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Subtitle: An Economic Commentary on Deuteronomy
About the Title:
One Generation Cannot Complete the Kingdom of God
This statement is obvious. The Church of Jesus Christ has been laboring
for almost two thousand years to extend the kingdom of God in history.
Today's Church is the heir of all the efforts, miracles, and legacies
that have preceded it. Each generation inherits something from the
previous generations. Each generation leaves a legacy to the next.
Generation by generation, God's kingdom is extended by His Church.
The basis of this improvement and growth over time is
inheritance. Today's generation of Christians is heir to all the
accumulated legacies of past generations. There is succession in
history -- succession by covenant.
"Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful
God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep
his commandments to a thousand generations; And repayeth them that hate
him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that
hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep
the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command
thee this day, to do them." (Deuteronomy 7:9-11)
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the five books of
Moses, which we call the Pentateuch. It is the book of inheritance.
Moses read the law of God to the generation that would inherit the land
of Canaan, the fourth generation of the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt,
just as God had promised Abraham (Genesis 15:16). Then, under Joshua,
the men of the fourth generation were circumcised, after they had come
into the Promised Land (Joshua 5:7). On this judicial basis, they
inherited the land.
The Pentateuch is structured in terms of the five-point
covenant model: transcendence (God the Creator), hierarchy (God the
Liberator), ethics (God the Law-Giver), oath (God the
Sanctions-Bringer), and succession (God the Deliverer). The Book of
Deuteronomy, like the Book of Exodus and the Book of Leviticus, is also
structured by this five-point model.
Deuteronomy is the book of Israel's inheritance. Israel's
covenantal succession from Abraham to Joshua was confirmed historically
by God through the defeat of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua. But
Moses formally passed on this inheritance before he died.
Deuteronomy is Moses' recapitulation of the law. By means of
their adherence to God's law, he said, the Israelites could maintain
the kingdom grant established by God with Abraham. But they would lose
their landed inheritance through disobedience, to be restored only
after a period of captivity in a foreign land (Deut. 30:1-5).
Deuteronomy's message is clear: grace precedes law, but God's
revealed law is the basis of maintaining the kingdom grant. Transgress
this law, and the expansion of God's kingdom in history will suffer a
setback for one or more generations. The kingdom inheritance is reduced
by God's negative sanctions in history (Deut. 28:15-66). But this
inheritance is never permanently lost. It compounds over time. The
compounding process -- growth -- is the basis of the triumph of the
kingdom in history.
Author: Dr. Gary North
About the Author: Gary North received his Ph.D. in
history from the University of California, Riverside in 1972. Gary is
the author of 42 books including The War on Mel Gibson: The Media versus The Passion and Crossed Fingers: How Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church. Gary is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking historians in modern times.
Specifications: e-Book (PDF download; 4 volumes), 4.3 megabytes, 1,583 total pages
© 1999 The Institute for Christian Economics