Why is God so relentlessly committed to the project of salvation? Why does YHWH persevere in covenant faithfulness when Israel has proven so unable to fulfill her calling?
In this installment of our introduction to the Bible, God declares his answer: love. God loves so dearly that he cannot abide humanity’s suffering. “For my sake…,” says God, “I will blot out your transgressions.”
And with these words come ultimate hope and comfort! We are loved based not on “us,” but on God. And thus love itself is reliable in the most elemental sense. Love is forever present, because love is God’s inescapable disposition towards his creation.
This relentless love manifests itself in God’s deliverance of Israel from captivity in Babylon. But such deliverance is only partial. Israel is restored to the land of promise. But the full salvation of God does not follow.
Instead God announces that a “new thing” is coming. God will be faithful to save. But salvation will not be ultimately accomplished in the manner Israel expected (monarchy and Temple). And it is to that “new thing” that we turn in our next episode.
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