The Purpose of the Law

In the introduction to today's reading, the editor writes, "Moses reminds the people of the law's twofold purpose: to bring them into a proper relationship with God, and to regulate their conduct toward orderly and beneficial living." I hesitated when I read the first part of that: "to bring them into a proper relationship with God." It implies that we can have a proper relationship with God through the law.

The editor usually draws his points right from the text for the day's reading, so I kept an eye out for what he was referencing. I found it at Deuteronomy 6:24-25: "The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive [the "orderly and beneficial living"], as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness [the "right relationship with God"]."

I don't think the editor is incorrect. He's summarizing the text. It's true that a right relationship with God cannot happen until the law is kept perfectly. We just have to keep reading the rest of Scripture, which tells us, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6) and "whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10). It also shares the good news that Jesus as God did keep the law perfectly and as man did achieve the proper relationship with God. Since God in his mercy accepted Jesus as our substitute, we now have a right relationship with God!

So were God and Moses setting up the Israelites to fail by saying "Be careful to obey all this law . . . that will be our righteousness"? I think it was the same for them as it is for us. First we have to see the height of God's holiness to know that we cannot keep the law on our own; we need a Savior. That's what all of the Mosaic law builds toward--our desperate need for a Savior.

The commentaries also point out regarding verse 25 that, preceding the verse, God tells the people how he has been their Savior God, keeping his promises and leading them to the promised land. If, by their grateful obedience, they were showing their faith in God for his salvation (another promise he had made was the sending of a Messiah), then that--faith in the Messiah--would be their righteousness.