Understanding the Old Testament - Lesson 10

Understanding the Old Testament 
Dr. Miles Van Pelt
ot102-10 
Deuteronomy
Lesson Transcript
 

We now come to the final book in the section called The Law, followed by then the Prophets and the Writings. The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth and final book in the Pentateuch. Its English name, Deuteronomy, means Second Law, and it suits its content because this book is a covenant renewal document, a second Torah, updating the Sinai Covenant in preparation for Israel's entering into the land of Canaan.

The Hebrew name is simply Eilat Devarim. These are the words, once again, the first two words in the book. However, the Hebrew name, These are the Words, also captures the genre of the book. It comes in the form of a long speech or sermon. Some commentators divide the whole book into three speeches of Moses. Moses' first address is in chapters 1 through 4:33. Moses' second address is in 4:33 through chapter 28, and Moses' third address is in chapters 29 through 31, with chapters 32 through 34, containing final matters related to Moses' life and ministry. 

In terms of geography and chronology, Israel is camped at the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River in the Dead Sea. It is approximately 1406 BC, 40 years after Israel's exodus from Egypt. Remember that numbers 10 through 36 record Israel's 40 years of wilderness wanderings, and these wilderness wanderings are about to come to an end as soon as this speech is over and Moses dies. 

According to Tremper Longman, the purpose of this book is this: The central message of the sermon of Moses is to encourage God's people to keep his law. Moses is speaking to the second generation born in the wilderness. Their parents died in the wilderness because of their sin. So Moses wants to impress on them the importance of following and keeping God's law as the means for enjoying blessings in their tenure in the promised land.

In terms of genre, the book of Deuteronomy contains speeches, narrative, law, and two big poems in Deuteronomy 32 and 33. It was handed down in the form of a covenant or covenant renewal document. I'm going to show you a slide. You can see that an ancient treaty during the days of Moses consisted of several parts, a preamble, a historical prologue, followed by stipulations, a document clause, witnesses, blessings, and curses, and an oath in blood rituals. You can see in the next column what all of those sections constituted. We see those sections appearing to us in Exodus 20 and following, in Deuteronomy, and then again at the end of the book of Joshua. We see here that the entire book of Deuteronomy follows this treaty format. That is, it's an ancient format. It was well known to the people and Deuteronomy is going to follow this covenant format with a preamble, historical prologue, stipulations, and all the other business here.

 So, it was a well-known format to the people of God and more can be said of that either in my fuller lectures for BiblicalTraining or Dan Block’s lectures on the book of Deuteronomy. 

In terms of date and authorship, we've already covered that once again in our summary lectures. The Pentateuch was written according to tradition by Moses and Deuteronomy probably in 1406, then later updated by someone like Ezra.

In terms of the basic outline, the covenantal feature that we see here is this. We have the preamble in the first four verses of the book. That is, we're going to have Yahweh identified as the covenant Lord, Israel as the covenant vassal, and then Moses as the covenant mediator.Then we're going to have an historical prologue where in chapters 1:5 through 4:29, Moses or Yahweh through Moses is going to repeat or rehearse the history of Israel. Then we're going to have the stipulations that cover covenant life. They'll have a rehearsal of the Decalogue and then larger sections that cover the nature of the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue.We'll have sanctions for covenant ratification, and then we'll have some kingdom details regarding Joshua becoming the next leader, a song of witness, how often you should read the Old Testament or the Book of the Law together, things like that, and documentary witnesses, and the deposit of the Law in the Ark of the Covenant kept in the Tabernacle. 

In terms of basic content, I'm just going to focus on a few things for us given the nature of this survey. In the historical prologue, you can see that the theme of the historical prologue in chapters 1:5 through 3:29 is this. Yahweh is faithful. Israel is commanded to leave Horeb. Moses appoints elders. The spies report in. The people's rebellion. There's the desert wanderings, the defeat of Sihon, the defeat of Og, and Moses is forbidden to enter into Canaan. In the midst of all this, Yahweh is the covenant-keeping God, and Israel is the covenant-breaking God. The third section contains the stipulations for covenant life, and this constitutes the major part of the book. It runs from chapter 4, verse 1, all the way through chapter 26, verse 19.

We begin with the charge to observe the Law because it's important. Warnings against idolatry, which is breaking the First and Second Commandments. The cities of refuge in the Transjordan are those cities where if you're charged with murder, you can run and flee there to get a fair trial. There's the introduction of the Law in the next section, and then a re-giving of the Ten Commandments. The first giving is in Exodus 20. Then those are rehearsed here. There's the response of the people, and then in chapters 6 through 26, we have the elaboration of the Ten Commandments, and this is very interesting in terms of how it functions. Here you can see in a book I edited, A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament, The Gospel Promised, the chapter on Deuteronomy by Scott Redd details how the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5 is then exposited in all of the ways that follow. So you have the declarations in the middle column and the expansion, so you can see how all of Deuteronomy 6 through 26 is a lengthy commentary on the Decalogue.

