Thoughts on Deuteronomy: The Covenant and the Gospel

I have a confession: When I first found out that our fall semester scripture was Deuteronomy, I audibly groaned and complained. Why Deuteronomy? How will I be able to teach this book of Old Testament laws to eight year olds? Since I was already reading through the pentateuch this summer, I found myself in Deuteronomy by August. The graciousness of God was immediately apparent, and Deuteronomy captured my attention and heart right away. The funny thing about complaining about the living, breathing word of God is that you’re just asking for the Holy Spirit to speak to and humble you! With that in mind, these are my reflections: my surprise at the depth and richness found in Deuteronomy, and finding the Gospel where I wasn’t expecting it. 

So much of what I’ve learned about Deuteronomy this year has been fresh and new, even though I’ve read it many times. For example, merely learning the definition of the word “Deuteronomy” helps inform much of the meaning of the text, and it has helped place me in the story on a personal level. The Greek word for "Deuteronomy" means "second law," or, rather, a renewal of the law.  This definition brought to my mind the speech Moses made to the Israelites as they were about to enter the Promised Land. It is a passionate and desperate plea to remember God’s promises and faithfulness, and a call to renew their own commitment to the covenant (see Deuteronomy 1-4). What a weighty moment! I started to get a sense of the gravity of these words for the people of Israel: at long last, they are on the cusp of the promise, the good land they will possess. I wondered how many of them did not fully comprehend what was really happening. How many of them just coasted around, growing up in the wilderness, knowing the stories their parents told yet not sensing how much they had been through, the cost of their parents’ disobedience, or their own potential to disobey? This makes a renewal of the Law that much more necessary, and if you listen closely to Moses’s words, that much more desperate. A renewal will help them remember, and to remember will keep them from disobedience. So I feel the desperation in Moses’s voice as he leads them in this renewal: “Remember what God did for you! Remember that you were slaves! Hear oh Israel! Listen and obey! ‘The LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4).

In the middle of Moses’s desperation, there is a sense for why the laws are so necessary: God wants his people to flourish! They are a mass of people going into a new land to stay and dwell. To set up a prosperous nation, they need laws, commandments, statues. This makes sense, because without order you have chaos. The Ten Commandments are purposeful and important.

One day as I was preparing to teach, it was as though the gospel lit up the page. In Deuteronomy 5, the Ten Commandments had just been restated. And in chapter 6, the Greatest Commandment had then been said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-6). The greatest commandment is greater than all the do’s and don’ts of the Ten Commandments, greater than all the systems and rituals to follow: You shall LOVE. The Greatest Commandment is not a rule, it’s an affection! Thinking in this way, if the statues and rules are to keep the nation in order, the greatest commandment is to keep their hearts in order. 

To rightly order their affections toward God is the first and greatest commandment. Do this, and God heaps blessings upon blessings. They shall order their affections towards God, “that it might go well with them and their descendants forever!” (Deut. 5:29). 

We know the way Israel rebels, and we know the way we too fail to order our hearts rightly. Yet I love how immediately following the renewal of the Law in chapter 7, Israel is reminded of its utterly unique identity as God's chosen people. They are “chosen… for his treasured possession” (v. 6). but not by anything they had done, or anything that was special about them. “They were fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping his oath that he swore to your fathers…” (v. 8). The gospel is so vivid here! Just as Israel did nothing to earn their treasured status, neither do we, and we do earn it despite our sinful rebellion. 

At this point, I place myself in the shoes of an Israelite listening to Moses.  This highly regarded set of laws is being read aloud again, at the cusp of battles and of stepping foot at last into the Promised Land. The rule-follower in me earlier would have been nearly trembling at the weight of the covenant being asked of me. But the gospel shines through again: “The Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you… You shall be blessed above all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:12,14). Yes, there is a high call to love God, but the people are bound within GOD’S covenant to them! The covenant of old, from generations past, is where the gospel shows up in Deuteronomy - God is the promise-keeper! He promises to perfectly keep the covenant Himself, and then sends Jesus to perfectly keep the Law. Nothing will sway the covenant he made to their fathers. He will keep them with his steadfast love. They are asked to remember, and to love him in return.

Almost all my life I’ve known it to be true that the gospel threads throughout every book of Scripture, but it was still the sweetest joy to find it in this Old Testament book, in a place I thought was full of old, outdated laws. But the Holy Spirit, through his kind work, gave me fresh glimmers of his beauty as I saw new facets of his precious truth in the gospel: God is the promise-keeper. He asks us to love him above all else, but only because He keeps, protects, and holds us in his promises first.