All through the Bible, the presence of Moses is felt. And though he’s not mentioned until Exodus 2:2, he had written the book of Genesis, God’s authoritative and foundational story of who we are, how we got here, why things are as bad as they are and, yet, why we can hope anyway.

Deuteronomy reveals how the Lord continued to create, sustain, and redeem His people at this crucial time in salvation history.

Though they were the chosen people, though they had entered freely into the covenant with the Lord, they didn’t keep up their end of the deal, which really came down to one thing.

God called them out, the seed, the descendants of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And with these descendants the Lord established His covenant.

The apostle Paul, in seeking to deal with the heresy of the Galatians, pointed back to Abraham’s call, showing it to be an early expression of what God’s intentions had always been: the gospel to the world.

With obedience so central to the whole Bible, what then is legalism? What factors can turn an attempt to be faithful to God and to His Word and commandments into the trap of legalism?

The same freedom, the freedom inherent in love, that led to Lucifer’s fall in heaven led to humanity’s fall on earth, as well.

God cannot force love; the moment He does it’s no longer love. Hence, when God created intelligent and rational beings in heaven and on earth with the ability to love, the risk always existed that they might not love Him back.