What does Deuteronomy 10:12 tell us God requires of us?

"And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good." It was all for their real good, their deep, full blessing to walk in the way of the divine commandments. The path of whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness; and blessed be God, this path can always be trodden by those who love the Lord.

This is an unspeakable comfort, at all times. God has given us His precious word, the perfect revelation of His mind; and He has given as what Israel had not, even His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts whereby we can understand and appreciate His word. Hence our obligations are vastly higher than were Israel's. We are bound to a life of obedience by every argument that could be brought to bear on the heart and understanding.

How perfectly right it was of God to require of Israel to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all their heart and all their soul, to keep His commandments and His statutes (vs.12-13). Yet, in considering carefully each of these things, could Israel possibly be confident of obeying them? In fact, from the very outset, God's legal requirements as regards Israel were doomed to fail, for people will never do what is required of them. Thus law requires, but the grace of God provides.

Moses proceeds to show how the Lord had perfect title to Israel's obedience, for heaven and earth belong to God (v.14). Yet more, God had shown true delight in the fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, choosing them and their descendants above all other nations (v.15).

Therefore he tells them to circumcise the foreskin of their heart, that is, cut off the selfish, fleshly desires of their heart; and "be stiff-necked no longer" (v.16). Being stiff-necked refers to the stubbornness of wanting our own way. But would Israel be corrected by being told this? Sadly, no! Only the New Testament shows the way of proper correction.

This section is especially precious. Jehovah speaks through Moses and reminds His people of Himself and His Love and what He requires of them. "Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens is Jehovah's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is." What a marvellous call to fear and serve such a Lord! What He required of them was a loving obedience, to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him and to serve Him. They were to be followers of Jehovah their God. He is God of gods, Lord of lords, great, mighty, terrible. His goodness again is revealed by Moses as an incentive to love and to obey Him. He cares for the fatherless and loveth the stranger; for this reason they were to love the stranger. Yet far greater is our knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loveth us and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood and made us priests and kings unto God His Father. And this carries with it a higher obligation to serve Him, to love Him and to walk in obedience, than Israel 's obligation.

This part is now closed with a solemn reminder of their responsibility to God. (1) What did God require of them but a loving obedience to commandments which were always for their good? love to One who while infinitely great, heaven and earth belonging to Him, had nevertheless chosen them above all people in His love to them? Here was what made them so responsible beyond all men, while it should have made their duty easy of fulfillment. They had but to wear the light yoke of love, a thing which is indeed the moral power of the gospel: "We love Him, because He first loved us." How far, then, does our responsibility exceed that of Israel?

Deut. 6:4-5 shows that the Lord our God, Jehovah, requires the affection of the whole heart. The reason is found in Deut. 10:12. Deut. 11:13-15 shows if they would only love the Lord with all their heart, everything they could wish for they would have. Thus the important thing is to love the Lord. Deut. 30:1 shows the backsliding heart finding the power of the world too strong, but He is faithful and just to forgive. If reality of heart is there, the Lord is ever the same. He allows chastening to come in that we may be restored. Then in the 15th verse of the same chapter, life is spoken of and contrasted with death, and good with evil, and then we are exhorted to choose life. That is the antidote. Again in Ps. 18:1, "I will love Thee, O Lord." It is David's autobiography, his own history. Solomon also loved the Lord, and he could speak of Him as the chiefest among tenthousand. He is easily first against 9,999 rivals, and then the writer becomes lost in the sense of His love, and takes Him out of all comparison by saying, "He is altogether lovely." If we realize this then it will be easy to serve Him. It is not naturally easy to be insignificant, but if we become such we shall be glad to sweep a crossing in His interests.

Two characteristics are given of the man who is blessed of the Lord — fearing the Lord, and walking in His ways. To avoid all misconception, let it be again pressed that these are not mere characteristics — they should be displayed in all God's people; but they are given here as indications of practical state or condition. "Fearing the Lord" describes a man who acts with a good conscience before Him; and hence it is that we read, "Happy is the man that feareth alway" (Proverbs 28:14), the one, that is, who with holy fear seeks grace to avoid everything which would grieve the Spirit of God; and "walking in His ways" indicates the conduct consequent upon fearing the Lord, a walk which is formed and governed by the word of God. Altogether the practical state is the result of the truth held with divine power in the soul; and this is the only doorway, as already said, into the enjoyment of our true portion. As John says, this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.

One of the scribes, who had heard the Lord's reasoning with the Sadducees and perceived that He had answered with true and divine wisdom, drew near and asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?" The scribes believed that the commandments differed in value, and that some were worth more than others to make up the sum of righteousness to which a man ought to attain. The Lord answers again in this instance without turning back the question upon those who asked it to their confusion, but He establishes the two great pillars of man's responsibility: the unity of God, and man's duty towards Him and towards his neighbour. This was Israel's faith, and his duty towards all. The Lord does not quote the ten commandments, but the great principles of the law as to the whole duty of man. The Lord knew how to bring them out, divinely hidden as they are in the books of Moses; Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12; Lev. 19:18.

Though God has no respect of persons, He nevertheless does heed the ways that He has Himself established. This makes so much the less excusable the lack of faith on the part of the Jew. God never fails — man always. Favoured man only makes the greater show of his own unbelief. Here the message to them that were bidden was, "Come, for already all things are ready." Such is the invitation of grace. The law makes man the prominent and responsible agent; it is man that is to do this, and, yet more, man that must not do that. Man therein is commanded to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind. But the commandment, just as it is, is wholly unavailing, because in this case man is a sinner and loveless. No law ever produced or called out love. It may demand but cannot create love; it is not within the nature or power of law to do so. God knew this perfectly; and in the gospel He becomes Himself the Great Agent. It is He that loves, and who gives according to the strength of that love in sending His only begotten Son with eternal life in Him — yea, also to die in expiation for sin. Law demonstrated that man, though responsible, had no power to perform. He was incapable of doing God's will because of sin; but his pride was such that he did not, would not, feel his own incapability, or its cause. Were he willing to confess it, God would have shown him grace. But man felt no need of grace any more than his own guilt and powerlessness to meet law. So he slights the call to come, though all things are now ready.

The closing lines of our chapter give us a very fine summing up of the practical teaching which has been engaging our attention. "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that has done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord has made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude." Vers. 20-22.

"You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God. His testimonies and His statues which He has commanded you" (v.17). This would require their applying themselves to learn and to obey, to "do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord," that they might prosper in possessing the land God promised them, from which He would cast out their enemies (vs.18-19).