Deuteronomy 30
In chapter 29, Moses assembled the people to reaffirm the covenant and give an extensive warning about the consequences of disobedience, with special note of the flippancy with which some might view this covenantal call to thorough obedience (19, 20). A key reality is contained in verse 4, “Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear” though they had been the beneficiaries of “many signs and wonders” (3). We find in this revealed observation both the need for sovereign intervention and the real culpability of humanity in not responding in worship to the call of God. A second key is found in verse 29 which lifts the lid a bit on this same tension: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” Those to whom an effectual operation of grace in producing true worship are enrolled in the secret counsel of God, but responsibility for obedient response to revelation is the duty of every person.
I. God gave clear commands for righteous living as the people of God.
A. The passage beginning with verse 11 assumes that a captivity has occurred and the promised curses have been executed and God is restoring the remnant (30:1-5).
B. The restoration itself assumes that God has circumcised the hearts of those who are restored (30:6).
All humanity resists each level of revelation given them until the Lord performs the work of giving a responsive heart. Neither the compelling call of the natural world (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:18-20) nor the clear gospel call of special revelation (Deuteronomy 28:15, 58; 29:9; Romans 10:21; Acts 28:25-28) will bring faith apart from the changed heart (Acts 13:48; Ephesians 1:11-13; 2 Thessalonians 2:13, 14).
C. The failure to receive the truth and believe it from the heart is not owing to any lack of clarity in the revelation of truth nor in the power with which expectations are announced (30:11).
“The command which I command you today is not too difficult, nor is it out of reach.” Both the blessings and the curses have been announced with no subtlety, no obtuseness, and no deceptive teasing. God sets His blessings and curses forth with an appeal and a warning to be engaged in mind and will: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity and death and adversity” (15). Only a recalcitrant, adamant, careless resistance could seek to avoid, dismiss, or even scoff at immediate and perpetual conformity to this divine revelation. Moses has pictured this person as saying, “I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart in order to destroy the watered land with the dry” (29:19). Such arrogant dismissiveness will be justly rewarded with death and destruction.
II. All commands are summarized in love to God (16).
A. Love to God can be commanded for it is the most compelling and beautiful of all duties.
Duty is a lovely word and a captivating concept for it assumes the goodness and the compelling nature of the particular duty. Jesus said it was the greatest commandment and summarized them all: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Subservient to that and dependent on it is the summary of the second table of the commandments, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40). The entirety of the Law and the prophets hangs on these commands.
B. To love Him implies that we see all His words and all His requirements as intrinsically good for they flow from His character and honor His desires.
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- “Walk in His ways,” that is, the ways He has set forth for us that perfectly conform to His authority as Creator, Sustainer, Covenant-maker, Redeemer, and End. “To know God and enjoy Him forever” is the ultimate purpose of our sojourn in this world and the way He has set before us is designed to accomplish that.
- “Keep His commandments and statutes and judgments,” that is, the holy expectations He has of His image-bearers and the manner in which they reflect the relationships within the triune God. In light of the intrinsic invariability of God’s revelations and moral expectations, Jude admonished, warning against false teachers to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). They were to exert themselves to the point of agony in light of the finality and the vital content of the gospel that resides in the person of Christ that was given to them by revelation. It is unchanging and unalterable and to depart from it is death.
C. Obedience operates to produce true life: “That you may live and multiply, etc.”
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- The goal of the commands in their ultimate intent is to give eternal life to the one who obeys them without faltering at any point. Humanity in its entirety already has fallen in Adam, and thus the law was “added because of transgressions” for the “Scripture has confined all under sin” (Galatians 3:19, 22). “The law entered that the offense might abound” (Romans 5:20). We are not under the blessing of the law as an avenue for life, but under its curse for the certainty of death.
