Love Never Keeps Promises, Only Promises Keep Love

 Love Never Keeps Promises, Only Promises Keep Love

Why the Foundation of Human Love is Not Feeling, but Commitment

---

Introduction

Since the fall of humanity into sin, our ability to love perfectly has been tainted. Human love becomes fragile, inconsistent, and vulnerable to self-interest. In this condition, God no longer bases His relationship with humanity on easily forgotten "words of love," but on eternal covenantal promises. This principle applies not only to the relationship between humans and God but also to interpersonal relationships—including marriage.

---

1. Love Never Keeps Promises

Love, in the sense of human feeling, is fluctuating. It can strengthen in times of joy and weaken in the midst of difficulty. The biblical narrative is full of examples of human infidelity:

- Israel repeatedly forgot their love for God and turned to idols.

- David, called "a man after God's own heart," fell into adultery and murder.

- Peter, who claimed he was ready to die for Jesus, denied Him three times.

Human love, without a binding commitment, is incapable of keeping its own promises.

---

2. Only Promises Keep Love

Because of the unreliability of human love, God solidified His relationship with His people through covenantal promises. These promises become the sturdy framework for fragile love. For example:

- The Covenant with Abraham: God promised to bless his descendants, even though Abraham himself had failed.

- The Story of David and Jonathan: Their relationship is often misunderstood as a romantic love story. In fact, the Bible explicitly calls their bond a "covenant" (1 Samuel 18:3). What saved Mephibosheth, Jonathan's descendant, was not David's love which may have faded, but the promise he had once made.

- The New Covenant: God fulfilled His love through the promise of salvation in Jesus, which does not depend on human response.

---

3. Why Love is Not a Sacrament, but the Promise is Counted as Love in Marriage

In the sacrament of marriage, the Church does not bless the subjective and unstable feeling of love. What is blessed is the vow of promise uttered by both partners before God and the congregation.

- Marriage is a sacrament not because two people "love each other," but because they promise to love each other for better or for worse.

- When feelings of love wane, the marriage promise becomes the support that calls them back to faithfulness, sacrifice, and renewal of commitment.

- In other words, the promise is the vessel that contains and sustains love.

---

4. Practical Application

- In Our Relationship with God: Our faith rests not on our fluctuating spiritual feelings, but on God's unchangeable promises.

- In Marriage: When conflict comes, remember that what unites you is not the feeling of happiness, but the commitment to the promise you once made.

- In Friendship and Ministry: Like David and Jonathan, build relationships based on solid commitment, not merely on fleeting feelings.

---

Conclusion

"Love never keeps promises, only promises keep love" is not a cynical statement, but an honest acknowledgment of human limitation and divine grace. In a fallen world, true love is not measured by the intensity of feeling, but by faithfulness to a promise. It is there that God's grace works: He replaces our helplessness with His eternal faithfulness.

---

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself."

2 Timothy 2:13

---

God's Love Does Not Need a Promise to Be Fulfilled.

God's Promise Does Not Need Love to Be Kept.

Because Both Are His Essence.

Amid human failure, we tend to project our limitations onto God. We think: "God keeps His promises because He loves us" — as if His love were the cause and the promise the effect. Or conversely, as if He needed to make a promise to bind Himself to keep loving. This understanding, while sounding pious, actually limits God's absoluteness.

1. God's Love is Nature, Not Response

God is Love (1 John 4:8). His love is not an emotion that rises or falls, nor is it a choice that can change. His love is the essence of His very being. Therefore, God does not need a promise to keep loving. The promises of the Old and New Testaments are not tools to force God to love, but rather a progressive revelation of His character which has been full of love from eternity. His love does not increase because of a promise, nor does it decrease if the promise were absent.

2. God's Promise is a Reflection of Character, Not a Strategy

God is also Truth and Faithfulness (Deuteronomy 32:4). When He makes a promise, He keeps it not merely because "He loves us," but because He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). The promise is kept because our unfaithfulness cannot change His faithful nature. His promise is a statement of the absoluteness of His character. If hypothetically there were no "love" as a feeling, His faithful nature would still demand that He keep His Word.

