46 ‘Ekev (Part A) - Because - Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25 Deuteronomy (Messianic) Vol. I - The Harvest

8:1 - "You must safeguard and keep the entire mandate that I am prescribing to you today. You will then survive, flourish, and come to occupy the land that God swore to your fathers. 8:2 - Remember the entire path along which God your Lord led you these forty years in the desert. He sent hardships to test you, to determine what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 8:3 - He made life difficult for you, letting you go hungry, and then He fed you the Manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced. This was to teach you that it is not by bread alone that man lives, but by all that comes out of God's mouth. 8:4 - The clothing you wore did not become tattered, and your feet did not become bruised these forty years. 8:5 - You must thus meditate on the fact that just as a man might chastise his child, so God your Lord is chastising you. 8:6 - Safeguard the commandments of God your Lord, so that you will walk in His ways and remain in awe of Him. 8:7 - God your Lord is bringing you to a good land - a land with flowing streams, and underground springs gushing out in valley and mountain. 8:8 - It is a land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs and pomegranates - a land of oil-olives and honey-[dates]. 8:9 - It is a land where you will not eat rationed bread, and you will not lack anything - a land whose stones are iron, and from whose mountains you will quarry copper. 8:10 - When you eat and are satisfied, you must therefore bless God your Lord for the good land that He has given you." (D'varim 8:1-10, Pentateuch) Now I am quite at a loss of understanding as to how anyone could misconstrue the intent of the promises here. Clearly these are words of blessing, based on obedience. Moreover, they do not spell out the terms of salvation for an individual, based on such obedience. No, they speak to the well being of a member of God's family once he has already become a member (recall that the Torah was given to a group of freed people!). What brings about confusion is the oft forgotten idea that the Torah speaks about forensic righteousness, the kind we inherit from God's gracious provision, i.e., Messiah Yeshua, and behavioral righteousness, the kind we gain by becoming submissive to the Torah of HaShem. Because of our new life in Messiah, we have inherited the holiness that HaShem intended for us to posses all along. When we place our trusting faithfulness in the perfect Man of God, our holiness (or lack thereof) becomes the holiness of the Father! Our constitution changes and we are no longer deemed ‘unholy’, for his riches in glory—which includes his holy standard of being—are transferred to our account! We must grasp this central truth and begin to live according to it! We are holy because Yeshua has made us holy! Just as unrighteous Avraham became righteous when he placed his complete faith in HaShem, so we too inherit the righteousness and holiness of the Holy One when we place our unreserved trust in his Son. But holiness is also a duty.