So if you want to know what it means to have no other gods before Yahweh, you can read part of Deuteronomy 6. If you want to learn about how to worship God properly, Deuteronomy 12. Suppose you want to learn how to honor your father or honor the name of God, Deuteronomy 13 and following. So the nice thing here is if you ever have the question, what does the Decalogue mean? What do those commands mean? And how do they live down in fullness? You come to the book of Deuteronomy, you take this chart, and you can go get a commentary on each of those different commandments. This is one of the most helpful ways of in some sense understanding the scope and significance of the Ten Commandments in the Bible because we have a built-in commentary on them. So if you're ever going to teach the Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus, you should always come over here to Deuteronomy and consider the fuller commentary as you're working on that. It's a great way. Let the Bible teach you what's going on in this particular context. 

If we go back to our outline, you can see that in section 4, the sanctions, we get the section on blessings and curses in chapters 27 and 28 again. That means you're blessed if you keep the Deuteronomic Covenant, and you're cursed if you don't keep it. Therefore, some warnings follow in chapters 29 and 30. What's interesting about the material in this chapter, and we'll talk about it in our next lecture, is that Yahweh warns Israel here that they will be unable to keep the Mosaic Covenant. And even if they enter into the Promised Land, they won't be able to obey, and Yahweh will have to kick them out, and he'll have to terminate the covenant. But before they step one foot in the land, Yahweh, through Moses, is telling them, to get ready for exile.  This is one of how the Old Covenant understands itself to be a type or shadow of what's something greater to come in the New Testament. Even Moses, even Yahweh through Moses in Deuteronomy, is telling us that the Mosaic economy, and the covenants involved there, Exodus 20 and following, and then renewed here in Deuteronomy, cannot fully sustain or answer to the promises given to Abraham in Genesis 12 to 22. It's only a first installment, a type or a shadow, of that which is greater to come internal to the system itself. 

Finally, in the very last section, the dynastic disposition section, kind of the nuts and bolts of the covenant, we have in chapter 31, Joshua succeeds Moses. In chapter 32, we have the Song of Witness. We often call it the Song of Moses but don't do that. It's the Song of Yahweh that Moses copies down. It's a covenant lawsuit text. We have the blessing of the 12 tribes in Genesis 49, and we have the death of Moses in Deuteronomy 34. We've already talked about the significance of the blessing of the 12 tribes and the death of the blesser in our lectures on the structure of the canon. Specific issues are important things.

One of the most important aspects of the book of Deuteronomy is the Ten Commandments that appear two times in the Pentateuch. The first in Exodus 20, and again in Deuteronomy 5, and how that structures the entire mid part of Deuteronomy. It's the Ten Commandments that are understood as the revelation of the moral will of God to love the Lord your God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor and yourself, and this book sets that forth for you as we've just described in our previous slide. 

The second big thing in Deuteronomy that you need to understand is not just the nature of the law, but the problem of the law. In the book of Deuteronomy, obedience to the law requires what's called a circumcised heart. That is the changing of the heart of stone that rejects God and his covenant to the heart of flesh that embraces God's law as it is written on their heart. The problem is this, the Old Covenant has the law, but it does not have the power to circumcise the heart. Consider this, Deuteronomy 10:14 to 16. Now we're talking about how to think about Deuteronomy theologically. "Behold, to the Lord your God belongs the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all the people as you are this day. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn." Circumcision of the heart is a promise to be fulfilled only after the exile and return from exile according to Deuteronomy 30:5 and 6. You can also check out Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 4 to see more on this. 

Consider, for example, Deuteronomy 30 verses 5 through 6 when it talks about what life will be like in Israel after they go out into exile and they come back. Here it is, Deuteronomy 30 verses 5 and 6. "And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers once possessed that you may again possess it. And he will make you more numerous and more prosperous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and that you may live." Meaning, once again, the Mosaic Covenant was by design a covenant that could not be kept and so even physical circumcision became void. 

Consider, for example, a commentary on this in the New Testament in Romans 2 verses 25 and following. "For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if an uncircumcised man keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, meaning by circumcision, nor circumcision only purely outward and physical. But a Jew or you can think of a true Jew here, is one inwardly, nor circumcision outward and physical, meaning merely. 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." So in the New Covenant, the heart of the believer is circumcised through the circumcision of Christ, that is, his crucifixion, his being cut off. This is the whole point. How do we get our heart circumcision? How do we get our hearts circumcised? By faith in our union with Christ, because our hearts will be circumcised because they're joined in his circumcision, which is his death on the cross.

Consider Colossians 2:11 to 14. "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him in faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made us alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with his legal demands, he set it aside. (How?) By nailing it to the cross." 

So the issue of circumcision in the Old Covenant is not just simply a circumcision of the physical member, but it's a circumcision of the interior heart that will allow you to have the law of God written on it. And Israel was unable to keep the Covenant stipulated in Deuteronomy because they did not have a circumcised heart. It's only in Christ that a believer by faith can have that circumcised heart. So circumcision plays a big role. God will say in Deuteronomy in other spots, I gave you eyes, but you cannot see, and ears, but you cannot hear, and minds, but you still don't understand. You do not have a heart that can apprehend my wonders on your behalf. Therefore, they died in the wilderness, or they couldn't stay in the land.

