DEUTERONOMY 6
The object which the covenant has in view, as we see at the end of the previous chapter, is that a living people are secured for the pleasure of God, and for the enjoyment of what His love bestows on them. It secures moral conditions which are suitable to the land of divine purpose — “the land which he swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee” (verse 10).
There are two lines suggested in this chapter on which God appeals to the hearts of His people. One is connected with what He has taught us experimentally of the character of the world, and the way in which His grace and power have acted to deliver us from it. And the other is connected with the unchangeableness of His purpose, as to which He swore long before deliverance from the world was needed. Compare verses 12, 21, 22 with verses 10, 18, 23. “He brought us out ... that he might bring us in”.
God has taken great pains to instruct us in what the world is, and to shew us that His judgment rests on every feature of it. This chapter speaks of the signs which He shewed upon Egypt (verse 22). A sign signifies something; it is instructive; and in the signs we see all the features of the world exposed as having come under divine judgment. We were once in bondage to the power of the world, and it hindered us from [p. 62] being for the pleasure of God, but He has come in to set us free from it so that we might love Him and serve Him in perfect liberty. The world is a “house of bondage”. It is a system of things which hinders liberty in serving God. We have not only been wrong ourselves, but we have been held in a system which is altogether opposed to God, and we have needed to be freed from it. Peter said on the day of Pentecost “Be saved from this perverse generation”. Isaiah not only said, “I am a man of unclean lips” but he added, “I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6: 5). He realised that he was wrong, but his whole environment was wrong also. True repentance involves that we not only judge ourselves, but we judge the whole Egypt system to be a “house of bondage”, and are thankful that a divine deliverance from it has been wrought for us.
Then, on the other hand, Jehovah had sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would give “the land” to His people. He would carry out what He had promised. His oath was connected with “the unchangeableness of his purpose” (Hebrews 6: 17) — a purpose formed long before there was any need of deliverance from bondage. God has called us “out of darkness to his wonderful light”, but that calling is “according to purpose” (Romans 8: 28). “The land” was ever God’s objective for His people. It represents a sphere of spiritual blessing which is according to the love of God (Deuteronomy 7: 8), and which He would have His people to possess and increase in as the true sphere of their life. Many of us might have some difficulty in stating what we understand by “the land”, but if it is the present portion which the love of God would bring us into, it is well worth our while to give earnest attention to it.
The first mention of “the land” in Scripture is in Genesis 12. It is to be noted that in Genesis 10 we find [p. 63] among the sons of Ham both Mizraim (Egypt) and Canaan; and in Ham’s posterity we get Babel (Babylon), Assyria, Nineveh, the Philistines, Sidon, Sodom and Gomorrah. I single these out as being prominent in Scripture as representing the world where man seeks to glorify himself by the use of his own resources or wisdom, or to gratify himself by the indulgence of his lusts in various ways. They represent the whole scope of what man can compass, or acquire for himself, with the aid of Satan who is the god and prince of this world.
But in Genesis 12 Jehovah spoke to Abraham of “the land that I will shew thee” (verse 1), and said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (verse 7). It is a land shewn by God to a man called out by Him, and promised as a gift to that man’s seed. It represents what God would call attention to as being of Himself in contrast to everything that is of the world, and which He would give to the heirs of promise.
Stephen tells us that “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7: 2). God would shew that true glory was with Him, and that He had something for man far better than all that the world could offer. However great the glory of Egypt, or Babylon, or Nineveh, or Sidon, it is the glory of a creature under sin and death, about to be called to account by his despised Creator, and how vain is such glory! But God has imperishable glory, and in the outshining of that glory He calls men in sovereign love, and makes Himself known to them as the God of redemption and of resurrection power, and as giving what is worthy of Himself.
