In verse 11 Moses gets back on track after explaining that return and restoration are
possible when Israel falls away; they don't have to remain in permanent
exile.
And he resumes by saying something that completely refutes another rather common Christian doctrine
that needs to be relegated to the waste bin.
Moses says that the terms of the covenant...the Torah.....the Law is NOT too hard for Israel
to do.
The Torah is not unintelligible, it is not inaccessible, and it
is not part of those hidden things of God.
It is revealed and thus we have it and are to obey it.
In an earlier chapter Moses instructed that at Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal enormous flat
stones, plastered and then scribed with the words of the Torah, were to
be erected and the words place upon them were to be plainly written.
That was stressed. Plainly written.
The idea expressed here is that while the priests and Levites are indeed teachers and
administrators of the Torah, they are not the source of The Law nor are they the only
ones capable of comprehending its meaning or correctly observing the
They're not the only ones capable of observing the
laws and commands.
They're for everyone.
So not only is the Torah knowable it also is at hand, it is doable and God fully expects
it to be done.
How often have we heard that the reason the New
Covenant was instituted is because the Mosaic Covenant was impossible to keep.
Wrong.
Right here in verses 11-14 Yehoveh, through Moses, says explicitly
that the Law is NOT too hard to be kept.
Therefore says verse 15, here is the summation of all that Torah is about: on the one hand
life and prosperity, and on the other death and adversity.
Life and
prosperity equals the blessing of the Law; death and adversity equals the curse of the
Law.
But (and here is the secret to living the Torah life as God intends), there are 3 ingredients
necessary to maintain our relationship with the Lord.
Verse 16 says
these 3 ingredients are: 1) Love your God, 2) walk in His ways, and 3) keep His commandments.
I want to paraphrase this in more modern terms: 1) trust God (and of course that means
trusting His Messiah), 2) live your life according to Biblical
principles, and 3) obey the Torah.
Trust, live, obey.
That's the secret.
And it isn't much of a secret.
To obey the commandments without trusting God is worthless.
To trust God but to be disobedient is a
fruitless life.
To observe the Biblical commandments but not to trust God (have a personal relationship
with Him) relegates us to permanent separation from
Him.
And in verse 17 Moses again cautions that to know the Law, but to turn away from God
means exile.
You can know it all day long, but if you turn away from him,
You'll be exiled.
To mix in the worship of other gods with the worship of
Yehoveh means exile.
So, Don't. Choose life.
This is what it means when it says in the New Testament that it is God's will that
ALL will be saved.
He is saying
PLEASE, CHOOSE LIFE!
It is God's will that Israel, and we, choose life and the blessing of the covenant by means
of trusting that Yeshua is Savior and that
Yeshua IS God.
But notice the 3-part commandment; in order to live the kind of life that a Believer should,
obedience to God's commandments is necessary.
Disobedience draws us closer and closer to that line in the sand; disobedience taken
to a high enough level (and only God knows where that level is) puts us
across that line in the sand and separates us from Him.
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