Did Moses Think Sinners Could Keep the Law?
00:00:00.000 | Today, we have a question from a listener named Max who asks about whether or not Old
00:00:09.280 | Testament saints were under the impression that the Mosaic Law was achievable by a sinner.
00:00:16.400 | Dear Pastor John, hello.
00:00:17.600 | I greatly enjoy listening to your resources and have grown in many ways from your deep
00:00:22.560 | love of Scripture and knowing the God who breathed it out.
00:00:26.600 | I have been reading Deuteronomy and chapter 30 verses 11-14 caught my attention.
00:00:32.640 | It states that the commandments in the book of the law are "not too difficult for you."
00:00:38.400 | Thus, because obedience is attainable, they were forbidden from asking this "who will
00:00:45.280 | ascend to heaven for us?"
00:00:48.560 | Deuteronomy 30 verse 12.
00:00:51.040 | That's as anti-Christological as it gets to tell people not to expect someone to ascend
00:00:56.280 | to heaven on their behalf.
00:00:58.480 | But I'm also aware that Paul uses this passage in Romans 10 verses 6-8 to explain righteousness
00:01:03.840 | based on faith.
00:01:06.160 | Based on the context of the beginning of Romans 10, I'm curious of your thoughts regarding
00:01:10.620 | whether God in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy was giving the Israelites the notion that their
00:01:15.920 | righteousness would be based on faith or that following the commandments of God perfectly
00:01:21.480 | was actually achievable.
00:01:24.000 | So achievable, a Savior wasn't needed.
00:01:28.360 | Pastor John, how would you solve this conundrum for Max?
00:01:32.400 | I don't think the Bible anywhere, Old or New Testament, encourages us to believe that perfect
00:01:39.200 | obedience in this life is possible.
00:01:42.680 | Even where law-keeping was held out in the Mosaic law as required for God's salvation,
00:01:51.280 | the sacrifices were put in place precisely because of the inevitable disobedience.
00:01:58.120 | But I would add to this that both in the Old Covenant, the Mosaic law, and the New Covenant,
00:02:08.200 | secured by the blood of Jesus, obedience is required.
00:02:13.460 | Only there are two different ways to require obedience.
00:02:18.880 | One is this, salvation by law-keeping requires obedience, indeed perfect obedience, as the
00:02:27.600 | basis of our salvation.
00:02:30.320 | That's never going to happen.
00:02:32.120 | If we want to try to be saved by law-keeping, Galatians 5:3 says, "Have at it, and you've
00:02:39.200 | got to keep the whole law," and it isn't going to happen.
00:02:42.800 | So salvation by law-keeping is a dead-end street; by the law comes death.
00:02:48.880 | The other is that salvation by faith also requires obedience, but not as the basis of
00:02:57.120 | our salvation, but as the evidence and confirmation of it.
00:03:01.600 | Now here's the most important thing I can do, I think, in response to this question.
00:03:08.360 | Let me see if I can paint the big picture of the Old Testament Pentateuch, because that's
00:03:14.600 | going to explain this passage in Deuteronomy.
00:03:17.280 | The big picture of the Old Testament Pentateuch, that is the first five books of the Bible,
00:03:23.760 | and show the contrast between salvation or righteousness by faith versus salvation or
00:03:33.640 | righteousness by law-keeping.
00:03:36.080 | In other words, what I want to show is that this tension between righteousness by law-keeping
00:03:43.760 | and righteousness by faith is not found just between the Mosaic law and the New Testament
00:03:51.320 | gospel.
00:03:52.320 | So that tension between law and gospel is not just found between Old and New Testament
00:03:59.720 | or between Mosaic law and gospel, it's found right here in the Pentateuch itself.
00:04:07.360 | Genesis at the front end and Deuteronomy at the back end both highlight righteousness
00:04:14.560 | by faith, and in between, Excellus Leviticus and Numbers, the heart of the Mosaic law,
00:04:22.240 | highlight righteousness by law-keeping.
00:04:25.720 | But both of them treat obedience to God as essential only in two very different ways.
00:04:34.380 | Righteousness by law-keeping treats obedience as the basis of our right standing with God,
00:04:41.920 | and righteousness by faith treats obedience as the result and confirmation of our right
00:04:49.480 | standing with God.
00:04:51.400 | So let me illustrate this from Genesis and Deuteronomy, and this will explain, I hope,
00:04:57.640 | how I understand the text that he's asking about in Deuteronomy 30.
00:05:03.140 | The fundamental statement of righteousness by faith in the Pentateuch is Genesis 15.6.
00:05:10.280 | Abraham believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
00:05:17.400 | Paul makes a big deal out of that text, and then he says in Galatians 3.17, "The law,
00:05:24.040 | which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as
00:05:33.560 | to make the promise void.
00:05:36.720 | For if the inheritance comes by law, it is no longer from promise, but God gave it to
00:05:43.120 | Abraham by a promise, namely, to be received by faith."
00:05:47.760 | And Paul sums up the law that he has in mind when he says, "the one that comes 430 years
00:05:53.880 | later."
00:05:54.880 | He sums it up like this in Romans 10.5, "Moses writes about the righteousness that is based
00:05:59.160 | on law," and then he quotes Leviticus 18.5, "that the person who does the commandments
00:06:05.960 | shall live by them."
00:06:08.720 | So Paul contrasts righteousness by faith from Genesis 15.6 with the righteousness through
00:06:16.680 | the law in Leviticus.
00:06:18.560 | So in the Pentateuch itself, there is the gospel way of righteousness by faith and the
00:06:25.640 | law-keeping way of righteousness through the law.
00:06:30.020 | But long before law came, Genesis made plain that Abraham's obedience to God was essential,
00:06:41.900 | not as the basis of his right standing with God, but as a confirmation of the righteousness
00:06:48.220 | that he had by faith.
