As I sit down to write this, I’m only a few days away from completing our preaching series through the book of Deuteronomy. While this was a book I willingly chose to work through, it was not without some apprehension and intimidation.
Deuteronomy stands as the headstone of the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch. Its name comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament which literally means, “Second” (deutero) “law” (nomos). Even though Deuteronomy is far more than law, Biblical writers often speak of it as “the book of the law” (Deut. 31:26, Neh. 9:3). Laws don’t really capture our attention as modern readers, nor do we often associate it with the gospel of grace.
Yet after four months in the book of Deuteronomy I have grown a fond appreciation for this book, which is mostly a pastoral sermon to a people in a time of transition (Deut. 1:3). I had heard one commentator say that Deuteronomy is to the whole Old Testament what Romans is to the New Testament: a handbook of practical and gospel-centered theology. I couldn’t agree more (not to mention Deuteronomy is Jesus’ favorite book to quote in the gospels).
After further study I found myself in awe of the ways in which both Old Testament and New Testament writers explicitly and implicitly drew upon Moses’ final message to his people. It’s typical for me to have a newfound appreciation for a book after I’ve taught my way through it, but my relationship to Deuteronomy has been transformed in a unique way.
To summarize what has contributed to this unlikely friendship, here are the top five things I took away from our series through Deuteronomy.
The Primacy of Knowing God through Salvation
As any good pastor would, Moses wants to prepare his people to face the challenges and temptations in the Promised Land. One of his consistent reminders to his people is that all the other idols and gods they will encounter are gods which they have not known.
“If you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God but…go after gods that you have not known” (Deuteronomy 11:38). “They sacrificed to…gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently” (Deuteronomy 32:17).
Moses’ point is that God’s people knew a God, a true God, a living God, a God who has said, “See now that I, even I am he, and there is no god beside me” (Deuteronomy 32:39). This God has provided his people with salvation, manna from heaven, military victory, and the promise of a forever home. Moses reminds God’s people, “Has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” (Deuteronomy 4:34).
The answer is a rhetorical “No!” Why would we choose to go to other gods? Because we forget of God’s salvation. Fourteen times in Deuteronomy Moses calls God’s people to “remember” what God has done in saving them, four more times he explicitly warns them, “lest they forget.” The easiest inroad to sin is a forgetfulness of a God who saved you.
We live in a world where spirituality is on the rise, meaning that most people claim to have some sort of experience with God. But as Moses makes clear in Deuteronomy, the only real place we know God is through his saving works.
We live in a world where spirituality is on the rise, meaning that most people claim to have some sort of experience with God. But as Moses makes clear in Deuteronomy, the only real place we know God is through his saving works. The gospel of Jesus is where we find confidence that we know a God who is able to save and provide. To know God through salvation is to realize we need no other deaf, dumb or mute idol. To not know God through salvation is to know God only from the outside.
It’s All Grace: God’s Love for His People
This book is a book which includes laws that legislate Israel’s distinct and holy lives in contrast to the nations around them. And yet the primacy of this book is grace upon grace. Deuteronomy starts by stressing the faithlessness of God’s people (chapter 1) but God’s faithfulness towards them (chapter 2). As Moses begins to enter the law portion of his message he reminds Israel that the land they now stand on isn’t even the Promised Land, yet God still displaced the kings which occupied it because he was gracious to do so (Deuteronomy 4:44-49).
Even the prologue to the first summary of the law (the 10 Commandments) reminds Israel of the primacy of grace prior to obedience, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (grace), “You shall have no other gods before me” (command). The law starts with grace.
Even more than gracious, we see that God is loving. God calls his people to sing of his free choosing of them, “But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage,” (Deuteronomy 32:9).
Why did God choose them? “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you…but it is because the Lord loves you” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). God chose to redeem people because God is a loving God. “Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day” (Deuteronomy 10:15).
As New Covenant believers, Deuteronomy reminds us of the underserved grace motivated by unrivaled love which saves us in Jesus Christ: “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
God’s love and his grace are free through Jesus Christ and his law fulfilling work on the cross.
