Lesson 68 - Availability of Revelation and the Imminent Choice

Deuteronomy Lesson 68

Availability of Revelation and the Imminent Choice

Deuteronomy 30:11–20
Fellowship Chapel
03 January 2012
Charles Clough
© Charles A. Clough 2012
www.BibleFrameworkApplied.org

Tonight we’re going to get into Deuteronomy 30 and finish it. If you’ll turn there in the Scriptures and I will review the first ten verses that we did before Christmas because there’s some important material there that we want to be sure we understand.

Again following the handout-outline, we can’t emphasize enough the unique features of history as Deuteronomy sees it. We did this last time so we’ll just quickly review it. In the blanks there: the ultimate personality over all history versus impersonal fate and chance.

There aren’t 32 different things here, there are only two. Either there’s an ultimate personal God over all history or it’s impersonal. That means there isn’t a personal God. Then fate and chance are supposed to be the ones that rule. I’ve put in parenthesis after that where it says – which modern unbelievers are in denial over. What I mean by that is that the average unbeliever 24-7 is acting as though there is a personal creator. But at the same time the unbeliever is not accepting that God’s revelation of Himself. So there is tension, basic tension of their thinking.

The second point there is that ultimate responsibility versus ultimate victim hood. This is a corollary of the first idea. So these are basic ideas that are in embedded in Deuteronomy. I emphasize these because in all of our secular education we have not been educated with that view of history. In fact, probably most of us have not been educated in any real view of history, just a pile of facts going nowhere. In Scripture we need to appreciate history and where it’s leading.

Now the first ten verses are important from this aspect. These verses deal with the classic problem of sovereignty and human responsibility. So we want to look at those ten verses and see what we learn from them.

The first question we asked which Moses was basically answering is the interplay between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants. Here’s the problem. If the Mosaic Covenant or contract makes promises contingent on human response; how can you be sure that the Abrahamic Covenant is ever going to be fulfilled? That’s the tension. The Abrahamic Covenant emphasizes unconditional promise and history that Israel will accomplish its mission. The Mosaic Covenant says they won’t reach that point when they don’t obey Scripture. So that leads us to the question then - how does the sovereign promise of the Abrahamic Covenant work out in history such that it does not conflict with the Mosaic insistence that there be a response to Scripture?

So we look at the three events that are forecast here. Basically verse 1:

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:1, “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you …” That’s the 900-year outworking of the Mosaic Covenant that there is going to be cursing; and there’s going to be blessing. It ends up with cursings in the exile. So Moses says when that’s all done then: “… you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you, [2] and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice.” Now that’s a sovereign promise. The problem is—how does it happen. Of course, we don’t know how all of it happens. We do know that there’s a play on the words here. It says, “You will call them to mind.” That is, you’ll return them to your heart. So the Hebrew verb “to return” is in there twice. The first one is actually in your English translations call them to mind means to return them to your heart. And then the second use of the verb return is “and Yahweh will return you to Himself.”

So what do we do with that? Last time we spent considerable effort dealing with this issue of repentance. How does this process of repentance happen? Now we’re not talking here about trust. There’s a difference. When you trust in faith we are trusting the Lord to fulfill His promises toward us. In repentance the issue is that we already know in fact what’s going on and we’re suppressing it. So that’s why we gave you 1 Kings 8:47 speaking of the same future event.

^NKJ 1 Kings 8:47, “yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent …” Then we gave you Luke 15:17 which the prodigal son says: “But when he came to himself…”

We showed this diagram that there are two (this is probably oversimplified) but for the sake of thinking this through visualize two states in your heart, the heart being your mind here, the soul. There are two things. There is what we really do know after all. Romans 1 tells us we really do know God exists. It’s not going to be a surprise when we stand before Him. No atheist is really going to be surprised that God exists.

So there’s the epistemological state. That is what somehow we know. Then there is the psychological state. The psychological state may or may not reflect the epistemological state. Whether it does link up or not basically has to do with pain.

The prodigal son, if you think about it, when he went out and he got in the pig pen – remember he came to himself. Psychologically he was forced by the pain of his situation to admit that what he had known about his father was really true after all. So he came to himself - meaning he was no longer denying himself. It wasn’t like he got new revelation. It was rather that somehow his eyes were opened to what he already knew to be true. That’s one of the mysteries of - how does God work this out? Here’s a forecast of what’s going to happen to the nation Israel. In the future they are going to have national repentance.

