DEUTERONOMY 34
There is no more impressive instance of the operation of the government of God than the fact that Moses was not permitted to enter Canaan. But while this was so, he obtained peculiar favour in being allowed to see “the whole land” concerning which Jehovah had sworn unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw it in communion with God as it was in divine purpose, and such a view of it corresponded with his outlook upon “the tribes of Israel” in the previous chapter. “Before his death” the man of God was privileged to see the people whom he loved in full blessing according to the thoughts of [p. 387] God concerning them, and he was also permitted to see “the whole land” as it was in divine purpose.
What a compensation it must have been for the “man of God”, who had suffered rejection at the hands of the people in Egypt, and who had been tried by their rebellion and naughtiness in the wilderness, and who knew, moreover, all that they would be after his death, to see them according to chapter 33!
Moses’ view from Pisgah has its heavenly counterpart in John’s vision from the “great and high mountain” in Revelation 21. Both Moses and John had painful knowledge of present failure in the people they loved. Both knew prophetically how that failure would develop, and what its issue would be in divine government. But both were privileged to look beyond all the failure to the complete realisation of divine thoughts, whether on the earthly or the heavenly side.
John’s writings develop the character of the saints viewed as born of God, and in conscious possession and enjoyment of life eternal. That answers to the blessings of Deuteronomy 33. But John also saw One like the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lamps, and fell at His feet as dead. He knew full well that things in the assemblies would not bear the scrutiny of those eyes as a flame of fire. To five of them he had to address, as the Lord’s scribe, a call to repent. He had to learn the Lord’s government in relation to the assemblies and its solemn results, whatever blessing there might be for the overcomer. Indeed the Lord’s warnings to the assemblies, and His promises to the overcomer, are in striking analogy with much that has come before us in Deuteronomy concerning blessing and curse. How could one who loved the children of God feel about it all? One fully identified with the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, and who was in the Spirit? He knew the present actual state of things in the assemblies, and [p. 388] whereunto it would develop, as surely as Moses knew the present state and future departure of Israel.
But John reached his Pisgah, and saw the holy city coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God! He saw prophetically the complete realisation of the divine thoughts as secured and displayed in the bride, the Lamb’s wife, in the world to come. Nothing comes short there; everything is up to full measure; the city has the glory of God. The “northward and southward and eastward and westward” of which God spoke to Abraham have a heavenly counterpart in the city that lies four-square. The complete administration of blessing in the world to come is there. Moses saw prophetically the earthly side; John saw the assembly as the perfect vessel of heavenly administration in virtue of whose shining the earthly blessing will be secured.
Moses died in full view of the world to come, and of the accomplishment in that world of all that had been the subject of God’s promises and oath. It was reserved for him to have the land in a better way than.. those had it who went over with Joshua. He actually stood upon it in company with the Son of God, for it is interesting to see that Moses and Elias did not appear in the air on the mount of transfiguration; we are told that they “stood with him”. And Moses in a coming day will have all the promises from the heavenly side as one of those for whom God has prepared a city. He had to accept death here, but he was buried by God in view of resurrection — in view of the mount of transfiguration, and of all that is now secured, through death, in Jesus glorified.
We know from Jude that the devil was observant of what God had done, and would have acted in some way — we are not told how — to frustrate the thoughts of God. But this brought out the fact that Michael the [p. 389] archangel had a special charge with regard to the body of Moses. The devil is not allowed to do as he will with the saints while they are alive, nor is he permitted to have his way with their bodies even after they are dead. Michael disputed, we are told, with the devil about the body of Moses; he had to resist what the devil would have done. But he also “reasoned”, which would indicate intelligence as to the mind of God in the matter. Michael understood why he had such a charge as to that body. The angels know where the saints are buried, even as two of them sat “one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain”. One grave may look much like another to the natural eye, but there are millions of graves in the world which have a very special character under the eye of heaven because they are the graves of “the dead in Christ”. It was said of Moses’ burial that “no man knows his sepulchre to this day”. It was removed from all human guardianship, nor could it be made an object of idolatrous veneration, but it was known to Jehovah and to Michael, and whatever the devil’s thoughts might have been, he could not prevail. “Archangel’s voice” will be heard when the Lord Himself descends from heaven to raise the dead in Christ, and to catch up the living who remain. It will be no longer necessary for the archangel to dispute or reason with the devil; his voice will ring forth in everlasting triumph as death is swallowed up in victory.