In Genesis 12 we read, “And the Canaanite was then in the land”. In Genesis 13 we read, “And the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land”. In Genesis 15 we read, “And in the fourth generation they [p. 64] shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full”. “The land” was not to be possessed by God’s chosen and called people until the maturing of what was evil. God would wait until then; all that He had in reserve — all that was the subject of promise — had to await, for its enjoyment, the development in evil of a power that was opposed to it. The thoughts of God, in regard to what He would give to man, were known as a matter of promise. But spiritual powers were present which stood against the knowledge of God; and against the realisation of what God would give in love to man. The “four hundred years” of which Jehovah spoke to Abram in Genesis 15 may be taken as typical of the whole period between the promises being given, and their being entered upon in realisation by the “heirs according to promise”. Israel’s entering into the land under Joshua was not the true fulfilment of the promise, though it was figurative of it. See Hebrews 4: 8. The true entrance into “the land” in a spiritual sense may be our portion now; the actual coming into it by Israel is yet future. “The land” speaks typically of eternal life as God’s answer in love to all that the enemy had brought in.
“The iniquity of the Amorites” was full in a spiritual sense when God had presented Himself in His Son and been rejected, when the Holy Spirit’s testimony to a risen and glorified Christ had been refused, and when God’s thoughts of redemption, and of dwelling amongst His people, had taken form in the assembly. The character of the opposing spiritual forces was then fully manifested and matured. Then it was that a new sphere of blessing was opened up for men in association with a risen Christ. Eternal life was known as a blessing to be entered on now.
The whole history of Israel, as we have been following it in its typical bearing, requires the death of Christ to [p. 65] give it meaning. The Passover, the Red Sea, the smitten rock, the sacrifices, the brazen serpent, all indicate that there could be no true coming out of Egypt, or passing through the wilderness, save by those who have learned the meaning of the death of Christ. That is, the whole history as to its divine import, applies to us who live after the death of Christ is an accomplished fact. There is one more type of that death which we have not come to yet, and that is Jordan. Jordan is a type of the death of Christ as that through which “the land” may be entered. “The land” is a region outside the life of this world altogether. It can, perhaps, be most simply understood if we consider the character of the life in which the disciples were with the risen Christ, and He with them, during the forty days after His resurrection. He was beyond death, and outside the life of this world, and in His company they, too, had occupations and intercourse, and were found in living associations, that were completely outside the life of this world. The character and occupations of life in the land are set forth in a typical, but divinely perfect way, in the book of Deuteronomy, and also the conditions essential to its possession and enjoyment.
The glory of the present dispensation is that the people of God are so set in the knowledge of His love that they love Him. Apart from this there is no capacity to truly enjoy the land. Hence the Lord Jesus quoted verses 4 and 5 of this chapter as being “The first commandment of all” (Mark 12: 29). It is affecting to think of how He must have delighted to ponder this chapter, and to use it in meeting the temptations of the devil on the one hand, or, on the other, to answer the exercise of an intelligent man like the scribe of Mark 12. The Lord has singled out this chapter, and given it peculiar importance. This should surely arrest our attention.
“[p. 66] Hear, Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength”, Nothing could be more blessed than to know that it is within the range of possibility that we should love God with our whole moral being. It is indeed our supreme happiness to do so. The covenant having been made known, and the Mediator being now a quickening spirit it is possible for our days to be prolonged as those who love God. It is not only that the love of God is known, but He is loved by His people. Christians are characteristically “those who love God” (Romans 8: 28), and those who do so are known of God. “But if any one love God, he is known of him” (1 Corinthians 8: 3); there is something there which God can recognise, in contrast with mere knowledge. Love is the breath of life. Israel in the world to come will be in eternal life; they will know God as revealed in love by the Mediator, and they will be quickened so as to respond to Him in love. What a delight to think of God’s Israel as having every part of their moral being permeated with love to God. I understand that the Hebrew word “quicken” conveys the thought not only of being made alive, but of being preserved in life. Now the glory of the present time is that God has been made known, and the One who has made Him known is the quickening Spirit so that we might live in responsive love to God. 1 Corinthians 8 takes up the thought of “Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”. “There is no other God save one ... to us there is one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom all things, and we by him”. “To us” that is the position; “One God, the Father, of whom all things”. Everything originated with Him — the ancient promises and oath, the deliverance from Egypt, the covenant, the land — all of Him, and for His own delight [p. 67] and glory. Then how did it all come about? By the Mediator, the one Lord, Jesus Christ, “by whom all things and we by him”. Everything secured by His mediatorship, and His quickening power. The glory of the dispensation is that God has spoken from the very depths of His nature — from the very heart of heaven — in unquenchable love that we might know Him. And the Person who is the Mediator of all this is a quickening Spirit; He gives His own Spirit to those who believe, so that it may become spiritually possible for us to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our understanding, and with all our strength. Most of us may feel ready to say, I have not come to that yet. Well, let us pray about it! Let us desire to see the full glory of the dispensation in which we have part! In eternity we shall love God with the whole energy of our moral being. In the world to come Israel will do so as a people on earth. But do not let us think of it as being impossible today! Let us entertain more worthy thoughts of the spiritual possibilities of the present time!
