Skeptics, those looking for reasons to reject the Bible, often point to some strong words of God that appear in the Old Testament. The idea is that the God of the Old Testament was harsh, vindictive, and mean-spirited, especially in contrast to Jesus. This isn’t a new argument, but it’s as flawed now as it was when first promoted many centuries ago.

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Over and over, the Old Testament presents the Lord as loving His ancient people Israel and wanting only what was best for them. And this love appears powerfully in the book of Deuteronomy.

Read Deuteronomy 10:1-15. What is the immediate context of these verses, and what do they teach us about how God felt toward His people, even after their sin? What do they teach us, indeed, about grace?

God’s grace and love for Israel exudes from these texts. Notice, particularly, verses 12 and 13. They are really one long sentence, a question, and the question is simple: What am I, the Lord, asking you to do but the following … walk in My ways, love Me, serve Me, and keep My statutes for your own good?

All through the Hebrew in this verse the words for “your” and “you” are in singular. Though God certainly is speaking to the nation as a whole, what good will His words do if the people, each one individually, don’t obey them? The whole is only as good as the sum of the parts. The Lord was speaking one-to-one, individually, to Israel as a nation.

We can’t forget, either, the end of verse 13: keep these things letov lak, that is, “for your good.” In other words, God is commanding the people to obey because it is in their best interest to do so. God made them, God sustains them, God knows what is best for them, and He wants what’s best for them. Obedience to His law, to His Ten Commandments, can work only to their benefit.

The law often has been compared to a hedge, a wall of protection, and by staying within that wall, His followers are protected from a raft of evils that otherwise would overtake and destroy them. In short, out of love for His people, God gave them His law, and obedience to His law would be “for your good.”

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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The Hebrew nation on the borders of Canaan, God’s chosen people, are finally about to inherit the land that God had promised them. And, as we have seen, Deuteronomy is Moses’ final instructions to the Hebrews before they take the land. And among those instructions were the commands to obey.

Read the following texts. What point is expressed over and over and over again, and why is this point so important for the people? (Deuteronomy 4:44, Deuteronomy 17:19, Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 30:10, Deuteronomy 31:12, Deuteronomy 32:46, Deuteronomy 33:2).

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Even the most cursory reading of the book of Deuteronomy shows how crucial obedience to the law was for the nation of Israel. In a real sense, it was the people’s covenant obligation. God had done so much for them and would continue to do so much for them — things that they couldn’t do for themselves and that they did not deserve to begin with (which is what grace is, God giving us what we don’t deserve). And what He asked in response was, well, obedience to His law.

It’s no different now. God’s grace saves us, apart from the works of the law — “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28) — and our response is obedience to the law. We obey the law, though, not in a vain attempt to be saved by it — “therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20) — but as the result of the salvation that we so graciously have been given. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

Deuteronomy could be seen as one big object lesson in grace and law. By grace God redeems us, doing for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves (any more than Israel could have escaped from Egypt by themselves), and in response we live, by faith, a life of obedience to Him and to His law. From the fall of Adam onward, up to those who live through the time of trouble and the mark of the beast, a people depicted as those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12) — God’s relationship with His covenant people is one of law and grace. God’s grace forgives us for having violated His law, and God’s grace enables us to obey His law as well, an obedience that arises from our covenant relationship with Him.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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