Compelling Love

The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant in which God promises, “I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33, Hebrews 8:10; 9:14-15). Psalm 37 prefigures the new covenant, where David describes the heritage of those who trust in the Lord and commit their way to Him. Living with the law of God in their hearts, none of their steps shall slide.

Psalm 37 (NKJV)
³ Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
⁴ Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
⁵ Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
⁶ He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.

²³ The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
And He delights in his way.

³⁰ The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom,
And his tongue talks of justice.
³¹ The law of his God is in his heart;
None of his steps shall slide.

Likewise in Psalm 91, God promises that those who trust and set their love upon Him will dwell with Him and He will show them His salvation:

Psalm 91
¹ He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress;
My God, in Him I will trust.”

¹⁴ “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him;
I will set him on high, because he has known My name.
¹⁵ He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will deliver him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him,
And show him My salvation.”

“Yeshua” (Jesus’ actual name in Hebrew) means “salvation”. An angel of the Lord directed Mary’s husband Joseph to call him by this name, “for He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) David himself knew Yeshua as the Son of God long before the Incarnation, as shown in Psalm 110 where he describes a conversation between God and His Son, the coming Messiah, whom he calls “my Lord”. In this Psalm, God says to His Son, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek”, pointing to the new covenant in which Yeshua (Jesus) would be the royal priest and righteous king for all who believe in Him. Fittingly, the name “Melchizedek” in Hebrew means “King of righteousness”:

Psalm 110
¹ The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
² The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion.
Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
³ Your people shall be volunteers
In the day of Your power;
In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning,
You have the dew of Your youth.
⁴ The Lord has sworn
And will not relent,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

Jesus describes the love of God and his mission as the Mediator between God and men in John 3:16 and John 14:6:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Paul explicitly describes Jesus as “the one Mediator between God and men”:

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

Paul declares that nothing can now separate believers from the love of God:

Romans 8
³⁸ For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul urges believers to respond to the love of Christ by no longer living for themselves, “but for Him who died for them and rose again.” Believers are new creations in Christ and ambassadors for Him:

2 Corinthians 5
¹⁴ For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; ¹⁵ and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
¹⁶ Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

²⁰ Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. ²¹ For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Peter exhorts believers to love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again of incorruptible seed, through the word of God now living in their hearts:

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,” (1 Peter 1:22-23)

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, https://compellinglove.net/
1/31/2016