The other major issue that we're talking about here, just for a second before we conclude, is as believers, and as we think about the Old Covenant, how do we relate to the law? How do we relate to Deuteronomy? If we're not under the law as a means of obtaining righteousness, what do we do with it? Right? Since the law is not how a believer receives or obtains righteousness, what is the function of the law in the life of a New Covenant believer? And quickly, it's this. Scripture shows that God intends his law to function, I think, in three different ways. And I'm just going to give you a very helpful summary in a classic form for the church's benefit at the time of the Reformation, when he lived in Geneva, Switzerland.

John Calvin is a popular exegete and theologian. And he gave us three uses. The first use, the second use, and the third use. And the first use is called the pedagogical use, the pedagogical use. This is one of the ways we use the law of God. The first use is to be a mirror reflecting to us both the perfect righteousness of God, that is what are God's standards, and our sinfulness and shortcomings, all the ways in which we can't keep it. As Augustine wrote, the law bids us, as we try to fulfill its requirements and become wearied in our weakness under it, to know how to ask for the help of grace. So the law drives us to Christ because we know we cannot keep it. The law is meant to give a knowledge of sin, and by showing us our need for pardon and the danger of being cursed by God, to lead us to repentance and faith in Christ. So one of the things the law can do is it can show us that the demands of God in terms of his character are failure to meet up to those, and therefore our need of Christ. So the law can drive us to Christ. It can teach us that we need Christ. 

The second use is called the civil use.That is, the law restrains evil through punishment. The law restrains evil through punishment. Though the law cannot change the heart, it can inhibit sin by threats of judgment, especially when backed by a civil code that administers punishment with proven offenses. Although obedience out of the love of God is the ideal for which every Christian should strive, society can still benefit from this restraining use of the law. The law says do not murder, do not steal, do not lie, and do not commit adultery. That's a way in which a well-oiled society can run. Love your neighbor as yourself. And so the law can be used in that civil sense to say what are helpful ways that we can relate together as people created in the image of God in this common grace world.

So we have the pedagogical use that drives us to Christ. We have the civil use that helps us to live with our brothers and sisters, both believers and non-believers. And the third is called the moral or normative use of the law. The moral standards of the law guide believers as they seek to live in humble gratitude for the grace God has shown us. That is the life of wisdom and the desire to please God. Right now when I read the law, I'm thinking how does God, how did God create this world? And what's the best way for someone like me to live in it. It's to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and love my neighbor for myself. If my neighbor's ox is stuck, help him get it out. If his tire is flat, help him fix it. If my neighbor is hungry, feed them. If my neighbor is cold, make them warm. That kind of business. It's the normative use and it helps us to think about how to live wisely in this world as believers. 

The Christian is free from the law as a system of salvation. The Christian is free from the law as a system of salvation.But he is under the law of Christ as a rule of life. It is the way of wisdom, the very best way to live. The law teaches you according to Jesus. The law teaches you according to Jesus to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. And there's nothing oppressive about that. It's the personal work of Jesus and the circumcision of the heart and the end one of the spirit that allows us to want to do that and therefore by faith the ability to do it. It's good news. The pedagogical use, the civil use, and the normative use.

How is the book of Deuteronomy perhaps the gospel promised beforehand? Here are three different ways briefly as we bring this to a conclusion. Number one. The book of Deuteronomy contains a covenant that anticipates and points to a new and better covenant. One that comes with circumcision of the heart and a true and genuine love for God. And isn't that what we want? For example, Galatians 3:21 to 22. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scriptures, read the Old Testament, imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 

Secondly, the final three verses of the book of Deuteronomy hint at the coming of another prophet like Moses. Consider this, Deuteronomy 34:10-12. "And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and wonders that the Lord had sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all the servants, to all the land, and for all his mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. So, someone after Moses has written this in saying, since Moses, there's not been a prophet like Moses, as great as him. All the other prophets are like Moses, but not better than Moses."  Well, consider then one of the two men who show up at Jesus's transfiguration to testify to the true and better Moses arriving on the scene. For example, Luke 9:30 to 31 is recorded, "And behold, two men were standing with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, the Greek word exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem." That is, Luke, at this point, by recording this event, is telling us that the true and better prophet has indeed shown up in Jesus Christ, and Moses himself is there to testify and bear witness to that.

The church exists in a state like Israel did on the plains of Moab. This is just thinking practically about where we fit in redemptive history. Living between a life of promise and fulfillment. We've been promised our inheritance, but we haven't received our inheritance. We have been delivered from slavery and death, the Red Sea, and the cross. We have a new covenant relationship with God. We have the presence of God to lead us, either in the Tabernacle back then or by the Spirit now, but we are still waiting to enter our inheritance. That is for Israel, Canaan, or for us, the new heavens and new earth, the new Jerusalem. A land flowing with much more than milk and honey, a place with houses we did not build and vineyards we did not plant, and there in the middle of it all, the throne of grace, which is ours for all eternity. Here's how the psalmist put it in Psalm 84:1. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty? My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord, and my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 

One day in the new heavens and new earth, that reality will be not just a present reality, but an eternal ongoing reality forever and ever, and that's what the book of Deuteronomy points to.