The Electorate of Grace Text: Deuteronomy 7:7-11
Introduction: An Offense to Modern Piety
We live in an age that is allergic to divine sovereignty. Our democratic sensibilities, which we have allowed to become bloated and cancerous, demand a vote in every affair, including those that transpire in the throne room of heaven. The modern man, and sadly the modern evangelical, wants a God who is a cosmic gentleman, one who would never dream of choosing one over another without a very good, democratically-approved reason. He wants a God who elects based on a resume, who chooses based on foreseen merit, who loves because He finds something inherently lovable in us.
This passage in Deuteronomy is a direct assault on that entire way of thinking. It is an offense to our pride. It establishes a foundational truth that echoes from Genesis to Revelation: God's love is not a response to our value; it is the creator of our value. He does not love us because we are lovely; we become lovely because He loves us. This is the bedrock of the gospel. If we get this wrong, we get everything wrong. We exchange the solid rock of God's sovereign grace for the sinking sand of human merit, and the end of that road is either arrogance or despair.
Moses, standing before the second generation of the Exodus, on the plains of Moab, is preparing them to enter the Promised Land. This is a pep talk before the invasion. But it is a strange kind of pep talk. It is not, "You are the biggest and the best, and that is why you will win." It is the precise opposite. It is, "You are small and insignificant, and your victory will be entirely attributable to the God who, for His own mysterious reasons, set His affection upon you." This is not a message designed to puff them up; it is a message designed to make them God-besotted, God-dependent, and God-centered. And it is the same message we need to hear today, lest we begin to think that our salvation, our sanctification, or our final victory depends in any way on our own strength, our own numbers, or our own righteousness.
This passage is a brilliant display of the logic of the covenant. It lays out God's unmerited choice, His faithful action, His covenant character, and our required response. It is the grammar of grace, and we must learn to speak it fluently.
The Text
"Yahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. You shall know therefore that Yahweh your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to make them perish; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them."
(Deuteronomy 7:7-11 LSB)
The Negative Reason for Election (v. 7)
Moses begins by demolishing any basis for human pride.
"Yahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples," (Deuteronomy 7:7)
The first thing to notice is the intensely personal nature of God's choice. The phrase "set His affection on you" is a deep, covenantal term. This is not a detached, impersonal selection. This is the language of love, of desire. But Moses immediately cuts off the predictable human response, which is to ask, "Why me?" and then to invent a flattering answer.
God's choice was not based on their impressive numbers. In the ancient world, national greatness was measured by population and military might. A god's power was often thought to be tied to the success of his people. But Yahweh operates on a completely different principle. He is not a tribal deity who needs a strong nation to make Himself look good. He chooses the weak to display His strength. He chooses the few to show that victory comes from Him alone.
Israel was "the fewest of all peoples." This is not false humility; it is a statement of fact. They began as one childless couple, Abraham and Sarah. They went down into Egypt as a clan of seventy. And while they grew there, they were still dwarfed by the great empires surrounding them. God's choice of Israel was intentionally paradoxical. It was designed from the beginning to put His glory on display, not theirs. The Apostle Paul makes the same point about the New Covenant church: "For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:26-27). God's electoral logic is consistent across the ages. He picks the junior varsity team so that when they win the championship, everyone knows who the coach is.
The Positive Reason for Election (v. 8)
If the reason for God's choice is not in them, then where is it? Moses provides the stunningly simple answer.
"but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 7:8)
The reason God loved Israel is because God loved Israel. This is a tautology, and it is a glorious one. The cause of His love is located entirely within Himself. It is not a reaction; it is an action. It is not elicited; it is sovereignly given. This is the definition of grace. Grace is not God finding a spark of goodness in us and fanning it into a flame. Grace is God creating a fire where there was nothing but cold ash.
And this love is not a fleeting emotion; it is a covenant-keeping love. He loved them, and therefore He "kept the oath which He swore to your fathers." His love is the foundation of His faithfulness. God's promises are not based on the shifting sands of our performance but on the bedrock of His own unchanging character. He swore an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and because He is a faithful God, He will move heaven and earth to keep it. This is why our ultimate security rests not in the strength of our grip on Him, but in the strength of His grip on us.
This love and faithfulness are then demonstrated in a mighty act of redemption. He "brought you out with a strong hand." The Exodus was not a negotiated settlement. It was a jailbreak, a divine invasion. God did not politely ask Pharaoh to let His people go; He shattered the gods of Egypt, broke the back of the most powerful empire on earth, and plundered them on the way out. This is the pattern of salvation. God redeems us "from the house of slavery." For them, it was literal bondage in Egypt. For us, it is spiritual bondage to sin and Satan. In both cases, the redemption is a powerful, unilateral act of God. We do not wander out of slavery; we are rescued.