- Scripture teaches, however, that a true difference exists between those who cherish personal comfort, pleasure, and autonomy in disregard to God’s law and those who present themselves to God in genuine worship and strive through the renewing of their minds by the Spirit of God to be conformed to the divine character (Romans 12:1, 2). In verse 20 Moses gave further assurance, “By loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers.” Loving God and seeking to obey His instructions for sanctification (2 John 4-6) does produce a joyful, stable, and productive life in this present age and makes us anticipate the coming age with more sustained and profound hope (Titus 2:11-15).
III. God gave a clear warning for disobedience (17, 18).
A. As we see throughout Deuteronomy, obedience and disobedience are heart matters.
“If your heart turns away” the course of pride and self-aggrandizement will naturally follow: “and you will not obey.” Their particular manifestation of disobedience in their context would involve worship of the pagan gods that allowed pursuit of illegitimate pleasures and required abominable practices (17). God told them it would happen (28:47-50 et al).
B. That course of life would result in destruction of security and protection from God.
“You will not prolong your days in the land” (18). Not only would He not bless them, but He would become their enemy. “You shall surely perish.” Nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?” (29:24). God will find delight in destroying them as He found delight in prospering them (28:63). “The Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you.” God receives glory in the damnation of the wicked for such an action manifests His purity, holiness, and justice. He receives praise, admiration, and glory in the salvation of sinners for the content of His grace finds moral warrant in the execution of His purity, holiness, and justice in the vicarious death of the last Adam (Romans 5:21).
IV. God reaffirmed the clarity of the command and the consequence of disobedience.
He reiterates what he emphasized in verse 11, “Not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.”
A. God treats them as rational beings who can hear and understand words.
They can perceive the difference between a blessing based on obedience and a curse based on disobedience. God has not hidden any of this. Moses, in delivering this revelation, grasps the abundant clarity of God’s insistent admonitions to obedience and the startling nature of His threats about disobedience. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death” (19).
B. The accompanying admonition assumes that by the human will, choices for good and evil, for life or death, for obedience or disobedience are made: “Choose life in order that you may live.”
The will is the action that one takes on the basis of his affections. You do what you love, given the multiplicity of factors and the circumstantial hindrances involved in any choice. Because they did not have a heart of love to God, they would not choose life; they would choose perishing through an aggressive course of increasingly perverse disobedience.
C. The gospel presentation comes with the same plainness and clarity of revelation.
It calls upon sinners to confess the truth of God’s verdict against fallen humanity and the provision He has made in Christ for forgiveness. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved” (Acts 16:31). Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). The key, however, is that gospel proclamation falls on ears controlled by a heart that is alien to the love of God. So, Paul emphasized the key: “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth [arising from the belief of the heart] confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10). Gospel proclamation must be plain and the assurance of forgiveness through belief must be set forth with assurance. The need for God’s sovereign giving of a new heart, however, must permeate both proclamation and exhortation.
POEM
From Heaven it came; through Moses God spoke.
On earth it is plain, nor heaven invoke.
The sea does not hide it, each syllable clear—
Acknowledge that God’s word is here.
It rings in your heart, possesses your mind.
Its words will impart true life and a kind
That prospers the land with abundance for all
And relishes God’s sovereign call.
Resist the command, forsake and you die;
Cast out of the land, for hearts gone awry.
Scattered to perish, dispossessed to danger,
Under God’s eternal anger.
So choose life by love to God for His grace.
Your heart peers above to view the Lord’s face.
True faith will obey and will cling to His word,
Will cherish each promise you heard.
One lived with such mirth, Son of God and man.
Virgin-born to earth, God’s unblemished Lamb.
For our sins He died, for our sins crucified,
Now risen to the Father’s side.
He kept God’s commands, each promise embraced.
The heavenly land was gained for our race.
Our joy was before Him when He bore our plight.
Captivity He put to flight.
Praise the Father for such love
Praise the Son Who reigns above;
Praise our Comforter, Heavenly Dove;
Righteous dwelling, ne’er removed.