You will notice that the mind, or understanding, is not mentioned in Deuteronomy 6: 5. The Lord added it (Mark 12: 30) from the Greek translation of the Scriptures, and it is now included in what is made known of the will of God. The mind has a most important place in Christianity, as we may see by looking up the passages which refer to it, The edification of the assembly depends on the mind, or understanding, being fruitful (1 Corinthians 14). So that one is to pray, or sing, or speak with the understanding as well as with the spirit. Paul would rather speak five words with his understanding, that he might instruct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue, even though the latter might be in the power of the spirit of God. The mind, as well as the heart and soul and strength, may be wholly filled with love to God.
[p. 68] Anything short of this falls short of the blessedness attached to being in “the bond of the covenant”. It is a solemn judgment of God upon the heathen world that “God gave them up to a reprobate mind”, or “a mind void of moral discernment”. (See Romans 1) But as a result of new birth man gets an exercised mind which is not void of moral discernment. (See Romans 7) Then in Romans 12 we find that saints, indwelt by the Spirit and walking in spiritual liberty, have a renewed mind which transforms them into correspondence with the will of God. The scribe of Mark 12 had an exercised mind, and the Lord told him, in substance, that he was not far from having a renewed mind.
That God should be loved with the whole inward being of His people is surely most blessed, and none of us should rest content with anything less than this. It never was, nor could be, secured on the line of requirement; it can be secured, blessed be God, through God revealing Himself in love in His Son, and through the death of Christ, and through the Spirit being given to those who believe. The glory of the dispensation is that God is revealed in love, and that those to whom He has given His Spirit know Him as thus revealed, and love Him, and love one another. We may have to own that the glory of the dispensation is little known by us! Well, let us humble ourselves, and pray that we may know it better for the glory of God.
“The land” can only be enjoyed as the affections of God’s people are in accord with the covenant. Hence, “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt impress them on thy sons, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou goest on the way,
[p. 69] and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign on thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and upon thy gates”. In “the land” days are to be prolonged in love to God, and everything about us is to carry the impress of how we know God and delight in His will. Our conversation, our service, our countenances, the ordering of our houses, and what comes into them or goes out of them — all to be suitable to those who know God and love Him! Is it not spiritually attractive?
Then in “the land” everything is the fruit of divine giving. Blessed things are there which we did not originate or contribute to; “great and good cities which thou buildest not, and houses full of everything good which thou filledst not, and wells digged which thou diggedst not, vineyards and oliveyards which thou plantedst not”. God has provided everything that is essential to the enjoyment of the life which is common to His saints viewed as risen with Christ. Cities, houses, wells, vineyards and olive-yards all have their spiritual counterpart. We are “fellow citizens of the saints, and of the household of God” (Ephesians 2: 19); “the cities of our God” are in “the land”; the ideas of “cities” is not connected with the wilderness, but with what is over Jordan. The life of the world is centralised in its cities, but God would give His answer to that in His cities. The assemblies, from this point of view, are communities with a civic life all their own. They stand on spiritual territory — on ground which is contrasted by the Spirit of God with being “alive in the world” (Colossians 2: 20). Christ is the life of the saints viewed as dwelling together as fellow citizens.
