love in the Old Testament, beginning with the promise of a Savior to reverse the curse in Genesis 3. But I believe one of the more overlooked exhibitions of divine love actually can be found in the Law itself.

To fully grasp this notion, it is helpful to understand the culture of the Ancient Near East, i.e. of the Israelites’ contemporaries. Immersed in a worldview with numerous gods, the people of Mesopotamia were forever concerned with appeasing their capricious deities. The purpose of their existence was to make sure the gods were happy, yet they could never truly know what it would take to guarantee favor from the gods. Thus, they were enslaved to the whims of those they worshiped.

Enter Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Not only does He condescend to commune with the people of Israel, but also He lays out specifically what His standards are, both in speech and in writing (See Deuteronomy 5:22). Instead of leaving His people to wonder what is required of them, He tells them plainly and to their face.

“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:11-15, ESV).  

In other words, God made the law accessible to them when He certainly didn’t have to, and He gave them a clear choice instead of leaving them to guess their fate. That seems pretty loving to me. But it doesn’t stop there.

As it readily became apparent, God’s standard of keeping the Law and “turn[ing] to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” was nigh impossible to keep without some kind of outside intervention (Deut. 30:10). Try as they might, the Israelites could not meet the requirements of a holy God, for their hearts were bent toward rebellion and hardened in apathy.

The Law thus became a constant reminder of the people’s need for help. As Paul wrote in Romans 7:7 and 3:20, “Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin,” for “through the law comes knowledge of sin.” Without God’s provision of the Law, His people would not have been even cognizant of the fact that they were destined for eternal separation from Him! So in communicating the Law, God demonstrated His love by waking His people up to the fact that their souls were in dire straits. But again, it doesn’t stop there.

Yahweh, having revealed His standard and having shown His people their inability to live up to it, then promised a solution: “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20, ESV).  

This promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God Himself and became a human in order to live the life that none of them could—a life that perfectly met God’s standard. And having lived that perfect life, He—a completely innocent man—sacrificed Himself, taking the full force of God’s judgment that was due all those who had fallen short of the standard.

Then, after satisfying God’s wrath with the spilling of His innocent blood, He rose from the dead to be received by God the Father in glory and to provide the opportunity for the Israelites to take His righteousness from His perfect life upon themselves. By acknowledging their failure to meet God’s standard, i.e. to obey His Law, by turning from their selfish, prideful way, and by trusting in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to be sufficient for their salvation, they would receive, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that new heart that made it possible to live according to God’s will.

So the God of the Bible (the Old Testament and the New), showed His love by revealing His Law, illuminating the state of the people’s souls, and providing a way for His standard to be met once and for all. But what’s even more staggering than that is the realization that this love was not limited to God’s chosen people of Israel.

This same Law has been revealed to us, still effectively showing us the condition of our souls. And the standard-meeting, wrath-appeasing sacrifice of Christ is efficient for our salvation just as it was for those in biblical times who believed. 

What a matchless love! Have you experienced it for yourself?