It will be remembered that Michael has a special charge in relation to Israel. Daniel was told that he is “the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people” (Daniel 12: 1). Israel at the present time is sleeping in the dust of the earth, but those written in the book will be delivered; they will awake to everlasting life. The two references to eternal life in the Old Testament connect it with the quickening power [p. 390] that will awake many who sleep in the dust of the earth (Daniel 12: 2), and with brethren as dwelling together in unity (Psalm 133). The one shews that it is a people quickened out of death who enter into it; the other that it is enjoyed in the happy and holy unity in which brethren dwell together.
Moses, as permitted to see “the whole land” but not to enter upon it, may be regarded as representing all those who “died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off and embraced them” (Hebrews 11: 13). Before the promises are received the greater part of the faith family will, like Moses, have passed through death. In the government of God death is present as the result of sin, and saints die as well as other people; but they die in the faith of resurrection, and of all that is now secured by the resurrection of Christ. All that will remain in resurrection will be what God has wrought. Moses will get his prayer answered: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy majesty unto their sons. And let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us: yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it” (Psalm 90: 16, 17).
Moses did not die a natural death, for we are told that “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated”. He died “according to the word of Jehovah”, and not by the failure of his natural strength. Moses’ death was not the evidence of his own physical weakness, but of the inadequacy of the natural, even when in unabated force, to enter into what is spiritual. The surpassing greatness of the power that wrought in Christ in raising Him from among the dead is needed for that, and such is the power that is “towards us who believe” (Ephesians 1: 19, 20). “Flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom”; resurrection, or what is equivalent to it in changed bodies, is needed for that kingdom.
[p. 391] All the Old Testament saints will have the inheritance from the heavenly side, for God has prepared for them a city, “having foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect without us” (Hebrews 11: 16, 40). The fulfilment of the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob depends on something else being secured which is altogether heavenly in character, and Old Testament saints will come into possession of the promised inheritance as taking it up along with the saints who form the holy city.
In the meantime “the whole land”, and the conditions on which it can be enjoyed, have a spiritual import which is to be apprehended at the present time in relation to the promises of God having their Yea and Amen in the Son of God Jesus Christ for glory to God by us. We have sought to trace, so far as grace has been given to do so, something of this import as we have gone through Deuteronomy.
I have no doubt that when Israel comes to take things up literally in the land their doing so will derive a peculiar character from the knowledge that the instruction of this book has been taken up spiritually by saints of a heavenly family. For Israel will take it up in the light, and under the administration, of the holy city which is composed of those very saints. In this way the whole book will acquire for them an elevated and spiritual character; it will be taken up in the light of a risen and heavenly Christ, and of the administration of those who have had part in His rejection and reproach, and who will be glorified au His joint-heirs.
The wisdom of God in all this bows the heart in adoration, while it intensifies the desire to take up in wisdom all that in which God would glorify Himself in His saints today. As having understood it spiritually, and answered to it by God’s grace, the saints of the assembly will be competent to bring its influence to bear [p. 392] in a coming day upon those who will be found in the place of a divinely favoured earthly people.
But very much in this book has not millennial conditions in view. Having to do with enemies, the great danger of departure and idolatry, the possibility of curse, indeed all in the book that speaks of active evil, shows that it has a bearing now which will not have place when the kingdom is established, and there is rest on every side, “neither adversary nor evil event”. But what is learned of God now, and maintained for God in the presence of what is adverse, will remain in its own blessedness to govern everything in a day when evil will no longer molest.