Then “houses full of everything good” would suggest such household conditions as are outlined for us in Colossians and Ephesians. It is to be noted that it is in epistles which contemplate the saints as over Jordan that we get the divine ordering of Christian households. I think we can see that houses thus ordered would be “full of everything good”. Each “house” would contribute spiritually to the common civic life as fellow-citizens. “Wells digged” would refer to sources of spiritual refreshment which have been furnished through the labour of others — primarily by the labour of the apostles, but in a subordinate way by the labours of many others who have opened up to the people of God springs of refreshment. “Vineyards and oliveyards” would speak of fulness of joy and of spiritual grace and power. All is looked at here as given in divine love, and according to the promise and oath of God. Nothing is acquired on the principle of works. It is all, as we should say in New Testament language, of the Father (Colossians 1: 12; Ephesians 1: 3); it is all the fruit of the riches of God’s mercy and of His great love, and of the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2).
No epistle magnifies the absoluteness of mercy, love and grace as Ephesians does. All is as much of grace there as in Romans.
At the beginning all was prepared before the people were called in. All that was set forth in the city, the house, the well, the vineyard, the olive-yard, was set up amongst the saints in the power of the Holy Spirit. All the great and good things were there, and men were called to come into them. It is encouraging and liberating to consider that the most blessed things are provided without contribution from us. Everything essential to our associations, our comfort, our happiness and fatness of soul, is provided, and we come into it purely on the footing of grace. We have to continue in the goodness [p. 71] of God; to depart from it is apostasy. Paul does not say that the Gentile will be cut off if he does not do what is good, or if he does not respond to the goodness of God, but if he does not abide in it. We have to keep the blessed God before us as the Object of our hearts. The supreme truth of Scripture is the Headship of God. David said, “Thou art exalted as Head above all; and riches and glory are of thee ... for all is of thee” (1 Chronicles 29: 10 - 15). The Head of Christ is God; everything that is in Christ, the blessed anointed Man has its origin in God. Luke 14, Luke 15, brings out that everything is divinely provided — the feast, the robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf — and all flows from the heart of God. We are receivers, not contributors, though surely all that originates with God reverts to Him in praise. God’s blessed universe is going to be filled out of His fulness, and all is going to revert to Him in praise. It is a marvellous thought!
This is never to be forgotten (verse 12). In the enjoyment even of good there is danger that we may forget the Source of it, or lose the sense of the infinite mercy and grace that secured such as we were for such blessing. Hence the call to “remember” in Ephesians 2: 11. God is a jealous God in the midst of His people (verse 15): He loves them so much that He cannot bear to lose their affections.
The temptation at Massah (verse 16) was a very serious matter in God’s sight. There was not water for the people to drink, and they said, “Is Jehovah among us or not?” (Exodus 17). They took little account of what they had already known of God, either His ancient promises or His great deliverance, or His pillar of cloud and fire, or His supply of daily manna. They were ready, the moment a test came, to say, “Is Jehovah among us or not?” The Lord had His testing time, but it never raised any question in His mind as to whether God was [p. 72] with Him or not. He did not need to prove it by casting Himself down from the edge of the temple. He answered the tempter by this very scripture. Let us beware of the unbelief which would raise a question as to whether God is with His people or not! He is so pledged to them in love and faithfulness that to question it is to tempt Him.
Let us refer again, for a moment, to God swearing to the fathers to give the land. It is mentioned three times in this chapter (verses 10, 18, 23). It must strike everyone of us that it is an extraordinary thing for God to swear. We might say, I think, with all reverence that it would not be an ordinary matter for God to take an oath. Such a solemn asseveration on God’s part would only be called forth by the activities of tremendous powers of evil, standing, as it were, to challenge His right of way. Under such circumstances “God, willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, intervened by an oath, that by two unchangeable things, in which it was impossible that God should lie, we might have a strong encouragement who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6: 13 - 20). Whether it is the swearing to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as to the land; or the swearing that the generation of hardened unbelief should not enter into God’s rest (Psalm 95: 11); or the swearing which constituted Christ a priest forever after the order of Melchisedek (Psalm 110: 4); or the swearing that unto God every knee shall bow (Isaiah 14: 23), the oath on God’s part is called forth by the presence of conditions which are contrary to Him.