Jesus spoke of it in Matthew and Mark when He said: ^NKJ Matthew 23:39, “for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ “He’s talking to the nation Israel. Israel is not saying, “Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord,” today. Psalm 118 is not in their mind applying to Jesus. So right at this point, they don’t accept that. It says however that eventually they will. They will come to themselves. ^NKJ 1 Kings 8:47, “yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent …” Now that probably means they will come to acknowledge that all along the Jewish God that they say they worship after all is the Lord and God of all history and that this Jewish God that they claim to worship once incarnated Himself and became their Messiah. All that has to happen in the future.

In your outline there I give you three Bible verses in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 29:4 where Moses says: “Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.” So clearly this is an initiate by God to cause repentance. It’s still repentance. It’s still human response to God’s sovereignty. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 29:19, “and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’ - Moses knew what the heart was like. The idea here is somebody is fabricating a fantasy world in which they don’t have to acknowledge ultimate responsibility to God. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:2, “and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice,

We conclude three things. Repentance can’t occur until the underlying and suppressed truth is released. This works with us in the Christian life. We know the Word of God. How many young people know the Word of God very well and act as though they don’t; and even fool themselves into thinking they don’t when in fact they’re asking God in some way in their personal life to increase the pressure so that the pain cost of denying the Word of God is far greater than pain cost of acknowledging the of Word of God. How God does that is a mystery, but He does. How He does it we don’t know. This is where the crux comes in between sovereignty and free will. When that repentance happens there’s a transfer of authority. Now the authority is the Word of God and it is not the authority of the self. It is one or the other. Either it’s the revelational authority of the Word of God - God’s speech; or it’s our speech.

Then in verses 3 to 5 it says: ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:3, “that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.” There is the Abrahamic Covenant fulfillment - God’s sovereignly saying it’s going to happen; but it’s not going to happen in such a way that it undercuts the contingency and human responsibility of the Mosaic Law.

In your outline I also have given you just a scan of prophecies, the prophetic references in the prophets, to this forecast repentance and restoration of Israel. The reason I do that - there are hundreds of these. But the reason I give you Isaiah and Jeremiah – they’re the big guys in Old Testament prophetic literature; and I wanted you to know that they’re not in contradiction to Moses. They are carrying out Deuteronomy 30 in their own generation. So there’s the continuity in the Old Testament. I give you how they talked about it. For example: ^NKJ Jeremiah 23:3, “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. ⁴ I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the LORD. ⁵ Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. ⁶ In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” It’s a messianic term.

Finally, ^NKJ Matthew 23:39, “for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ ”

So I guess the big idea in these first ten verses is don’t think of God’s sovereignty as overriding human responsibility. It doesn’t do that. In some way it fulfills human responsibility; and it’s a mystery how this happens. Theologians have created all kinds of models of how it happens; but in the end it’s speculation. We don’t know how this happens. We just have to acknowledge that it does.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” So there’s something happening here in history to the heart, to how these people think. That’s called the New Covenant. The references there: Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, 37. That is the key central passage in the Old Testament where New Covenant is going to come in.

Now what we want to do is look at the second of the three sections of chapter 30, verse 11 through 14. This section deals with the availability of revelation because you have to assume that revelation is available in order to authenticate human responsibility. There is no human responsibility if there’s no revelation to respond to. This is why we have in verse 11 to 14 we have this insistence that revelation is available.

So if you’ll look at verse 11. Follow with me verses 11 to 14. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:11, “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. ¹² It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ¹³ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ¹⁴ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

So a number of assertions are made here. At this point I think it’s appropriate that we review two doctrines – Doctrine of Revelation and the Doctrine of Inspiration. You’ll remember back when I dealt with the Doctrine of Revelation, I wanted scriptural doctrine to be set off and apart from the liberal idea of revelation. I used Temple’s quote because it’s a classic in liberal theology. I show that to you because liberals can talk as though they believe in revelation. But if you look carefully at this statement it’s internally self-contradictory. Let’s look at what at what it says

There’s no such thing as revealed truth.

