The God of the Bible is passionate; it was his holy love that brought salvation down to earth. Jewish people have understood this for thousands of years. Listen to this beautiful prayer, part of the Sabbath liturgy prayed on Friday nights in households around the world:

“With everlasting and abounding love, thou hast loved the house of Israel, thy people. The Torah and commandments, statutes, and judgments hast thou taught us. Therefore, O Lord our God, when we lie down and when we rise up, we will meditate. We will, with focused attention, look to your word.”

“Yes, we will rejoice in the words of thy Torah and in thy commandments forever, for they are our life and the length of our days. And we will meditate on them day and night. May thou never take away thy love from us. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who loves thy people Israel.”

It was God’s great love that brought him down and caused him to extend his mighty right hand and deliver Israel from the house of bondage.

The LORD said to Moses, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex 3:7-8).

The theme of God’s holy love uniquely ties Passover and Pentecost together.

Yet that is not necessarily how we read the Bible of Jesus. We think Israel was trying to earn their salvation by keeping the Law. That is not what the scriptures teach. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob redeemed them at Passover and revealed himself at Pentecost. First salvation, then covenant. Both are acts of holy love. The covenant at Sinai was not works but his ways, not “law” in the Evangelical sense of the word but expressions of his holy love.

With this in mind, let’s read Deuteronomy 6:6-9.

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Peter applies this understanding to the church in 1 Peter 2:9.

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. Paul echoes this sentiment about followers of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:26.

But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

What a caricature we have made of the God of Israel as the stern, exacting lawgiver. What an injustice! Dear friends, by his own words and deeds he is revealed to be an ardent lover. The Lover of your soul.

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.

Love for them, love with them. These two festivals are inseparable. Leading us to again ask, “Why?” What was the aim of his redeeming love? Was it just to get his people out of captivity? Was it only to get them to the land of promise? I suggest there is something far more immediate and far more potent than just getting these people out of or into a place.

He desired intimacy with them. The goal of the redemption from Egypt was to bring his beloved to himself.

Intimacy is the result of redemption. It is followed by instruction which comes by way of revelation. Why did the LORD God give instruction? Because he wanted the intimacy with Israel to be uninterrupted.

Selah.

He wanted Israel to have the fullness of fellowship with him and to experience his glory continuously. This is why he says to her, You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. (Lev 20:26). He goes on then, to explain to them what it means to be holy.

Sin does not abrogate God’s covenant, but sin will alienate the intimacy you have with him.

And so it is after his great deliverance, at the mount of his choosing, that he gives his bride Torah—his guidance, directions, and instructions on how to continue in unabated, unmediated intimacy with her lover. He establishes the whole sacrificial system because they will fall short. And when they do slip from the presence of his glory they can be restored.

Turn with me to Exodus 29. In two verses, the Holy God expresses and summarizes his highest priority in his own words.

I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God (45-46).

Dear friends, the Bible reveals that God is a God in pursuit of a people. He was then, he is now. He is after you, and I cannot explain why he should like or even love such as you or me.

Listen to the way we give our testimonies. I did this, I did that, and I went here, I went there. Boring. You know what got me excited? When I realized I didn’t find God at all. I just stopped long enough and he humbled me enough to where he could find me and lay hold of me. He was pursuing me because he loves me with everlasting love.

How do I know he loves me? Because he gave up that which was most precious to him, his only begotten son.

God is in pursuit of a people. That is why he redeemed Israel, to bring them to himself. That is why he instructs them so his fellowship with them will be unbroken. It is the same for you and me, in Jesus.

Look at Exodus 25:8 where God said to Moses, Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.

You need to have this text written deep in your heart and mind. The Holy One redeemed a people so they could come out of captivity and live a life of liberty. How? By constructing a sanctuary where his presence could take up permanent residence with them. And it was portable—wherever he would go, they would go. And wherever they would go, he would go.

Build me a sanctuary that I might dwell in you is the prophetic Word of the LORD to the church today. Do you hear him?