And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God, for our good continually, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day.
A child asks why God's laws exist at all. The father answers with the rescue from Egypt before he mentions a single command. Then come three reasons for keeping the laws: to fear God, for lasting good, and to be kept alive. Each one raises the same question: who gains from obedience?
The reply begins with history, not with rules. God's claim on Israel rests on what He had already done for them.
The answer would take them back to the days of Israel's slavery in Egypt and the great intervention of God in bringing them out of this slavery with great signs and wonders against Egypt and Pharaoh. God brought them out that He might bring them in to the land He had promised. Therefore, He had a special claim on Israel, and commanded them to observe all His statutes, giving proper reverential fear to Him who had so greatly blessed them.
Another writer weighs this motive against the one given at creation.
The fact is that redemption, even as a picture of it, is a stronger motive to obedience than creation itself... If the aim of all this part of Deuteronomy is to press obedience, then nothing keeps obedience alive like redemption. And if that was true when the rescue was only an outward one, how much more when it is eternal?
The word could suggest a slave's nervousness before a master. One writer rules that out and names what drives this obedience instead.
These words show us the hidden spring of the life we, as Christians, are called to live day by day — a life of simple, complete and unreserved obedience. Its spring is a heart that fears the Lord — fearing Him not in a slave's spirit, but with all that deep, true, adoring love which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts... A loving heart finds its deepest joy in obeying all God's commandments, and nothing has any value to God except what comes from a loving heart.
The commands were not given to enrich God. A writer commenting on the same promise in Deuteronomy 10 puts it plainly.
Walking in the way of God's commandments was all for their real good, their deep and full blessing. The path of whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness. And thank God, those who love the Lord can always walk it.
The good goes further than benefit. The statutes also showed Israel what God Himself is like.
So these statutes kept alive among them the memory of a love that showed itself for them in everything else. They were statutes that would be righteousness to those who kept them, and for their good always. They were assurances of what the God who gave them was in His own nature: One who loves righteousness, and who commands love because He loves.
Being kept alive meant life in the land. One writer shows that holding the land came with conditions.
Deuteronomy gives the possession of the land as something historical and conditional, with directions for how Israel was to live in it... These were the real, responsible and conditional terms on which they would hold the land, given while they were still outside it. Keeping it depended on their obedience. Their conduct in the desert is brought up as a warning, given just as they had come through the wilderness and were going into the land. It sets out the turning point between blessing and cursing.
The promise of good depended on an obedience Israel never gave. One writer names what that offer was, and what the gospel gives instead.
They were told that if they feared the Lord and obeyed His statutes, it would be "for our good always," and that such obedience would be "our righteousness." That would have been legal righteousness, but they never had it. The Gospel does not offer us this. It gives instead a righteousness which is from God.
- Rescue first. The father answers the child's question with a story of slavery and rescue. God commands people He has already redeemed.
- Rescue is the motive. Nothing keeps obedience alive like redemption. If a rescue from Egypt could do that, an eternal one does far more.
- Rescue shapes the fear. The fear asked for is not a slave's dread but a loving heart, and a loving heart finds its deepest joy in obeying.
- Rescue is for our good. The statutes help the one who obeys, not the God who gave them. They also show His nature: He commands love because He loves.
- Rescue outgrows the offer. Israel never gave the obedience that would have been their righteousness. The gospel brings instead a righteousness that is from God.
And it shall be our righteousness if we take heed to do all these commandments before Jehovah our God, as he hath commanded us.
Deuteronomy 6 ends with a promise tied to a condition. Keep every commandment, and it counts as righteousness. Everything depends on the small word "if" — and on whether anyone ever met it.
The verse sets a standard for being right before God. But notice whose righteousness it would be.
The law demanded righteousness from those under it: "And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment" (Deuteronomy 6:25). Of course, it would only have been man's righteousness. But righteousness never came by the law, and there was "none righteous." So it became only a ministry of death and condemnation to man.
The offer was real. God asked for the whole commandment, kept in His presence, just as He had given it.
The promise held only if the obedience was complete. Israel's history answers whether it was.
Verse 25 is especially interesting: "And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment." If Israel had kept the law perfectly, this would be their righteousness. But they disobeyed badly. And for centuries since, despite that disobedience, they have been "ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own," and "did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:3). If they would submit to God's righteousness and confess their guilt honestly before Him, they could find that God credits righteousness to them on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ. That is the only place anyone can now find true righteousness.
The people had a problem before they ever accepted these terms. That problem decided the outcome.
Under the law given through Moses, the promise of life was not to faith but to works: "The person who does the commandments shall live by them" (see Romans 10:5). So we read in Deuteronomy, "it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment." But the Jew was already a sinner when he accepted obedience to the law as the condition of blessing... The apostle draws this conclusion: "by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight" (Romans 3:20). So the law was finished as the way of justification. Or, as he says in another chapter, Christ is the end — the termination — of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4).
The verse does not stand alone. It closes a paragraph where a child asks what all these commands mean. The father answers with a story of slavery and rescue.
The answer would take them back to the days of Israel's slavery in Egypt. God stepped in and brought them out of that slavery with great signs and wonders against Egypt and Pharaoh. He brought them out so that He might bring them in to the land He had promised. So He had a special claim on Israel. He commanded them to keep all His statutes, and to give proper reverence to Him who had blessed them so greatly.
So which came first: the obedience or the rescue?
The ways of God are very precious; God must be true to Himself. God did not command obedience so that they might be redeemed, but because He had redeemed them.
No one ever produced this righteousness. Yet the standard did not disappear. One writer traces where it finally found its answer.
Deuteronomy 6:25 gave the rule of man's righteousness. But man being what he is, it became a means of convicting him of sin, for "through the law comes knowledge of sin." It became a ministry of condemnation and death. Yet not the smallest letter or stroke of it would pass away until it found what answered to it in the Person of Christ... He gave it wonderful glory by submitting to its obedience. He magnified it and made it honourable... Even in Christianity the full sum of the law's requirement is fulfilled in us who walk according to the Spirit. But for that we first had to be set free from under it.
- Offered. The verse holds out a righteousness. But it is a human one, earned by doing all that God commanded, with nothing left out.
- Unattained. Perfect obedience would have counted as Israel's righteousness. They disobeyed, and no one has ever gained righteousness this way.
- Exposed. The people were sinners before they ever accepted these terms. So the law that promised righteousness brought the knowledge of sin instead.
- Replaced. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. God credits righteousness on the basis of His sacrifice.
- Ordered. Redemption came first. God brought them out to bring them in. Obedience was never the price of rescue, only the response to it.