Now one would ask William Temple, “Why would you assert that? How do you know there is no such thing as revealed truth?” I think he would have to say because the cosmos and God aren’t the way the Bible says it is. See that’s the worldview coming in. So he starts off with an assertion without justification saying:

There’s no such thing as revealed truth. There are truths of revelation. That is to say propositions, which express the results of correct thinking concerning revelation; but they are not themselves directly revealed.

Now he gets himself in hot water here because look at the second sentence.

There are truths of revelation, propositions which express correct thinking.

How do you know if it’s correct thinking if there is no standard with intellectual content in revelation? How do you get there? Where is your standard of what correct thinking is versus incorrect thinking? Clearly you have to have a standard. What’s the standard? Is the standard man? Or, is the standard God’s revelation? This kind of double speak is what you wind up with when you start undercutting the idea that a personal ultimate God of history can speak. I don’t know what this is so hard for people to understand – that God can speak.

This is why when I go through Mt. Sinai again and again and again saying, “Do you believe that Mt. Sinai was a case in point where you could have taken a tape recorder and taped God’s speech in Hebrew?”

If you can’t answer yes to that, you don’t believe in biblical revelation. If you do, then you believe in biblical revelation. It’s a very simple question. It’s something that you may want to remember to ask folks in the conversation. When we’re talking about the Word of God and the Bible let’s back up a thing here and let’s talk about revelation

“Do you believe that the God of the universe can speak and can speak in human language to us?”

Then the next thing is:

“Do you believe He has ever spoken?”

Then we get into the Bible.

So it’s a very, very critical thing. This is why we say the five points of revelation.

1. Revelation is verbal. Yes, revelation includes acts but if God only acted and He didn’t speak; we would have a divine charade, would we not? So if we are not to have a charade, we have to have God’s words speaking words to us to interpret what His actions are. He explains His actions with words. He speaks and He acts. He shows and He tells. Those two go together in biblical revelation.
2. Revelation is personal. That means God is not some supercomputer beaming a message to us. He is a person that is speaking to us. Because He is personal it necessarily involves our response or lack thereof. If somebody speaks to you that obligates you to respond to them. If you don’t respond to them then you’re being rude or you’re just careless. The idea there is that revelation is personal meaning that it requires a person response.
3. Revelation is historical. That means it’s not true in every generation. Revelation is sparse in history. It occurs a little bit here, a little bit there. What does that mean? It means that it is historically preserved. That’s why one of the key verbs in the Bible is remember. That’s why when we have communion we said to remember. Why? Because we don’t have access to revelation in the direct sense. So we have to go back to those times when He did speak to us. So that’s what we mean by historical.
4. Revelation is comprehensive. That means that whenever God speaks. He’s not putting us on. When the Scripture speak of physical phenomenon they’re true to physical phenomenon. Now we don’t know what happened on Joshua’s long day in Joshua 10. It’s puzzled Christians for centuries. But we can’t deny the fact the whole Israelite army was there. Sun didn’t go down; and the moon didn’t. They were steady in the sky. Now how God pulled that off, I have no idea. The idea is that if it’s revelation it actually happened. It’s true.
5. Revelation comes by a line of prophets. That’s important because that’s why the Old Testament is so thick. There are many, many prophets. That’s a strength, not a weakness because that tells you that the same God is speaking through the centuries so that when you read Genesis you’re not surprised that it fits Jeremiah. In other words, Jeremiah is logically coherent with Mosaic writing. So there’s a coherence. You would expect that of a God who thinks rationally.

That’s the Doctrine of Revelation. It’s so important because you can’t have an intelligent discussion if you don’t define what we mean and what the Bible means by revelation. The rest of the conversation is a waste of time and hot air. That’s the crucial point. Like we said with Temple’s quote those who deny that deny it because they have an alternate, different worldview.

Then we can sit back and ask, “On what basis do you say that? That’s interesting that you assert that there is no such thing as revelation. What leads you to that conclusion?” That opens conversation hopefully.

The concept of biblical inspiration

Now biblical inspiration we are going to get into this a little bit more because as we finish this book, Moses is going to give us protocols to preserve it. That involves inspiration of Scripture in the canon. We’re going to see it work out back in Moses time. For now all we want to do is make a few points here.