The Character of the Covenant God (v. 9-10)
From this foundational reality of God's electing love, Moses draws a necessary conclusion about God's character.
"You shall know therefore that Yahweh your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to make them perish;" (Deuteronomy 7:9-10)
The "therefore" is crucial. Because God has chosen you out of sovereign love and redeemed you by His mighty power, you must understand who He is. He is "the faithful God." His defining characteristic in His relationship with His people is His steadfast loyalty. He "keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness." That word "lovingkindness" is the great Hebrew word hesed. It is a word that is almost untranslatable, combining the ideas of love, loyalty, mercy, and covenant faithfulness. It is grace with grit. It is a love that will not let go.
And this hesed has a long tail. It extends "to a thousand generations." This is a direct echo of the second commandment (Ex. 20:6). God's grace is not a single-generation affair. He is a God of families, of generations, of covenant succession. He intends for His grace to flow down through the lines of faith. This is why we baptize our children. We are marking them as members of the covenant community, placing them under the cascade of this multi-generational promise.
But there is a condition attached: "with those who love Him and keep His commandments." This is not a contradiction of the freeness of His grace. It is the necessary fruit of it. We do not keep His commandments in order to earn His love. We keep His commandments because we have received His love. Obedience is the family resemblance of the children of God. It is the evidence, not the cause, of our election. Love for God and obedience to His law are the vital signs of a regenerated heart.
And this faithful God has two sides. He is a God of ferocious loyalty to His own, and He is a God of implacable justice toward His enemies. He "repays those who hate Him to their faces." This is not a popular sentiment in our effeminate age. We want a God who is all hesed and no wrath. But that is not the God of the Bible. The same faithfulness that guarantees His blessing upon His people guarantees His judgment upon those who set themselves against Him. To "hate" God here is not simply an emotional dislike; it is to reject His authority, to rebel against His law, and to set oneself up as a rival god. And God will not be mocked. His justice is not slow or forgetful. "He will not delay... He will repay him to his face." This establishes the great antithesis that runs through all of history: the seed of the woman versus the seed of the serpent, the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of darkness. There is no neutral ground.
The Consequent Obligation (v. 11)
The entire argument culminates in a command. Theology always leads to doxology, and doxology always leads to obedience.
"Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them." (Deuteronomy 7:11)
Another "therefore." This is the logical conclusion of everything that has come before. Because God has loved you for no reason in yourselves, because He has redeemed you from slavery, because He is a faithful God of blessing to those who love Him and a just God of wrath to those who hate Him, therefore, you must obey Him. Our obedience is a response of grateful love. It is not the drudgery of a slave trying to appease a tyrant, but the joyful service of a son honoring a gracious father.
Notice the comprehensiveness of the command. It includes "the commandment and the statutes and the judgments." This covers all of life. The law of God is not a series of disconnected rules for the religious part of our lives. It is the blueprint for a whole society, for ethics, for worship, for civil government, for family life. God's Word is to be the standard for every thought, word, and deed.
The Gospel According to Moses
This passage is pure gospel. The logic here is the logic of the cross. Why did God send His Son to die for us? Not because we were many, or strong, or wise. We were spiritually dead, slaves to sin, and haters of God by nature (Ephesians 2:1-3).
He did it "because He loved us." The cross is the ultimate expression of God's sovereign, uncaused love. "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). The reason for the cross is found in the heart of God, and nowhere else.
And through the cross, He has brought us out "with a strong hand" from the house of slavery to sin. Jesus is our greater Moses who has accomplished a greater Exodus. He has redeemed us not with silver or gold, but with His own precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Therefore, we know that He is the faithful God, who keeps His new covenant with us. His hesed in Christ extends not just for a thousand generations, but for all eternity. And in response to this staggering grace, we are called to love Him and keep His commandments. The law is not abolished for the Christian; it is established. We now have the Holy Spirit, who writes the law on our hearts, enabling us to obey not for justification, but out of justification.
And the antithesis remains. For those who love Him, who are found in Christ, there is covenant blessing and lovingkindness forever. But for those who hate Him, who refuse to bow the knee to King Jesus, there is a repayment to their face. The final judgment is not delayed; it is coming. The choice set before Israel on the plains of Moab is the same choice set before every person today: receive the sovereign love of God in Christ and walk in His ways, or face the just and terrible repayment of the faithful God.