The Past is Proof

Deuteronomy 7-8

            There’s an underlying logic in these chapters. Moses points back to the Lord’s past faithfulness as proof of His ability and His desire to be faithful in the future. Should the Israelites fear that they cannot conquer the peoples in the land God promised, Moses reminds them of what the Lord did to the Egyptians, and even more powerful people. Should they fear that the Lord will not provide for them, Moses reminds them what the Lord did those forty years in the wilderness, in which their clothes did not wear out and He took care of them “in that thirsty and waterless land” (8:15).

            God’s past faithfulness is proof of His current and future love for us, too. Our spiritual experience is a lot like Israel’s. Israel looked back to the Exodus as proof of God’s love, and we look back to the death and resurrection of the Son of God for that same proof. Our faith stands on this reasoning: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). That God will ‘give us all things’ should not be read as some kind of promised of earthly bliss; Paul said earlier in Romans that we learn to rejoice in our sufferings, and he said in this same chapter of Romans, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). No, the “all things” is focused in the gift of eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. Which makes God’s past faithfulness all the more important. The Christian life is marked by the cross, and we do suffer all sorts of woes, and we have our fears that the Lord cannot do what He promised, at which point we say, “But if He gave us that (namely, His own Son), surely He can and will give us these other things, too.” The Lord’s past faithfulness is proof of His current and future love.