Discovering the Gospel in Deuteronomy – Tim Keller

the reason that that a Believer should be obeying the law of God is so that the world will see what a glorious God we have so when the world sees uh Believers loving one another and doing all the things that the law of God says you know not killing not stealing not committing adultery you know all that they will look and say oh look at what a great God these this people have [Music] [Music] hi we are looking at how to discover the gospel in every single book of the Bible and uh what we're looking

at is each book and we're asking the question what's the book about how does it fit in or move along the biblical story line how does it point us to the gospel of grace and how does it point us to Jesus himself so um first of all let's talk about the book of Deuteronomy and what it's about now the word Deuteronomy means the second law dter deutero which is second noos law and it is talking about the the fact that when uh the children of Israel got to the promised land and we're about to go

in uh God had told Moses that because of his various failur years he was not going to lead the children of Israel into the promised land and so when they got to the very threshold of it uh Moses preached basically if you take a look at the book of Deuteronomy you realize it's really a a series of Moses's sermons on recapitulating the law of God especially the Ten Commandments that was received at Mount sini 40 years earlier and going through what the law of God is and how to live in the land and the purpose

of the law and so what you actually have is a recapitulation of how to live life according to God's uh moral rules and law just before they go into the promised land that's what it's about and the outline of the book is fascinating because uh what many people have pointed out is that in 2000 years ago I'm Excuse me 2,000 years before the time of Christ uh when the Hittites which was a great Empire would conquer a a smaller country they would create a covenant between the Emperor of you know the great Lord and the

vassel state in other words if if a particular country was conquered and now they were going to be living under uh the Hittites what was the relationship going to be like and they would put together what was called a hittite suarti treaty because the suarin was a a lord the hittite susar treaty uh what's fascinating is the book of Deuteronomy is outlined exactly like a hittite susar treaty it starts with the Preamble who are the parties the Lord and his people it moves into a a place called the historical prologue where the relationship between God

and his people is spelled out how God LED them out of Egypt and how God made these promises and that sort of thing then comes the stipulations which is actually the the law when you see the stipulations it's the it's the Ten Commandments but in the hittite susar treaty the law was not a way to be saved it was a way to have a good relationship with the great Lord so the the people uh were able were were doing what what the great Lord wanted them to do so they could have a a good relationship

a love relationship with the great Lord and then finally after the Preamble the historical prologue the um the stipulations or the law and finally the blessings and curses came which is where the great lord said if you obey the law these are the blessings you will get and if you disobey the law these are the curses that will come down on you and finally at the very end there would be Oaths that both both the the great Lord and the the vassals would have Oaths what's fascinating is by Deuteronomy using that as the actual um

uh outline so you basically have uh chapter 1 is the preamble chapter 1 to4 of Deuteronomy is the historical prologue chapters 5 to 11 is the stipulations and then chapters 12 to 26 is the details of the stipulations meaning the the law chapters um 2728 are the blessings and curses and then the Oaths and Witnesses are 29 to 31 that was revolutionary because first of all it was showing that the relationship of Israel to God um that the purpose of the law was not to be saved but to have a good relationship with God the

reason we are obeying the law of God is to have a love relationship with him not in order to be saved not in order to go to heaven the relationship had already been established by God the Deliverance had already happened and the other reason and Deuteronomy 4 is very clear the other reason we obey the law of God is to be a witness to the the Nations Deuteronomy 4 says the reason that that a Believer should be obeying the law of God is so that the world will see what a glorious God we have so

when when the uh the the world sees uh Believers loving one another and doing all the things that the law of God says you know not killing not stealing not committing adultery you know all that they will look and say oh look at what a great God these this people have have so uh all religion sees the law of God as being basically a way of Salvation a way you get God to bless you a way to get God to just do good things for you but Deuteronomy is an extraordinarily sophisticated way of saying no

the law of God is there in order to have a love relationship with God and also as a way of being a witness to the Nations not as a form of salvation now of course immediately you begin to see how does that fit in with the rest of the Bible now what that means of course is just pointing to the fact that in the end Jesus Christ saves Us by giving us the blessings of the Covenant by taking the curses of the Covenant it says so in Galatians chapter 3 it says Jesus Christ became a

curse for us so that we could receive the blessings that were promised uh at the end of Jesus life he obeyed the the Covenant perfectly he should have gotten blessings instead he got the curse so at the end of our Lives we get the blessings instead of the curse he got our curse so that we get his blessings and if you don't understand Deuteronomy you do not understand how Jesus Christ life and death actually brings about our Salvation the other thing just to mention rather briefly is uh about the way in which um God U

shows that salvation is by Grace there's a great place in Deuteronomy 7 where God says to the children of Israel I didn't love you because you were the greatest of Nations you were actually a small nation I didn't love you because you were the richest of Nations you're actually a pretty poor Nation I didn't love you because you're a powerful Nation you're actually pretty weak but I loved you um because I set my my love on you and that's the reason I love you I'll never forget Dr Ed Clowney preaching a sermon on this this

um passage in which he said do you realize what God is saying he's saying let me tell you the reason I love you I love you just because I love you I don't love you because you're better or or because you've done this or you've done that I just love you because I love you see that's Grace I remember Ed Clowny saying then he says men the next time your wife says honey do you love me don't say well you know you're a great tennis partner uh don't say well you know you're actually pretty good-look

or don't say well you know it was great to be able to put our two incomes together he said boy that's not love that's not love when you love somebody because they're this or that or they brought you this or brought no real love is I love you just because I love you and God's love is is the love of Grace it's not the love of of mered good works one more thing Jesus Christ is the ultimate lawgiver Moses of course gave us the law and he wrote it well you know on tablets Jesus Christ

is the ultimate lawgiver because he writes it on the tablets of your heart it's very clear by the end of the book by the way there's a at the end of the book of of Deuteronomy uh Moses gives them a song to sing in which the song says you know we failed Mo basically at the end of moses' life he says you know what here's what the way God wants you to live here's how you can be a witness to the Nations here how here's how you can have a great relationship with God and you

are going to fail you are absolutely going to fail uh so boy that's pretty pessimistic well yes and no because Deuteronomy points forward to the fact that Moses was a great man you know the meekest man on the face of the Earth he was a great man many ways but he wasn't he was an insufficient lawgiver we need a lawgiver who can write it on the tablets of our hearts who can change us and Jesus Christ is the one who did that and actually you're never going to actually you know commandment number you know you

know if you go to the fourth Commandment you're never really going to get Sabbath rest unless you get the deeper rest that Jesus Christ brings you in the gospel you're never going to really you know number five honor your parents unless you get the fatherly love that really really comforts you in Jesus Christ you're never going to really be able to get over hatred and bitterness and really forgive unless you get the forgiveness that Jesus Christ gives us you're never really going to be true to your spouse unless Jesus is your ultimate spouse and you

get his spousal love and then that'll keep you from ever being tempted to look for love anywhere else did you see in other words the reason why you you you can not kill not commit adultery not steal the reason you cannot steal is because Jesus Christ has made you wealthy in himself so that now you're you're not you're not greedy for for money in fact you can give it away uh Jesus Christ is the ultimate lawgiver who not only writes it on our hearts but actually gives us the resources we need to satisfy the law

of God and so Jesus Christ is the true Moses and that's the way we can be absolutely sure that when we embrace the law of God that we are going to be able to honor God Be A Witness to the Nations and know him well [Music] love [Music]