We have already remarked that when “the land” was first spoken of the Canaanite was there; adverse powers were present. The swearing of the oath by Jehovah was in Genesis 22, after Isaac had been, in figure, offered up, and received again from the dead — a precious type of Christ, the Son of the Father’s love.
Then it was said, “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies”. A hostile power was in evidence, but it was to be overthrown and dispossessed. So “the land” represents a sphere which has been held by the power of evil, but from which that power is to be cast out so that the people of God may enjoy a good that is wholly of God — a good that is the divine answer to the evil that was there. “The land” is specifically called “the land of promise” (Hebrews 11: 9), so that it may be regarded as covering figuratively the whole range of divine promise.
If we consider the development of divine promise I think we shall find that as certain manifestations of the power of evil made their appearance in the world God met them by promises. He would defeat the enemy, and in place of every evil He would bring in a corresponding good. The “seven nations greater and mightier than thou” would represent the complete power of spiritual wickedness. See Ephesians 6: 12. We have to take account of the fact that evil did not originate in this world; it had its origin in the devil (1 John 3: 8), and was found also in other beings who are called his angels. But it came in and got a footing here, and God was displaced in the hearts of His highly favoured creatures. To displace or misrepresent God, or to alienate man from God, and from all that is in the thought of God for man, was, and is, the great design of the enemy. But God met the working of evil in the garden of Eden by a statement which, though not addressed directly to man, had the nature of promise. The Seed of the woman should crush the serpent’s head; through Christ the devices of the devil should be defeated.
Sin and death came in, violence and corruption, and then — after the flood — human glory centralised in Babel, and idolatry. The whole system had then been introduced by which men should be held in ignorance of the [p. 74] true God. It might be developed in after ages, but all the elements had declared themselves. Now God shews His hand; He intervenes by calling Abraham out, and by giving promises. It was the God of glory who appeared to Abraham to speak to him of a land which He would shew, to speak of greatness which He would confer, to speak of blessing which should be for all families of the earth! On the principle of God having His place all the works of the devil should be undone. God would secure our attention to things which are great enough for Him to give as the God of glory.
One can see the importance of the covenant having its place in view of entrance into the land, for only a people with undivided hearts — hearts full of love to God — could appreciate what He proposes to give. It is such who can take up warfare for the land. They can understand in their measure the words of our New Testament Joshua, “We do not war according to flesh. For the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds; overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ” (2 Corinthians 10: 4). The “seven nations” represent those spiritual forces which oppose themselves to our true knowledge of God in the sphere of His own actings in resurrection power. They can only be overcome as every thought is led captive into the obedience of the Christ. The Christ whom we have learned to know as the Ark of the covenant, has gone through death as the obedient One in view of our knowing Him and being in association with Him as the risen One. “The land” has its antitype — not in heaven, for we do not expect to find “seven nations greater and mightier than thou” there — but in those blessings and associations which saints are privileged to possess and enjoy spiritually now as those who [p. 75] are risen with Christ, while yet the full power of spiritual wickedness has to be met and overcome. There are spiritual powers in great activity to countervail every divine thought, and to hinder the knowledge of God. Thoughts — apparently founded on Scripture — are brought forward; “the artifices of the devil” often take this form. Since the Lord has given light as to prophecy and dispensational truth an immense amount of this has been incorporated in various systems of error, and souls are often deceived by what appears to be increased light as to Scripture, whereas the real object is to obscure the true grace of God as made known in the glad tidings, and to bring in entirely wrong thoughts of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.
Every spiritual gain is secured now at the cost of conflict, and this is particularly the case in regard to what answers to “the land”. Where there is desire to walk in the present truth, and to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God, the most subtle efforts of the enemy will be put forth to hinder it.