Deuteronomy 6

Israel did not choose the nature of the arrangement that the nation had with God. The Lord gave the Law through Moses, and He commanded that His people obey in order to keep right standing with Him in the land.

But many years prior to the giving of the Law, God gave Abraham what Scripture called, “the promise.” The Law did not annul the merciful promise of God. That promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Law came through Moses, but the fulfillment of God's promise of grace came through Jesus Christ.

Because of Israel's sin, the Law of Moses could not bring life. Only the voice of Christ, calling into being what once was not, could revive us. This miracle of resurrection life could only come from God. We, who hear His voice calling us in the Word, need to believe, and to follow. This is a very different arrangement than “do and live.”

Israel had the Law, but they also had the promise. And from Israel, the Christ would come. He would speak, and the dead would receive life.

The Law was never a mere outward system of ceremonial observance. God commanded the complete obedience of His people, the fullness of love for Him. This is what the Messiah accomplished.

God is one, but this one God is complex, without sacrificing His oneness. This complexity allowed for God to be with God, and for God to come from God to satisfy the demands of God on our behalf. Without this complexity, there could be no salvation. Without the Son of God coming, we would be left with a do and live system, which can only yield death for those who lack perfect obedience; death for Israel under Moses, death for any generations that would follow, and for any others who would bind themselves to the God of Jacob through the Law.

The commitment to obey perfectly may sound possible if we do not understand the fullness of love that God requires and if we have not yet faced the depth of testing that would reveal our faults. For those who have been caught accommodating the idolatrous impulses of our sinful nature, the just anger against us is an insurmountable obstacle. We need a Savior to come. We need to hear His voice, a voice that is something more than the Law of Moses.

The Lord demonstrated our failure to win right standing through Law more than once. Beginning with Adam's fall, we have had repeated opportunities to walk before God and to be blameless. Until Jesus came and worked out the fullness of love on the cross, no man was found who passed the Lord's test.

We need the Redeemer who rescued Israel out of bondage to come for us and to save us. Over many centuries, the inability of the Lord's beloved people to remain with Him based on a do and live covenant was amply displayed. The gift of Jesus Christ takes us beyond the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, beyond the golden calf, beyond the failure of Moses himself to enter the promised land, and beyond generation after generation of idolatry and disobedience. His powerful saving voice of obedience and love is our only secure hope.