Deuteronomy 12
As the nation approaches the land to take possession of it, they must make it truly a HOLY LAND. The Redeemer will come through the nation. An absolute standard of righteousness, conformity to God’s character and authority, must determine their lives, their worship, and the rhythm of their year. Though this will repress sinful lusts, wandering moral escapades, inventive styles of worship, and intrinsic susceptibility to sinful inventiveness, this righteousness manifested in true worship will give them joy, happy families, safety, and cultural thriving. They will be the people of God, the envy of the earth.
I. Verses 1–4 give God’s statutes concerning the utter destruction of all the places and materials of false worship in the land.
A. Moses gives another set of instructions concerning their entrance into the land.
They are absolutes of command: “statutes” means the proposition is unchangeable and to be the absolute measuring line of obedience. “Judgments” means that the statute is based on undeniable reality and is perfectly fit for unvarying execution. There is only one God: He is creator, sustainer, redeemer, filled with mercy, and, at the same, unvarying in justice that accords with His infinite excellence and the corresponding infinite guilt that accrues to those who invent and worship other gods.
B. In light of that, they were to “carefully observe” all that the Lord commanded as they entered and possessed the land.
The command was in force as long as they lived on earth (1).
C. The command of entrance into the land began with absolute destruction of every place where false worship occurred.
God’s creation in its awe-inspiring grandeur was being used to ignore God and establish systemic rebellion against Him (2). God will brook no rivals to the worship due to Him alone and he will not spare any who entice others to compromise this absolute (cf. 13:6–11).
D. The intrinsic perversity and irrationality of using non-living, static, created things as a substitute for the Living God must be eradicated (3).
Every rock, tree, pillar, object of human art, and deified image should be utterly destroyed. No remnant of it was to remain; no sentiment of toleration, no curiosity about its meaning, no admiration of the craftmanship was to deter their utter pulverization of these pretend-gods. “The Lord your God is a jealous God” (Exodus 20:4–6) supports the original giving of the Ten Commandments. A way of life, thought, moral energy, religious relativism, and self-justification lay beneath all this variety of self-made veneration of the creature—thoughts and actions that in themselves merited death and condemnation (Romans 1:21–25). Moses, speaking on the authority of clear and reinforced revelation said, “You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God” (4). (cf. 11:31, 32).
II. Verses 5–7 gives clear assurance that they will have a specific place in which their national corporate worship will take place.
God will set aside a place (eventually Jerusalem) and establish the times when the entire redeemed community will join together in corporate worship, celebration, sacrifice, and remembrance of their unique calling as a nation (the yearly festivals: Passover, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles—Leviticus 23).
A. God would give to them the location where they could seek the Lord with the promise of finding Him.
God cannot be found in the places and methods of our whims and preferences but must be found in His established place and manner. He prescribes the necessities of our saving knowledge of Him and it will be in accord with His character and the necessary requirements of His justice. The Lord had a particular place and particular circumstances in which he could be found; there he would “establish His name” (5). We see this idea matured biblically in Peter’s announcement, “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name” (Acts 4:12).
B. To that place all the offerings that He had designated would be brought (6).
They would picture in this required sacrificial system the eventual saving death of the lamb of God. He would be pictured in their faithful obedience to God’s requirements and by His death would fulfil and thus culminate all symbols designed to lead to the expectation of a final propitiation (Hebrews 9:23–28).
C. As the people obeyed these laws and followed God’s instructions as to place, time, and traits of the sacrifices, they would find a satisfying and prosperous life, filled with blessing.
These festivals would be a time of joy with their families as they ate with them and had friendly contact with others doing the same (7). These sacrifices and festivals would bring to mind the Lord’s special favors toward them and His unmerited gifts of grace. This would be a precursor to the Lord’s command, “This do in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19).
III. Verses 8–14 expand the idea of designated times, designated places, and designated sacrifices for the entire nation.