It’s All a Response to Grace: Our Love for God
God’s grace is free and unmerited in Deuteronomy. But grace is never without a proper response.
God’s grace is free and unmerited in Deuteronomy. But grace is never without a proper response. God gave Israel grace, but Moses expected recipients of grace to respond accordingly. In other words, legalism says "obey and be loved," but Moses’ message is “You are loved, therefore obey.”
“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful god who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments” (Deuteronomy 7:9). “He is your praise, he is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen…You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statues, his rules and his commands always” (Deuteronomy 10:21, 11:1).
This response to grace culminates in the chief summary and effect of the law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).
The law outlined Israel’s right response to God’s grace. The privilege of grace is a heart set to love the God who saved us. To follow God is to love God, to not love God is to not follow God.
Because Israel had experienced God’s goodness in saving them, they were to trust God’s goodness in continuing to set them apart for his glory. This manifested itself in the larger portion of Deuteronomy, chapters 12-26, which highlights the ways in which grace changed the details of their lives in four key areas: their religious life, their civil life, their family life, and their sexual life.
Israel’s problem is our gift in salvation. They couldn’t respond rightly as a nation because their hearts needed to be circumcised (Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6), but in the gospel Jesus has remade our hearts so that we can respond to the gospel of grace (Colossians 2:10). Such change is not a burden of legalism, but instead it is “for our good always” (Deuteronomy 6:24).
The Foolishness/Danger of Sin
One of the big themes in Deuteronomy is blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. I love the simplicity of this. Obedience shows itself in long term safety. Disobedience shows itself in long term punishment. We see so clearly the dilemma of sin. It is dangerous, why would we choose it? In light of a God who has done all of this for us why would we say, “I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart” (Deuteronomy 29:19).
Moses shows us that sin is nothing more than sacrificing to things which are non-gods (Deuteronomy 32:21) and hoping that they will act like the God. Sin is foolishness. Nothing in this world has proved itself time and time over like God has in his word and in his salvation of his people through Jesus Christ. All such sin is arrogance which, scoffs at “the Rock of his salvation” (Deuteronomy 32:15).
But not only is sin foolish, it is also dangerous. This is why Moses calls for the destruction of idols (Deuteronomy 7:16) and prescribes the death penalty for those who try to lure Israel way from Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13:5). For Israel the presence of sin in her members meant the real prospect of destruction from their enemies. Sin kills things.
It is for this reason that Paul uses Moses’ language in the New Testament when he prescribes church discipline (1 Corinthians 5:13). Sin is dangerous and needs to be dealt with in the lives of believers. Because of this, we move towards the sin in our own hearts, and in the hearts of others with firm and gracious intentionality.
The Importance of Evangelism
When we think of God and his law we think of less than great things. But I love how Moses puts this in the opening pages of his sermon: “Keep them (the laws) and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear these statues, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him” (Deuteronomy 4:6-7).
We might see our response to grace as a burden, but God has designed our grace-changed lives to be a witness of joy to a watching world. Peter in 1 Peter picks up this theme (see our upcoming series at Sovereign Hope) and stresses how the conduct of the believers is to bear witness to the gospel in public (1 Peter 2:12).
But not only is our conduct to be a witness of the goodness of following Jesus, our words are to be as well: “When your son asks you in the time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statues and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded of us? Then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand’” (Deuteronomy 6:20).
Our evangelistic lives lead to our evangelistic answers. This is seen time and time again even in Deuteronomy. Israel was to share the good news of God’s law (which was grace) as broadly as they could: “Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God and be careful to do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 31:12).
It’s hard to not hear the similarities in Jesus’ own words to his disciples: “Go therefore making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19).
The heart of Deuteronomy is a witness of grace to all who will hear and respond.
Deuteronomy might include Moses’ second giving of the law, but the heart of Deuteronomy is a witness of grace to all who will hear and respond.
For those of us who read such a book through the lens of the cross, how much more should we learn to see, respond and share this wonderful message of salvation and grace through Jesus Christ?
