The book of Hebrews, in all its depth and sublimity, was, in many ways, just one long exhortation to Jewish believers in Jesus. And what it exhorted them to do is: Stay faithful to the Lord!

This faithfulness, of course, should stem from our love of God, of who He is and of His character and goodness, most powerfully expressed at the cross of Christ. Sometimes, though, human beings need to be reminded of what the terrible consequences of falling away will be.

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That is, we need to remember that, in the end, if we don’t accept what Jesus has done for us in having paid the penalty for our sins, we will have to pay that penalty ourselves, and that means “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13) followed by eternal destruction.

Read Hebrews 10:28-31. What is Paul saying and how does it apply to us, as well?

How interesting that in order to exhort Jewish believers to stay faithful to God, Paul quotes Deuteronomy, an earlier exhortation to Jewish believers to stay faithful to God! Paul quotes Deuteronomy 17:6 in regard to the fact that someone deemed worthy of death would face that death only after at least two people testified against that person.

But Paul did this to make the point that if unfaithfulness could lead to death under the Old Covenant, how much “worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy [of] who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:29). In other words, you have more light and more truth than they did, and you know about the sacrifice of the Son of God for your sins; thus, if you fall away, your condemnation will be greater than theirs.

Then Paul immediately goes back to Deuteronomy, now to Deuteronomy 32:35, simply to buttress his argument. Considering what they had been given in Christ and their knowledge of the great provision made for them, the Lord, who said, “vengeance is Mine,” will “judge His people” (Hebrews 10:30) for their apostasy and unfaithfulness. After all, He had judged their forefathers, who didn’t have what these New Testament Jews did, the fuller revelation of God’s love revealed at the cross. Thus, basically, Paul was saying: Be warned.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Over and over, the Lord had warned Israel not to follow after the practices of the nations around them. On the contrary, they were to be witnesses to those nations (Deuteronomy 4:6-8). In Deuteronomy 18:9-14, Moses again warns them about their specific practices, which were an “abomination to the LORD” ( Deuteronomy 18.12-13).

Read Deuteronomy 18:15-19. What is Moses telling them there? Then compare this with Acts 3:22 and Acts 7:37. How do Peter and Stephen apply Deuteronomy 18:18?

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In reference to the covenant at Sinai, Moses talks about how the children of Israel, at the revelation of God’s law (Exodus 20:18-21), wanted Moses to act as a mediator, an intercessor between them and God. It is then that Moses promises them, twice (Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 18:18), that the Lord will raise up a prophet like Moses, the idea being, given the context, that this prophet, like Moses, will among other things be also an intercessor between the people and the Lord.

Many centuries later, both Peter and Stephen quote the text in reference to Jesus. For Peter, Jesus was the fulfillment of what had been spoken of by “all His holy prophets” (Acts 3:21), and that the leaders need to obey Him and what He says. That is, Peter uses this text, which the Jews knew about, and applied it directly to Jesus, with the idea that they needed to repent for what they had done to Him (Acts 3:19).

Next, in Acts 7:37, when Stephen, though in a different context than Peter’s, was proclaiming Jesus, he, too, referred back to that famous promise, and he, too, claimed that it pointed to Jesus. He was saying that Moses, in His role in history and leading the Jews, had prefigured Jesus. That is, as Peter had done, Stephen was seeking to show the people that Jesus was the fulfillment of prophecy and that they needed to listen to Him. Contrary to the charge against him, that Stephen had been speaking “blasphemous words against Moses and God” (Acts 6:11), Stephen proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, a direct fulfillment of what God had promised through Moses.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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Read Galatians 3:1-14. What is Paul saying there that is relevant to us today, and how does he use Deuteronomy 27:26 and  Deuteronomy 21.22-23 to make his point?

Unfortunately, it’s common in Christianity to use this letter as some kind of justification for not keeping the law, the Ten Commandments. Of course, that argument is really used as a reason not to keep the fourth commandment, as if keeping that one commandment, as opposed to the other nine, is somehow an expression of the legalism that Paul was dealing with here.

