Live 4 The LORD

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE vs COVENANT LOVE

 

There is an association made in the OT between keeping covenant and hesed that can be noted in several passages (Deut 7:9, 12; 2 Chron 6:14; Isa 54:10). For Moses, Isaiah and Ezra the idea of steadfast love and the idea of covenant are linked. 

 

The love of God is, and remains, covenant love. 

 

It is selective. It is focused. It endures. It nurtures growth. It is calculating and creative. It is entirely beneficent. It is disciplinary and corrective. It is steadfast, eternal. It is natural. It is expressive of who God is. It is consequential. It is promissory. And, it is conditional.

 

Covenant love is what a person experiences as he enters into relationship with God as God has ordained it.

 

Unconditional love is what a person experiences as he enters into relationship with God as humankind imagines it.

 

Covenant love is experienced as persons believe in the promises and propositions of the gospel, promises of forgiveness and salvation to those who believe, and of judgment on those who are callous, evil and unbelieving.

 

Unconditional love is experienced as persons reflect on the philosophical ideal of humanism, that man is essentially good, that it is the place of the love of God to inspire the best within the human spirit.

 

Covenant love is eternal. God extends himself in his covenant of grace to abide with humankind forever.

Unconditional love is transient, often an impossible ideal.

 

Unconditional love requires disconnecting feelings toward a person from their behaviors.

Covenant love considers the person and the behaviors together.

 

Covenant love requires a person experience the consequences of actions until repentance.

 

Unconditional love gives the "freedom" to make own choices, live own life as a person feels like living it

 

Covenant love confronts with the character of actions, challenges someone to acknowledge and change (repent), and offers a new heart, a new identity, a renewed mind, and a sustaining presence to give the power to overcome sinful desires/addictions. They may not regain all that has been lost or thrown away, but covenant love offers more than they had to begin with as far as hope and purpose in life are concerned. Covenant love is conditional.

 

Unconditional Love and Covenant Love: A Comparison (pepperdine.edu)