There is a necessity of a covenant witness. By that we mean if we enter into a contract with somebody for something, the contract has to be written. It can’t disappear. You don’t make a contract on Tuesday afternoon and then Saturday it’s gone. The contract has to be around. It has to be preserved. So it’s essential that if the Bible really gives contracts then the corollary is that these contracts must be preserved. How else would you tell that the contract was being fulfilled or violated? The only way you could tell is if the verbiage of the contract is preserved. This is not hard stuff to think about; but it’s crucial stuff to think about. It’s sad that we can have scholars who get all wrapped around the philosophical axle about this and can’t think through the practical side of this whole thing. This is meant to be practical. The contract has to be witnessed over and over and over. It’s got to be a standard that doesn’t go away.

Then the second thing – oh and then 1 Corinthians 15:15 where I quote that because Paul is saying, “If I say that Jesus rose from the dead and actually did not that makes me a liar.”

Now what you’re saying is that anybody in the Scriptures that tells a historical lie has violated the 9^th commandment. So they violated the moral framework of the Scriptures. So how do you explain the fact that you have writers of the Bible violating the 9^th commandment when they’ve just told us to obey the 9^th commandment? So the 9^th commandment is the ethical support of inerrancy.

Analogy with the Near Eastern treaties that protected copies of curses; now we’re going to get into that in the next chapter. In the ancient world when they made treaties and contracts, there were curses if you messed with them. Now can anyone think of a New Testament passage where that same idea occurs? It’s the last book of the Bible. Remember what John says in the last book of the Bible?

“Anybody that messes with this, I’m going to mess with him.” You start tampering with the text of the book of Revelation and God says, “I am going to mess with you.”

Now why is God so adamant about this? Because the book of Revelation is a judgment. It’s an announcement of what God is going to do. Well if you are free to reinterpret Revelation any way you please, then you can’t validate when those prophesized actions have happened. So it ruins the whole point of the book of Revelation. That’s why it says don’t mess with the text.

Then the third thing is we have to remember like John said in chapter 20 that if he had written all the things Jesus did (and he uses a metaphor) the world wouldn’t support it all. So obviously the inspiration only selects from all revelation a subset. So we have to understand that Scripture is only part of the revelation that God has given in history.

Can anybody think of a book that the Bible talks about – or books - that are lost? Every once in awhile you go on the Internet and you’ll see the lost book of so-and-so. They are lost. They have not been preserved. You see this in the book of Joshua. It talks about the lost book of Jasher. What’s the book of Jasher? I don’t know. It’s a source. It’s a historical source when whoever wrote the book of Joshua used it. Now it no longer is there. So we don’t know what happened to all these books. But we do know this, that the Holy Spirit selected enough of the revelation to hold us responsible. He did not give us a superfluous amount of revelation beyond that which is sufficient. Revelation is sufficient, but there is a lot more to it.

Can you imagine the things if we – someday we will sit in heaven and talk to all four of the gospel writers? Can you imagine the conversation with John who was the closest one to Jesus? “John, tell me what happened at the wedding feast of Canaan?” He’ll probably say, “Well, I wrote about it in chapter 2.” “Yeah, but tell us more about the party.” And he could tell us. And it would be fascinating conversations. Or Moses – “Tell about the parting of the Red Sea. What was it like with the Egyptian army?” “Well, you know, I wrote about it in Exodus 14.” “Yeah, but we want to know more of the details.” So he could tell us. That’s what is so rich about the Scriptures. It’s only a subset of all the revelation that has happened. One day we will probably know much more. So Moses is arguing that it’s not too mysterious. He wants people to understand that revelation is available. It’s not too mysterious for you. It’s not far off.

Then he amplifies it in verse 12.

He says, “It’s not in heaven that you have to go there and get special revelation from heaven because it’s come down to us in the pages of Scripture.” So it’s unnecessary to seek further revelation.

And cults—the whole impetus behind cults is that we want more revelation. The revelation of the Bible isn’t sufficient so now we need more revelation; and it’s seeking as if we have to go to heaven to find this. That’s a conflict with the sufficiency of revelation in the Scripture.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:12, “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ” No need for a prophet that is outside the line of biblical prophets. No need for that at all. [13] “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ” So we know that revelation is sufficient. We don’t need to seek revelation outside of the text of Scripture. The temptation to do so is behind almost every cult that has ever existed in church history. So this is a warning to us.

Then in verse 14 he makes an interesting statement about heart and mouth. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:14, “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

Now chapter 31, look at verse 19. You’ll see how this heart works. Look at how Moses uses this. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 31:19, “Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel.”