While in the wilderness and in a pilgrim mode, the established elements of unifying devotion as a rescued, special people were the priesthood, the altar, the sacrifices, and the tabernacle. Immovable places and calendarized times would be yet future (8, 9).
A. Their entrance into the land, their victory over enemies, and location in villages, farms, and cities would give security and a stable life they had not known.
Under those new and happy circumstances, they would have a place set aside by God in one of the tribal territories where they could gather again as a unified, special people, God’s own possession (10, 11a).
B. Again Moses speaks of the required sacrifices that they will offer at a chosen site.
This time of faithful sacrifice will be an occasion of great joy for the entire household including servants and the Levite in their gates, for the Levites have no tribal possession of their own (11, 12). When they grasp the meaning of these sacrifices and offer them faithfully, their perception of the great blessing of redemption will grow and will present them with increasing matter for joy. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).
C. For the third time (13), Moses refers to the particular sacrifices and offerings that they will bring to the divinely chosen place (6, 11, 13–14).
These sacrifices forecast the necessity, beauty, and multi-faceted aspects of the fearsome task of forgiveness, the ministry of reconciliation, the wages of redemption, and the infinite wonder of absolute security and indestructibility of these procured blessings. All this would be accomplished in one person rendering obsolete even these divinely mandated, blood-spilling, rhythmically enforced slaughters of non-moral (and thus emblematically innocent) victims. Sin is terrible, but the final sacrifice fully satisfies in person and work all that is needed to give His people their final and uninterrupted rest from their enemies (10).
IV. Verses 29–32 make clear that every vestige of false worship is to be destroyed—people, objects, and places.
The Israelites are not even to inquire about their gods or even to be curious about their practices.
A. This aspect of Moses’ instructions assumes a thorough victory and a settled state in the land (29).
At that point, do not foster or tolerate in yourselves curiosity about their gods or their manner of worship. As the idols and places have been abolished, abolish in your thought any fascination with their falsehood and moral perversity (29, 30).
B. When the evil that covers and energizes our hearts finds a place to settle its restless evil; when a manner of manifestation of such perverse fascination is discovered; when we delude ourselves with the lie that obedience equals oppression and trespass equals pleasure, we open ourselves to engage mind and limb in consummate evil (31).
The subsequent history of Israel proves the unvarying truth of this prohibition and warning (Isaiah 57:1–13).
C. We must not tamper with the revelation of God in any direction.
We must not disobey it; we must not diminish it; we must not go beyond it by inventing our own way of supposed worship; we must not add to it by thinking we receive new and private revelation and untested, non-canonical prophecy. Those sixty-six books that form the Christian canon, the Bible, consist of revealed truth in a wide variety of literature types and narratives. This revelation also is inspired of the Holy Spirit in its verbal deposit. Its inspiration demands its infallibility, and its infallibility supports and produces its inerrancy. “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to nor take away from it” (32).
D. The regulative principle of worship asserts in short: Prohibit in worship whatever God’s word prohibits; practice in worship whatever God says to include; do not add anything to what God sets forth as required.
Even if a seemingly harmless practice is introduced out of human logic, art, spirituality, community interest, such is to be rejected for God has not required it.
Poem
Holy is the Lord our God,
Rescue, worship, all of grace,
Safety where our feet have trod,
Truth revealed without a trace
Of error or deceit;
Instructions are complete.
God gives us our possession,
A place to thrive and worship.
The Lord is our obsession
His rules express His Lordship.
By sovereign grace we’re called,
By mercy we’re enthralled.
Every false god must be smashed,
Every place where idols thrive;
Captive hearts to falsehood lashed,
No perversion must survive.
Remove temptation’s snare;
True worship they impair.
God will set aside the place,
God will designate the time.
Holy actions, holy space,
Spotless sacrifice sublime
Speaks propitiation,
Through this elect nation.
Worship not by human whim;
Hear the method God requires.
Manner, matter pictures Him
In whom redemption transpires.
Blood of Lamb unblemished,
Atonement will be finished.