00:06:49.880 | For example, Genesis 26.4, God says to Abraham, "In your offspring, all the nations of the
00:06:57.140 | earth shall be blessed."
00:06:58.660 | That's the promise that he believed by faith back in chapter 15.
00:07:02.500 | And then it says, "That will come because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge,
00:07:11.300 | my commandments, my statutes, my laws."
00:07:13.700 | In other words, the promise that Abraham had by faith in Genesis 15 is confirmed by his
00:07:21.060 | obedience to the law in Genesis 26, as much as God revealed it to him and as much as he
00:07:28.980 | knew it.
00:07:29.980 | Same thing in Genesis 18.19, same thing in Genesis 22.16.
00:07:36.180 | Then after the giving of the Mosaic law with its emphasis on righteousness by law-keeping
00:07:42.740 | comes the book of Deuteronomy with the chapter that Max is asking about in this question.
00:07:50.060 | And what I'm arguing is that just as Genesis taught the righteousness by faith confirmed
00:07:57.260 | by obedience, that's what Deuteronomy 30 is about as well.
00:08:02.780 | And the clearest signal is that in verse 6, you get a prophecy of the new covenant that
00:08:09.580 | will be more fully prophesied in Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, and then fulfilled when Jesus
00:08:15.860 | lifts up the cup at the Last Supper and says, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood."
00:08:22.660 | So verse 6 of Deuteronomy 30 says, "The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the
00:08:31.220 | heart of your offspring so that," this is the effect of God's sovereign inner transforming
00:08:39.940 | by the Spirit, miracle working, "so that you will love the Lord your God with all your
00:08:47.940 | heart and with all your soul, that you may live."
00:08:50.980 | Now that, I would argue, that verse, verse 6 of chapter 30, is a description of the righteousness
00:08:57.460 | that comes through faith.
00:08:59.980 | Why?
00:09:00.980 | Because you can't earn this by works because the works are the very thing that the circumcision
00:09:06.460 | of heart is making possible.
00:09:08.700 | The only way to embrace this promise is by faith.
00:09:14.120 | So this is a promise from God that he will put his people right through the blood of
00:09:21.860 | the new covenant by faith.
00:09:24.740 | So when three verses later we read, "The Lord will again take delight in prospering you
00:09:31.920 | when you obey the voice of the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,"
00:09:39.060 | which is a clear echo of the new covenant promise three verses earlier, we see again,
00:09:45.420 | just like in Genesis, the necessity of obedience not as the basis of our right standing with
00:09:54.020 | God but the confirmation of it made possible by the circumcision of our hearts, which comes
00:10:01.460 | through the blood of the covenant before we can do anything to deserve it ourselves.
00:10:05.900 | We can only receive it by faith.
00:10:09.540 | Then finally, he was wondering, "Are you ever going to get to my question?"
00:10:15.140 | Then finally comes the passage that Max is asking about.
00:10:20.380 | Let me read it.
00:10:21.780 | So this is verse 11, two verses later.
00:10:24.820 | "For this commandment," the one you're obeying now in new covenant faith, "this commandment
00:10:30.980 | that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
00:10:36.340 | It is not in heaven that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it
00:10:41.460 | to us that we may hear it and do it?'
00:10:43.860 | Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and
00:10:47.820 | bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?'
00:10:50.100 | But the word is very near you.
00:10:52.260 | It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it."
00:10:58.460 | In Romans 10, Paul sees these verses, he quotes them explicitly in Romans 10, 6-8.
00:11:04.700 | He sees them as pointing to the righteousness of faith in contrast to the righteousness
00:11:12.580 | that comes through law-keeping, which he cited in verse 5.
00:11:17.700 | Because he sees, just like we do, that Moses is writing about new covenant reality, things
00:11:25.740 | God is going to do sovereignly in the heart of his people through the forgiveness of sins
00:11:32.020 | by the work of the Holy Spirit in the days of the Messiah.
00:11:36.500 | So here's my summary.
00:11:38.260 | Here's what I think we've seen.
00:11:40.180 | Genesis at the front end of the Pentateuch and Deuteronomy at the back end both draw
00:11:47.100 | our attention to the righteousness that comes through faith.
00:11:51.700 | And sandwiched in between is the Mosaic law, which came in 430 years after Abraham, and
00:11:58.460 | it does not nullify what was taught as the righteousness of faith.
00:12:04.140 | So in both Genesis and Deuteronomy, obedience to God from faith out of love is required,
00:12:13.080 | but not the way obedience is required for the righteousness by law-keeping, not as the
00:12:19.520 | basis of our standing with God.
00:12:23.340 | Rather, obedience enabled by this new covenant inner work of the Spirit, blood bought by
00:12:30.260 | Jesus in the new covenant, this obedience is required in a new covenant way as the fruit
00:12:38.540 | of the Spirit written on our hearts and confirming not creating our right standing with God.
00:12:47.060 | That was a lot.
00:12:48.060 | Oh, my lot.
00:12:49.060 | And that's what we kind of expect, I guess, in this podcast, a lot in each and every episode.
00:12:56.700 | Thank you, Pastor John, for investing so much of your time and thought into each episode.
00:13:01.860 | And thanks for listening today.
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00:13:13.380 | in our archive or to submit a question to us.
00:13:15.300 | You can do that online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:13:18.580 | Well, the comforts and the wealth of this Western world that most of us live in can
00:13:25.060 | be a blessing and they can be a deadly curse, too.
00:13:29.740 | So how can we be freed from Western materialism?
00:13:33.620 | So important.
00:13:35.380 | That question is up next time on Wednesday.
00:13:38.020 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:39.340 | We'll see you then.
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