Then chapter 32 is the song, one of the longest songs in all of the Scriptures. It’s called the Song of Moses. We don’t have the music. It was never preserved for us; but it’s Israel’s national anthem. God said, “I want you to teach people the song.” Because of the music, whatever the music was, they could remember this song. He says, “I want this to be a witness.” So by actually learning this and being able to sing it; it means it’s in their mouth. That’s why back in chapter 30, verse 14: “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

So if you are able to articulate it verbally, you know it. It’s what every teacher says to the student. “I know it; but I couldn’t articulate it.”

Well, if you can’t articulate it do you really know it? This is how being able to say something, being about to explain something, is important.

I might point out two things there. Good vocabulary is a key to thinking clearly. Vocabulary gives us the tools of thinking. You can’t think clearly if you’re giving a bunch of grunts (various sounds) whatever that means because those aren’t tools of thinking. Thinking revolves around a vocabulary. Vocabulary has verbs, nouns and prepositions – and a lot of other things. But if you think about it in vocabulary, what’s a noun? A noun is ability to categorize something out there in God’s world. You can talk about it now because you can categorize it with a noun. A verb describes the actions on that. Prepositions describe the relationship – before, behind, in, out. So vocabulary is important to express these ideas.

This is why revelation in Scripture has always promoted a smart vocabulary. Think about history a moment and realize who it was that set up the German language. Martin Luther By translating the Bible from Latin into German, it was Luther who basically set up modern German.

Think about the King James Bible. The King James Bible was written so that people could memorize it. That’s why if you’re like me you can memorize it easier out of the King James than a modern version. Our modern versions don’t have a rhythm to them. A lot of translations aren’t made to memorize. They’re made to be accurate. The King James was made to an illiterate group of people that had to memorize it. That’s why it was styled that way.

So good vocabulary; clarity of concepts. An orderly rhetoric meaning putting sentences together with logic is a manifestation of rationality. You do not see that in our culture today. If you listen to the media to any more than ten minutes of a dialogue; you will see logical, illogical points at point after point after point. It’s amazing to me that there’s so much things that are non-cyclical. Somebody says this and they infer that. But that doesn’t follow from this. That follows from this, this and this. Then you get that. So the Scriptures exercise a discipline.

If you want to see how it used to be in our country go read some of the writings of the fathers of our country 200 years ago. Read exactly how they express themselves. You will be amazed at the complexity of their statement.

Carol and I are reading George Washington’s Sacred Fire. You read Washington’s letters and you think, “Holy mackerel!” Here’s a guy that was a surveyor, smart man. He was the commander of the revolutionary army, and you should see his orders to the ordinary soldiers. You should see how he’s depicting the providence of God and how He’s working in American history. We have to slow down to make sense of George Washington’s sentences because they are so packed with logic and vocabulary. So we have to watch that as Christians that vocabulary is important.

Now we come to the last section in chapter 30, verses 15 to 20, and here’s the challenge. This is the closing challenge.

On page 3, let me go back and get the blanks here. Let’s go back to page two where it talks about repentance requiring refinement between one’s psychological state of awareness and one’s deep down epistemological state. It’s a realignment. How God pulls that off, I don’t know. We’ve all observed that. We’ve all had that happen in our sanctification where the Lord takes the Word of God that we’ve known. “Yeah Lord, we understand.” We’ve all had that experience.

Then on page 3 Moses under the availability of revealed covenant Moses now deals with clarity of revelation. So now he deals with making it clear.

Then in ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:12, “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ”

There are truths that God has chosen not to reveal. We have to admit that. One is why He included responsible choices to do evil in His creatures. I don’t know why He did that; but He did. He included responsible choices to do evil in His history. The second one is why this particular trial has come my way. We all know that. We guess at it because the Bible gives us seven or eight possibilities of why we’re in a trial. But why this particular trial, we don’t know.

Okay, page 4. Here’s the closing challenge, verses 15 to 16. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:15, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, ¹⁶ in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.” So that’s the summary. That’s the either or. He’s pointing out something there that we need to think about.

Back to our “evil” diagram. In the end, when all is said and done, the universe physically fits the ethical quality. In other words, there is a Lake of Fire; and the Lake of Fire physically reflects the ethical state. The eternal state reflects godliness.