3. Union in the Divine Essence

At the level of God's transcendent reality, Promise and Love are one. They are not two separate things within Himself. His Will (manifested in the Promise) is the perfect expression of His Essence (which is Love). This is what radically distinguishes God's way of working from humanity's:

- Humanity: Needs a promise (external commitment) to support love (internal feeling) which is fragile.

- God: His Promise and His Love are one essential unity flowing from His unchanging self.

Therefore, the entire biblical narrative is not the story of a God trying hard to "keep a promise because of love," but rather the revelation of Who He truly is. His promises are a window for humanity to see His essence, which is Love and Faithfulness itself. We are saved not because we are worthy of love or because we can arouse His love, but because He is who He is — and that is the highest guarantee for everything He has promised.

---

The Biblical Narrative: A Reminder of Human Frailty That Only Remembers God's Love and Promise When Falling

The entire story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, can be read as a mirror that continually shows one consistent pattern: humans only truly remember God's love and promise when they are at their weakest point.

1. The Pattern of Suffering-Cry-Salvation

The history of Israel moves in an unending cycle: rebellion, suffering, crying out, and salvation. At the peak of success and power, humans tend to forget God. Yet when they are crushed by enemies, struck by famine, or have lost everything, only then do they cry out, "Where are Your promises? Where is Your everlasting faithful love?" (cf. Lamentations 2:18-19). They demand that God remember His promise, precisely at the moment they themselves have forgotten their own obligations.

2. Love and Promise as an Emergency "Safety Net"

For fallen humanity, the concept of God's love and promise often functions not as a foundation for daily life, but as an emergency system. We are like a child who only calls their father's name when they have fallen into a well, but forgets his existence while busily playing in the garden. Narratives like Hannah (1 Samuel 1), Jonah (Jonah 2), and the psalmist in many laments (Psalms 22, 130) show this pattern: a cry born from the abyss of despair, which suddenly remembers the character of God that should have been their daily anchor.

3. The God Who is Faithful Even When Treated as a Backup

What is amazing in the biblical narrative is God's response. Even though His people only make Him their last resort, He still hears their cries. His faithfulness does not depend on human faithfulness (2 Timothy 2:13). When humans finally look back to His promise, they find that God has never left them (Deuteronomy 31:6). His promise remains standing, even when humans only remember it at the last second.

4. From Situational Remembrance to Solid Faith

This pattern is not to be accepted, but to be realized and transcended. The Bible records human fragility not to make us despair, but to encourage us to build a faith that does not depend solely on feelings or situations. The goal is for us to live in awareness of God's promise and love at all times—both in joy and sorrow—so that the foundation of our lives is no longer our ability to "remember when we fall," but on God's unchanging character.

Thus, the Bible is an honest narrative about who we are—forgetful and fragile creatures—and simultaneously a majestic declaration of Who God is—faithful and compassionate, even when we come to Him only in a broken state.

---

Not Only Faithful: God's Sorrow Over Human Forgetfulness

True. The biblical narrative does not only depict a God who passively waits faithfully, but also a God who is sorrowful when His people forget His essence as Love and Faithfulness, and so easily turn to idols.

1. God Wounded by Unfaithfulness

God is not an abstract principle or an emotionless cosmic force. Throughout the prophetic books, especially Hosea, we hear the wounded heart of God:

> "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?... My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused." (Hosea 11:8)

This is the cry of a betrayed "husband," a rejected "father." His sorrow arises precisely because His essence is love. If He were not love, human betrayal would not wound Him.

2. Anger Born from Rejected Love

God's anger (often misunderstood as cruelty) is often an expression of the sorrow of rejected love. When His people forsake Him—the fountain of living water—to dig broken cisterns (Jeremiah 2:13), His response is not the cold anger of a tyrant, but the blazing jealousy of a lover (Exodus 34:14). This divine jealousy is the other side of His total love; He desires the best for His people and is grieved to see them destroying themselves by worshipping empty idols.

3. The Miracle of Grace: Still Loving Even When Hurt

This is the unfathomable paradox: Even though God is sorrowful and angry over human unfaithfulness, the essence of His love and faithfulness does not change. He still opens a way for repentance. The covenant promises are not revoked by Him.

