Page 131 - Pentateuch - Student Textbook

keep the covenant. His character as the faithful God demands that he keep the covenant. “These fearful
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destructions are to be accounted among the covenant-keeping…acts of God.”

This brief review of the uniform testimony of Israel’s failure to keep the law reflects one of the major
purposes God gave us the Old Testament. The Pentateuch gives the law. The historical books show the
law worked out in events. The wisdom books celebrate life under the law (among other things). The
prophets pull back the curtain of history to reveal just how the nation and the individuals in the nation
failed miserably to keep the law.

The New Testament affirms the Old Testament’s testimony. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is asked on at
least two occasions (10:25; 18:18), “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In both cases Jesus leads the
person through a checklist of the law. In both cases the person fails utterly and is faced with the
impossibility of keeping the law, of earning eternal life.

In the first case Jesus refers to the law (10:26), receives a summary of the
law from the man, and affirms his answer. His questioner has already felt
the pinch of the law and tries to evade its force by asking about his
neighbor. Jesus then slams the door on his attempts to earn eternal life by
telling the story of the Good Samaritan. In effect he says, “Do good to
absolutely everyone you meet every day of your life, and you will inherit
eternal life.” Ouch! Who can do that? Who even wants to do that?

In the second case, a young man claims to have kept the last six
commandments, those regulating human relationships. Jesus then
challenges him to give away all his wealth. The man does not want to do
this, and Jesus observes, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a
needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God
(18:25).” He demonstrates the impossibility of keeping the law. Everyone Fig. 84: The Good Samaritan
has parts of life that they love better than God. No one on his own wants Van Gogh, 1890
to put God first before everything else. We are all idolaters at heart even
if we do not literally bow to some image.

Failure to keep God’s law is not just a problem for Israel, the covenant nation. As we noted much earlier
in our studies (Exodus: Covenant Life), the outlines of the law have been planted in our consciences as
part of creation (Rom. 2:14-15). The book of Job illustrates this truth from beginning to end. The author
places Job in the time of Abraham before the giving of the law, yet Job has a firm understanding of right
and wrong. Job insists that he has done nothing to deserve the punishment he is experiencing. He
begins a long list of items demonstrating his carefulness, “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look
lustfully at a young woman (31:1).” Falsehood and deceit (v. 5), denying justice to a servant (v. 13), not
sharing with the poor and fatherless (v. 17), trusting in gold or wealth for security (v. 24), secret idolatry
(v. 27), and other hidden sins (v. 33) were all things he was very careful about. Job knew right from
wrong. He knew without the benefit of a copy of Deuteronomy or the Ten Commandments. The book
thoroughly explores the concept as the friends of Job insist on some secret sin of great evil as the cause
of his suffering (4:8; 8:20; 11:6).

138 J. A. Motyer, The Day of the Lion (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1974), 64.

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