Scripture Reading: Exo. 34:28-29; Isa. 54:5; Jer. 2:2; 31:3, 32; Ezek. 16:8; Hosea 2:19-20
Ⅰ
The subject of the entire Bible, the content of God's economy, and the secret of the entire universe is the divine romance between God and His chosen and redeemed people—Isa. 54:5-7; Jer. 31:3; Hosea 2:19-20; Eph. 5:25; Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2, 9; 2 Cor. 11:2.
Ⅱ
God was seeking lovers in giving His law to His people, and the giving of the law was a transaction in which God's people became engaged to Him:
A
The law is an engagement covenant, an engagement paper:
１
God loves Israel with an everlasting love—Jer. 31:3; cf. Gal. 6:16; 1 Thes. 1:4; Eph. 1:4.
２
In the first nineteen chapters of Exodus, God was courting His people—Jer. 2:2.
３
By means of the law as an engagement paper, God officially betrothed the children of Israel to Himself in Exodus 20 at the mountain of God—Ezek. 16:8; Jer. 31:32.
B
The first five commandments were given in an atmosphere of intimacy, with the expression Jehovah Your God uttered intimately again and again as God lovingly courted His people:
１
In the first commandment the Lord told His people that they should not have any other beloved in addition to Him; He must be their unique Beloved—Exo. 20:2-3.
２
In the second commandment, the Lord did not want His people to make for themselves an image, an idol, of anything, and as a jealous Husband, He wanted His people to serve Him and Him alone, telling them that if they would love Him, He would show mercy unto their descendants for a thousand generations, a time span that will lead into eternity—vv. 4-6.
３
In the third commandment, the Lord, as their Beloved, did not want His people to use His name in an improper way, but He wanted them to honor His name and use it lovingly—v. 7.
４
In the fourth commandment, the Lord required His people to keep the Sabbath as a sign that they belonged to Him alone and that they were absolutely for Him—vv. 8-11.
５
In the fifth commandment, the Lord wanted them to remember Him as their source—v. 12.
C
The highest function of the law as an engagement paper, an engagement covenant, is to bring God's chosen people into oneness with Him, making them His enlarged and expanded expression, His testimony—Exo. 25:21-22; 38:21.
Ⅲ
Since the law was given as an engagement contract and the entire Bible is God's courting word, we should not try to keep it apart from loving the Lord and His word to become one with Him—John 21:15, 17; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; John 14:21, 23:
A
The truth of God coming into us to do everything for us and in us is the central concept in the Bible concerning the giving of the commandments—Rom. 3:19-20; Gal. 3:23-24; Exo. 19:4, 6; Isa. 40:31; Matt. 5:48; Phil. 2:12-13; Rom. 8:4.
B
As long as we love the Lord and His word and as long as we stay with Him to be infused with Him, He will do in us what we cannot do ourselves:
１
In order to practice the vision of the eternal economy of God, the highest peak of the divine revelation, we need to spend time to be infused with the Lord as our Husband, becoming more and more like Him to be His expression—S. S. 1:1-4; 6:13:
ａ
We keep the law of God by loving Him as our Husband—Matt. 22:37-40; 1 Cor. 2:9; 16:22; cf. Deut. 11:29; 27:12-13:
⑴
Whenever we tell the Lord that we love Him, He supplies us with His life, and this life enables us to become one with Him and makes Him one with us.
⑵
Then what we live out will be according to the law as His descrip-tion, definition, and expression.
ｂ
Because we love God, we also love His living word, which infuses His substance into us to cause us to glow with Him:
⑴
When Moses was on the top of Mount Horeb (Mount Sinai), he was not striving or working to fulfill the requirements of the law; rather, he was being infused with God by God's speaking with him, and his glowing face was simply a reflection of what God is—Exo. 34:28-29; cf. 2 Cor. 3:18—4:1.
⑵
God does not want a people who strive to keep the law; He wants a glowing people to express Him for His glory—Judg. 5:31; Matt. 13:43.
⑶
As we are infused with the Lord, we shall shine spontaneously to become His living portrait, His testimony.
⑷
Whenever we contact the Lord in a direct, intimate way, becoming one with Him, His word supplies us with life to cause us to grow, become His expression, and spontaneously live in a way which corresponds to what He is—John 5:39-40; 6:57.
２
Those who keep the law by loving God and His word to become one with Him have the living of a God-man to bear the image of God, being a portrait of God and a duplication of God.