Two Essential Propositions about God
Deuteronomy 4 gives us two strong statements about the nature of God. I am calling them “propositions.” A proposition is “Something which is asserted or avowed; a sentence or form of words in which this is done; a statement, an assertion.”1 Years ago, I read John Broadus on preaching and discovered the idea of a sermon’s “proposition.” He meant that the preacher should be able to distill the sermon into a short statement of “what the sermon was about.” The proposition is the sermon in a sentence, and it is something that the sermon proper should expand on and prove. The proposition should motivate a response (physical or spiritual) so one can see the message received and believed.
The two propositions in Deuteronomy 4 are these:
24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them2
The propositions tell us something about God. God is fire and compassion. The fire is the fire of jealousy; the compassion is the compassion of covenant.
We can see quite clearly the fiery nature of God illustrated in the chapter. The word “fire” occurs seven times in these verses: 4.11, 12, 15, 24, 33, 36 (twice). All the references except our text refer to the appearance by God on Mt Sinai, where he delivered the Ten Commandments with a voice “out of fire.” Interestingly, on that day, God’s fire didn’t consume anything, but the people were so afraid of God they wanted Moses to talk to God by himself and they would do whatever Moses reported back to them. (That is what they said. What they did is another story.) The fire that didn’t consume the mountain also reminds of the fire that didn’t consume the bush, when Moses was called to this ministry.
In the chapter, Moses uses other terms to speak of God’s fiery nature. Verse 20 says:
But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.
In that era, men had not yet learned to make a fire hot enough to melt iron, but they knew that by heating iron red hot they could shape it, beat it, form it into useful things (and strengthen it by somewhat removing impurities in the process). Iron wasn’t as hard as bronze, but it was easier to produce and thus more weapons could be produced more quickly. When men learned to melt iron down, they turned from iron to steel.3
The picture Moses paints is as if the fires of the plagues purged Egypt of impurities and produced the People of God, emerging from the fires of Egypt.
After all the emphasis on fire and heat, Moses warns the people about the coming test of prosperity. (Dt 4.25-26)
25 ¶ When thou shalt beget children, and children’s children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger: 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
The warning is fiery indeed. One can imagine a hearer wondering, “The Lord took us out of Egypt and all we have to look forward to is God’s fire?” But Moses goes on. After Israel turned away and experienced the fiery discipline of the Lord, he reassured them with our second proposition, Dt 4.29-31:
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. 30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; 31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
The Lord is a covenant keeping God. For the people of the covenant, there is always a reassurance of revival. To be sure, faith and repentance must precede revival, but God swears he will not cast off his people, for he is merciful. He is compassionate. He remembers the covenant.
Now, we are talking about corporate Israel, mostly, here. Each individual must establish their own individual walk with God. That is a given. In the New Testament, our relationship with God is an individual relationship, based in the New Covenant. But I contend we can make application from these propositions for our own spiritual walk as New Testament believers.
Have you ever felt the fire of God’s discipline? Have you ever sinned in such a way that God corrected you, sometimes publicly, and always proportionately? Do you have a sense of fear of the fiery hand of God when you “step out of line.” Do you wonder where God’s compassionate side is?
Moses offers himself as an illustration. No one could say Moses did not have a personal relationship with God, as well as his “corporate identity in Israel.” Yet Moses himself experienced the fires of the iron furnace after a fashion.
When Moses speaks to Israel about the iron furnace of Egypt, he immediately says, (Dt 4.21):
21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance:
Moses himself experienced the Lord’s fiery nature. Though he was God’s man, and no other prophet would exceed him until the Messiah came, he himself suffered the fiery hand of God. “You will not go into the land,” God said, though Moses no doubt begged God to reconsider
Moses uses this illustration to warn Israel: “Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God … For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire.” (Dt 4.23-24)
Yet this same Moses reassures us that God is merciful and compassionate. Though God would not allow Moses to enter the land, he did not cast him off entirely. His own relationship with God did not end.
And eventually, Moses did set foot in the land, as we see recorded in Matthew 17.2-3:
Mat 17:2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
I suppose all believers have experienced God’s discipline, the fiery side of his nature. Sometimes God’s discipline alters forever the way we may serve God; other times God merely corrects our trajectory. Yet God remembers mercy. God keeps covenant with us in his compassion. We can still serve him, and one day, when the resurrection comes, we will stand with him, thoroughly purged of all our iniquity, rejoicing in his glory and grace. And in his everlasting compassion.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Photo by Burak Alperen Yılmaz on Unsplash