This chapter, or rather what I wrote about it, is pretty long, so I have to split it into two parts. I hope you don't get too bored reading it.
This week's section starts by telling us why we should study God's Word.
And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. (Deu. 5:1)
The purpose of learning is doing. Learning just for the sake of learning isn't a biblical idea. The Greeks had a great admiration for those who had a lot of knowledge and it is from them that we get the idea that learning is a goal in and of itself. Here's what the apostle Paul had to say about that:
We know that “all of us possess knowledge”. This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. (I Cor. 8:1-3)
No matter how much knowledge a person may have, if it doesn't translate into action or a change in his life, then it is useless. Doing is also the goal of faith.
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14-17)
Please understand that I am not saying that we have to earn our salvation. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9, we are saved by grace through faith, not by works. But the goal of faith is not just to get to Heaven, but to do God's will here on earth so that we will be a light to the world and others will see God through us.
Moses goes on to say that what he is about to tell them is a covenant. He says that the covenant was made by God, but note with whom it was made.
The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. (Deu. 5:2-5)
Now, let's think back a bit.
The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, “Take a census of all the congregation... From twenty years old and upwards (Num.1:1-3)
Shortly after this census was taken, they sent spies into Canaan and, after hearing their report, refused to enter the land. God was angered at their lack of trust in Him and declared that none of them would enter the Promised Land except for Joshua and Caleb, who had given a good report and encouraged the people to go and take possession of the land God had promised them.
As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upwards (Num. 14:28-29)
The census was taken in the beginning of the second year after the people left Egypt, but the covenant at Sinai had been given a year earlier. That means that everyone who was 19 years old or older when God spoke to them at Mt. Sinai had now died. Most of those who had been there had been young children and would have remembered little if any of what happened. Most of the people now standing before Moses had been born in the wilderness over the past 40 years. So how could he say that God had spoken to
them and made a covenant with
them and that
they had been afraid and asked Moses to speak to God for
them, when most of them hadn't even been born yet?
The answer is really quite simple. One person can be a representative of another. Parents sign things on behalf of their children all the time. Ambassadors, even though they are not members of their governments, Sign contracts and agreements that are binding for their governments, because they represent those governments. Just a few people in government make decisions that are binding on entire nations, because they are the elected representatives of those nations. The people who were actually at Sinai were not there only for themselves, but as representatives of those who would come after them. Many of the commandments are specifically stated as being for future generations as well as those living at the time. For example...
This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute for ever, you shall keep it as a feast. (Ex. 12:14)
Even though the people standing before Moses (or at least most of them) hadn't actually been at Sinai when the covenant was made, he could still legitimately say that the covenant was made with them, because their representatives were there.
It might be tempting to think that the people at Sinai represented only themselves and their physical descendants, but look at what Paul says in his letter to the Romans.
For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Rom. 2:28-29)
It is not only physical descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that determines our standing with God, but our heart. If we, by faith, become partakers of God's covenant, then those people were also our representatives, and we can rightly say that God has led us out of bondage and has made His covenant with us and given us His commandments and His promises.
The TOG
