Conditional covenant love. Not unconditional covenant love.
He has chosen to love me but will destroy me if I don’t obey. If I listen and obey He will keep covenant and merciful love, otherwise he will destroy me.
God’s saving and covenant love is conditional upon obedient faith; God’s universal Creator-love is not.
God may destroy the rebellious person’s earthly security, covenant standing, or ultimately permit the loss of salvation, while still desiring that person’s repentance rather than his death.
By “love” it means covenant love: protection, communion, blessing, and salvation, then it is conditional. God says that obedience preserves the covenant, while apostasy brings destruction.
God’s covenant fellowship and its promised blessings are conditional upon faithful response. Deuteronomy explicitly says that God maintains covenant love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, while rejecting Him brings destruction and judgment.
for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 6:15, RSV2CE)
For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. (Deuteronomy 7:4, RSV2CE)
19 And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you this day that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 8:19–20, RSV2CE)
6 “For you are a people holy 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 that are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; 8 but it is because the Lord loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and merciful love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them; he will not be slack with him who hates him, he will repay him to his face. 11 You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day. (Deuteronomy 7:6–11, RSV2CE)
12 “And because you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the merciful love which he swore to your fathers to keep; 13 he will love you, bless you, and multiply you (Deuteronomy 7:12–13, RSV2CE)
5 Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him (Deuteronomy 8:5–6, RSV2CE)
26 As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of man. 27 They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise as it was in the days of Lot—they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, 29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from heaven and destroyed them all—30 so will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed. (Luke 17:26–30, RSV2CE)
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