Read Deuteronomy
29-30 & Mark
16
To discover:
As you read note what is predicted about Israel’s
future.
To ponder:
This covenant is “in addition” to that at Horeb (29v1). Its
structure is the same, but detailing actual life in the land to the next
generation. When referring to the Mosaic or “old” covenant, we are therefore
referring to two agreements that combine to make one overall agreement (29v25).
As
previously, the present generations’ witness of God’s acts of deliverance and provision
are appealed to as testimony that the LORD is God and to be obeyed.
Significantly, we learn that God has not enabled Israel
to “understand” what they’ve seen. The language of verse 4 looks to Jesus’
description of why people don’t recognise the significance of his feeding the
four and five thousand (Mk 8v18). The point is the same. We should realise that
Jesus is “the LORD” our God.
It is
stressed that Israel
are in God’s “presence” as they are exhorted to “carefully follow the terms of
this covenant.” He is witness to their commitment, and “seals” (guarantees) the
covenant with “an oath” for future generations too.
Once more Israel
are warned against idolatry. Indeed, they are to keep one-another from turning
away from the LORD, ensuring “no root” grows up to “poison” the community (as
Heb 12v15).
In
particular, the people are warned against the self-delusion of assuming the
covenant means they are “safe” even though they go “their own way.” Such people
should instead be sure this will bring disaster on the land, and they will suffer
God’s burning wrath and zeal, being “singled out” for disaster according to the
covenant curses. This rebukes the assumption so prevalent in Jesus’ day and
that so easily arises within the church.
A prophetic
description of Israel’s
future follows: Future generations and foreigners will see the “calamities”
that fall on the land. Ironically, it will be like Sodom
and Gomorrah, which represented
God’s judgement on Gentile sin. The nations will ask “why”? And the response
will be that Israel
“abandoned” God’s covenant, provoking his wrath.
Verse 29 affirms that mystery
surrounds God’s purposes in all this, but that what he has revealed is to
encourage Israel’s
obedience. When scattered amongst the nations people will “take to heart”
what’s happened, perhaps by recalling these words. They will return to the LORD
and obey him wholeheartedly; and he will then restore them in compassion, and
even “circumcise” their hearts so that they and their descendents “love” him and
so “live,” obeying him and therefore prospering because he “delights” in them.
This looks to the new covenant work of rebirth by the Holy Spirit (Ezek
36v25-34, Jer 31v31-35, Rom 2v29), in which sin is “cut off” from the heart,
setting the person apart for God just as circumcision set them apart from the
nations.
As stated in verse 4, it is therefore only God who can make obedience
possible. So it is not “beyond reach” requiring Israel
to ascend to heaven as Moses on the mountain or cross a sea as the people did
the red sea. It is “near” because God is near: in their “mouth” as they teach
one-another his commands, and their “heart” if they look to him to do the inner
work he promised. Paul points out this is essentially the gospel in which the
Christian confesses God’s lordship in Christ, and believes he raised Jesus (Rom
10v5-10), implying faith in all that means for renewed inner life (Rom 6v4).
Therefore, where Moses solemnly calls “heaven and earth as witnesses” in
charging Israel to choose life (with echoes of Eden) so that she and her
children “may live,” we should hear the call to “love”, “listen to”, and “hold
fast” to Christ.
Praying it home:
Thank God for his work of regeneration by the Spirit that
enables us to love and obey him. Pray that you would be faithful in seeking to
keep not just yourself but others from turning away from the Lord.
Thinking further:
Ezek 36v25-34 and Jer 31v31-35 suggest regeneration or
rebirth in its fullest sense is a new covenant work of God in which he
permanently recreates our hearts so that they love and obey him in a way old
covenant believers were never able to (John 7v37-39). Nevertheless, Deuteronomy
30v14 hints that God would always enable old covenant believers who look to him
in faith, so that they could actually keep the covenant. This faith is
exemplified in David’s prayer in response to a realisation of his own sin:
“create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps
51v3-6, 10). This tells us once again that it is quite wrong to hold that the
old covenant was about meriting God’s favour by obedience whereas the new is
about receiving it through faith. In making provision for atonement, the old
clearly didn’t require perfection. As with the new, its obedience was always to
be an expression of faith in God’s promises that looked to him for that
atonement and for any ability to obey. As all these things foreshadowed Christ,
it was therefore ultimately faith in him.
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