| Brueggemann comments about the the covenant between God and Israel as one that is utterly giving and utterly demanding.
I suggest that E. P. Sander's term covenantal nomism is about right, because it subsumes law (Greek nomos) under the rubric of covenant. By inference, I suggest that grace must also be subsumed under covenant. Covenant is the larger, working category through which this witness understands it life with YHWH, which entails a full relationship of self-giving and self-regarding in which embrace of commandments (in obedience) and embrace of love (in trust) are of a piece. To forgo the umbrella notion of covenant and to sort out cleanly "grace" and "law" is a distortion of the way in which the Old Testament speaks about this relationship. Such a false distinction may serve on the one hand to remove grace from the expectant, insistent relationship of covenant, or it may serve to reduce covenant simply to law. Either maneuver is a distortion of the testimony and self-understanding of Israel.
I'm writing this on Reformation Sunday. This is often a day when many try to make the separation between the law and the gospel. Thus some talk of the 'old' covenant and the 'new' covenant (old testament and new testament). And yet, for there to be a relationship built up within covenant, it will mean that grace and law will abound. We can go about a life lifted up by our gracious God and yet, when we are in such a relationship, there must be a way to walk within this new life. The covenant is in place - forever in place. With that being true, the people within a covenantal relationship are a people who can be identified by how they are a people. The law within the covenant is a gift to nurture our identity as a people in covenant with God. I quickly make a jump to baptism - a sheer gift. A gift that also demands a life that has a shape to it. I suppose you could call that law - of some sort. Something that helps us walk the walk.
Connection: Gracious love grips us and pulls us. This is not just into a 'nice' feeling. It pulls us into a gracious love made manifest in terms of our lives.
O God, who makes our humanity shine with life, you have given us a way to walk and a way to shine forth within our eternal relationship with you. Continue to shape us. Amen.
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