The Undivided Word The Undivided Word

A number of prologues or prefatory declarations appear in the law, which are not generally regarded as a part of the law. Calvin called these passages “The Preface to the Law,” which in an accurate sense they are, but they are equally a part of the law, the first commandment in particular, because they affirm the exclusive nature of the one true God and bar from the allegiance of Israel all other gods. These passages are Exodus 20:1-2; 23:20-31; Leviticus 19:36- 37; 20:8; 22:31-33; Deuteronomy 1:1-4:49; 5:1-6; 7:6-8; 8:1-18; 10:14-17; 11:1-7; 13:18; 26:16- 19; 27:9-10.

First , the premise of commandment is asserted, even as in the Shema Israel , that God is the LORD (Jehovah or Yahweh, He Who Is, the self-existent, absolute, and eternal One), and, second , that Israel stands before God because of His electing grace:

And God spake all these words, saying,

I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (Ex. 20:1-2)

And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep and do them. The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire. (I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew you the word of the LORD; for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount,) saying, I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. (Deut. 5:1-6)

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. (Deut. 4:20)

In these and many of the other passages cited above, the sovereignty of God, and His electing grace, are declared. In Deuteronomy 5:3, the “fathers” who perished in the wilderness, while outwardly of the covenant, are excluded from it by God’s declaration: the covenant is “with us,

even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Those who perished had been cut off from God by their unbelief. The “people of inheritance” (Deut. 4:20) are the believing Israelites.

The history of grace, and the fact of God’s saving grace to Israel, is cited repeatedly, to deter the people from presumption and pride (Deut. 1-4; 7:6-8; 8:1-6,11-18; 9:1-6; 10:14-17, 21-22; 11:1- 8; 26:16-19; 27:9-10; 29:2-9). The history of grace is also a promise of grace if man’s response is one of grateful obedience to the law and an unswerving devotion to the only true God.

Third , the Angel of the LORD will go before His people, to keep them and to deliver them:

Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off. Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images. And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare against thee. (Ex. 23:20-33)

The Angel of the Lord (Gen. 16:10, 13; 18:2-4,13-14, 33; 22:11-12, 15-16; 31:11, 13; 32:30; Ex. 3:2, 4; 20:20ff.; 32:34; 33:14; Josh. 5:13-15; 6:2; Isa. 63:9; Zech. 1:10-13; 3:1-2) identifies Himself with the Lord; those to whom He reveals Himself recognize Him as God; He is called the LORD by biblical writers; the Scripture here implies a plurality of persons in the Godhead.50 Moreover, the statement is clearly made by God that “my name is in him,” which is the same as “I am in him” (Ex. 23:20).51 The Angel of the Lord appears in the New Testament repeatedly, for example, in Acts 5:19; 12:7-11, 17, etc. St. Paul identified the Angel as Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 10:9).

Fourth, they shall be preserved from plagues and epidemics (Ex. 23:25-27), so that obedience is followed by material blessings. These material blessings include driving out their enemies before them and giving them a great inheritance (Ex. 23:27-31). That all of this is tied to the first commandment appears from Exodus 23:32-33; they must separate themselves from other gods: “no covenant” can be made with unbelievers (by marriage, treaty, or community) or with their gods.

An important verse which comes at the conclusion of the law is still an exposition of the approach of man to the law. In Deuteronomy 29:29, Moses, after warning them of the curse on disobedience, declared:

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

An interpretation which is most relevant to the context of this statement comments:

That which is revealed includes the law with its promises and threats: consequently that which is hidden can only refer to the mode in which God will carry out in the future His counsel and will, which He has revealed in the law, and complete His work of salvation notwithstanding the apostasy of the people.52

This means, fifth, that the law, God’s revelation, has behind it God’s secret will whereby His counsel shall stand and man’s rebellion shall be confounded, to the triumph of His Kingdom in His own time and way. In brief, the law is revealed; the fulfilment of the law is assured because

God is God; the mode and time is extensively hidden. The court is called by God, not by man. Sixth, the law is one undivided word:

Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. (Deut. 4:2)

The meaning clearly is that all Scripture, law, prophets, and gospel, is one word. Words can be added, until the close of revelation, when even the addition (or subtraction) of words is forbidden (Rev. 22:18-19). There can be no arbitrary separation of the law from the gospel: one God means one word. To divide the word is to deny God.