> "For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you." (Isaiah 54:7-8)

God's sorrow does not end in despair, but becomes the reason for a deeper act of salvation, the pinnacle of which is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. On the cross, God's sorrow over human sin and His unshakable love met and were resolved.

Conclusion: A Call to Recognize His Heart

Therefore, remembering God's promise and love only when we fall not only demonstrates our fragility but also wounds the heart of Him who loves us. The biblical narrative invites us to level up: from merely using God as a safety net, to loving Him as a response to His love, and to sharing His sorrow when we and the world around us turn away from Him.

We are called not only to believe that God is faithful, but also to recognize His heart that is grieved by betrayal, and to learn faithfulness as our loving response to Him.

---

A very important point and one of the most difficult issues in Old Testament theology—often misunderstood as God's "cruelty"—and places it in the proper frame: the framework of His greater love to keep the promise of salvation for all humanity.

Let us unpack this truth.

Misunderstood Wrath: Behind Every Episode Lies a Plan of Salvation

True. Every act of God's judgment in the Old Testament is not a random outburst of anger, but a necessary surgical action to protect the "promised seed" (Genesis 3:15) that would bring the Messiah, the Savior of the entire world.

1. The Flood (Genesis 6-9): Cutting Out the Cancer of Wickedness That Nearly Destroyed Everything

Imagine a world where "...every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time" (Genesis 6:5). Sin had become like a malignant cancer that almost eradicated the entire "image of God" in humanity. If left unchecked, there would be no humanity left to save.

- God's Action: Judging the world with a flood.

- Its Frame of Love: Saving humanity itself from total extinction due to its own sin. By starting over with righteous Noah, God ensured that the lineage for the Savior remained. His love for all humanity yet to be born in the future was the reason for an action that seemed "cruel" to that already irredeemably corrupt generation.

2. Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19): Protecting the Covenant Lineage

Lot, Abraham's nephew, lived in Sodom. If the massive influence of Sodom's sin (including the attempted rape of the angels) was allowed to persist, Lot's family—which was part of the covenant lineage—would be assimilated and destroyed morally and spiritually.

- God's Action: Burning those cities.

- Its Frame of Love: Protecting the seed of Abraham's covenant from which Christ would be born. This was a divine quarantine to prevent the spread of a "virus" of sin that would kill the promise of salvation for all nations (including us today).

3. The Destruction of the Canaanite Nations (Book of Joshua): Preserving the Purity of Salvific Worship

This is the most frequently attacked part. Let's look at the context:

- The Canaanite nations (like the Amorites) were not innocent people. The Bible records their cruel practices, which included child sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21) and destructive sexual rituals. Their iniquity was "full" or "complete" (Genesis 15:16).

- The Goal Was Not Ethnic, But Worship. If these nations were not removed, they would quickly draw Israel into idol worship and their cruel practices (as eventually happened).

- God's Action: Commanding their destruction.

- Its Frame of Love: Protecting Israel as the "vessel" in which God's Word, the Law, and ultimately the Messiah would be born. If Israel failed to be a pure "vessel" due to contamination by Canaanite idolatry, then the plan of salvation for all humanity—including the judged nations themselves—would totally fail.

Imagine If Not...

As you said, imagine if the nations around Israel were not dealt with:

- The worship of Baal and Canaanite deities would have mixed with the worship of Yahweh.

- Child sacrifice would have become the norm.

- David's lineage would have been broken or contaminated.

- There would be no Jesus born in Bethlehem from a theologically pure lineage.

- No redemption of sin on the cross.

- No salvation for anyone—neither for Israelites nor for people of other nations.

Conclusion: A Love Greater Than We Understand

What modern people see as God's "cruelty" is actually the deepest manifestation of His global and trans-generational love. He sacrificed the few (nations already consumed by sin and rejecting repentance) to save the many—all of humanity throughout the ages who would believe through Abraham's offspring, Jesus Christ.

This is a divine perspective that surpasses our limited human understanding. We view things from the standpoint of an individual in one era, while God works on the broad canvas of history, where His temporary and local judgments are always servants to His eternal and universal salvation.

> "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)

👉Read Other Article (Click or Tap Here)

God bless,  

2 October 2025  

Mantiri AAM