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Yet, Paul was not speaking against the law, and certainly nothing in this passage could justify breaking the Sabbath commandment. The key can be found in Galatians 3:10, where he writes that “All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse,” and then he quotes Deuteronomy 27:26. The issue isn’t obedience to the law, but “relying on the law” — a tough position, if not an impossible one, for fallen beings like ourselves.

Paul’s point is that we are not saved by the works of the law but by Christ’s death on our behalf, which is credited to us by faith. His emphasis here is on what Christ has done for us, at the cross. And to help make this point, he refers back to Deuteronomy again, this time Deuteronomy 21:23. Like Jesus, Paul says, “it is written,” showing the authority of the Old Testament, and now he quotes from a text dealing with someone who, having committed a capital crime, and having been executed for it, was then hung on a tree, perhaps as a deterrent to others.

Paul, though, uses that as a symbol for Christ’s substitutionary death in our behalf: Christ became a “curse for us” in that He faced the curse of the law; that is, death, which all humans would face because all have violated the law. The good news of the gospel, however, is that the curse that should have been ours became His, at the cross, “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).

Or, as Ellen G. White said it: “None but Christ could redeem fallen man from the curse of the law and bring him again into harmony with Heaven. Christ would take upon Himself the guilt and shame of sin — sin so offensive to a holy God that it must separate the Father and His Son.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarch and Prophets, p. 63.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Key Thought: Deuteronomy was quoted or referred to in the Gospels, Acts, Romans, Galatians, Corinthians, Hebrews, and Revelation. We will look at a few and see what present truth we can learn from them.
December 18, 2021

1. Have a volunteer read Matthew 4:1-11..

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. How did Jesus answer Satan’s temptations and what is the important lesson for us?
3. Personal Application: How can we learn to be stronger in resisting Satan’s temptations? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “The devil quoted Scripture to Jesus. Jesus replied with Scripture. How can we discern between different interpretations of what a Scripture means?” How would you respond to your friend?

2. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 10:17-19.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What is the essential message here and what does it mean to the church today?
3. Personal Application: How often do you even subtly “lift up faces” and why does the cross show how sinful that attitude really is? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What does it mean to love the stranger? How do we deal with illegal immigrants? How do we treat those outside our own circle? How do we treat the poor?” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Galatians 3:7-14.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What is Paul saying that is relevant to us today?
3. Personal Application: How does Christ’s death on the cross make the Scriptures more personable in our own lives in living today? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “What does it mean that those that are of the works of the law and under a curse? I thought those who disobeyed the law were under a curse? How does faith fit into both these extremes? ” How would you respond to your relative

4. Have a volunteer read Hebrews 10:28-31. Deuteronomy 17:6..

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How do people tread underfoot the Son of God and count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing?
3. Personal Application: How do we do despite unto the Spirit of grace? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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In Deuteronomy 10, Moses (again) was recounting Israel’s history and (again) used those accounts to admonish his people to faithfulness. Amid that admonishment he said something else.

Read Deuteronomy 10:17-19. What’s the essential message to the people here, and why is this message relevant to God’s church today?

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The phrase “shows no partiality” is translated from a Hebrew figure of speech; it means literally that He does not “lift up faces.” This is believed to have come from a legal setting in which the judge or king sees the face of the person on trial and, based on that person’s status (important person or someone insignificant), the judge or king renders a verdict. The implication here in Deuteronomy is that the Lord doesn’t treat people in such a manner, despite His great power and might. He’s fair with everyone, regardless of their status. This truth, of course, was revealed in the life of Jesus and how He treated even the most despised in society.

Read Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Galatians 2:6, Ephesians 6:9, Colossians 3:25, and 1 Peter 1:17. How do these texts make use of Deuteronomy 10:17?

However varied the circumstances in each one of these references (in Ephesians Paul tells masters to be careful how they treat their slaves; in Romans Paul is talking about the fact that, when it comes to salvation and condemnation, there’s no difference between Jews and Gentiles), they all go back to Deuteronomy and to the idea that God “does not lift up faces.” And if the “God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome” won’t do it, then certainly we shouldn’t, as well.

Particularly in how Paul in Romans uses it, we can see a revelation of the gospel: we are all on the same plane, regardless of who we are in terms of status. We are all fallen beings in need of God’s saving grace. And the good news is that, regardless of our status, we all are offered salvation in Jesus Christ.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

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