The Works of

Rev. Prof. Dr. F.N. Lee

30 March

How to have long life for oneself and one’s descendants

Deuteronomy 30:16-20

‘Love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His Commandments!… Choose life, so that both you and your seed may live! So that you may love the Lord your God, and so that you may obey His Voice and so that you may cleave to Him! For He is your life, and the length of your days!’ Deuteronomy 30:16-20.

In his Tracts and Treatises III:157, Calvin wrote: “We deny that Christ as a Lawgiver delivered new laws to the world…. Neither did Moses testify…that the Law which he had brought, was the way of life…. Deuteronomy 30:19.” For to sin-weakened man, not the Law but only Christ is life! He, and He alone, is your life — and the length of your days!

Calvin also commented: “Paul justly teaches that the Law ministers death…. Moses commands us to ‘choose life’…. Moses did…testify and proclaim the gratuitous mercy of God, and directed his disciples to Christ — in order to seek salvation from Him!”

In his Sermons on Deuteronomy, Calvin adds: “As touching life and good…, all manner of happiness…is meant…. Likewise by death!… This present life is not the full measure..of the blessings…. The life to come is the perfection…of weal — and woe!….

“What is it…that I have enjoined you? It is that you should love the Lord your God!…. This word ‘love’ imports yet more…. He begins at love, to the intent to draw us to Him after a loving manner, and not by force…. It ought to win and possess our hearts, so that we…come…to offer ourselves to God, to be altogether His…. We must love God…. We must bear such reverence toward Him, as to covet nothing but to frame ourselves to His good pleasure in all things…in all our life…. So that we follow the will of our God and endeavour to obey Him by keeping His Commandments….

“‘If you turn away and rebel and be carried to serve strange gods — I tell you, you shall perish!’… We ought to worship and serve Him!… ‘This day I call Heaven and Earth to witness, that I have set before you life and death!’… After we have once received the grace which He offers to us, we may not doubt that we shall be deceived…. We must go and yield ourselves to Him — to pray Him to receive us to His mercy!…

“Shall we live, when we be parted away from God Who is the Fountain of life and of all manner of happiness?… He is the wellspring of virtue, of joy, of felicity, and of glory…. The fullness of all goodness lies in Him…. He puts down…a likeness and conformity betwixt God and His Word….

“Do we then desire to live? Let us abide under the wings of our God, and cleave to Him!… Moses did not mean to hold the people to this earthly life…. He laid before their eyes both life and death…. The Law is called the messenger of death. Because life is not there so largely known, as our Lord Jesus Christ does show it…. He comes to offer Himself to us as the lively image of His Father, to the intent that we should be transfigured into His glory.” That is how to have long life for oneself, and one’s descendants!