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CHASTENING AND INHERITANCE Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills (Deut. 8:5-7).
The theocentric focus of this passage is stated in the passage: God as the chastener of His son, Israel. Israel's judicial position as an adopted son was the basis of both types of sanction: positive (Promised Land) and negative (chastening). The proof of God's negative sanctions would be Israel's imminent inheritance of the Promised Land. This was not a seed law. Its intent was universal: "Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him" (v. 6).
Deuteronomy follows Numbers, the book of sanctions. Moses here tells Israel that they must obey God's commandments in order to escape His chastening, but also because God was about to lead them into the Promised Land. The covenantal link between historical sanctions and earthly inheritance is as unbreakable as the link between God's revealed law ("commandments") and sanctions ("chastening"). Put another way, the covenantal link between historical sanctions and eschatology is as fixed as the covenantal link between law and historical sanctions. Put a third way, historical sanctions are the covenantal link between law and eschatology. Put comprehensively, theonomy is not simply a matter of God's law; it is a matter of the covenant: God's absolute sovereignty, man's subordinate authority, Bible-revealed law's continuity, historical sanctions' predictability, and postmillennialism. Put as a slogan, theonomy is a package deal.
Israel as God's Son "Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee." This warning affirmed the legal status of Israel as the son of God. More than this: Israel was God's firstborn son. "And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn" (Ex. 4:22-23). As the firstborn son, Israel was entitled to a double portion of the inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17). This reflected the greater responsibility of the firstborn son in representing the father and the covenant line. The firstborn was supposed to declare his father's word to the younger sons. The younger sons would grow up under the authority of the firstborn son. His authority was psychologically derived from his age, but it was judicially derived from his status as heir. The heir spoke his father's word authoritatively.
This placed an added responsibility on Israel's shoulders to declare God's commandments to the gentiles. Judicially speaking, the gentiles were the younger sons. They were not to speak authoritatively to Israel; the opposite was true. This was why God raised up Jonah as a prophet to bring God's covenant lawsuit against Nineveh.
The Promised Land was Israel's double portion. Deuteronomy 8 devotes considerable space to a detailed description of the manifold blessings of the Promised Land (vv. 7-13). There was to be no question in their minds that this constituted a double portion. This was the preferred land. It was not then the barren, parched land that it is today. It was still a land where a ram could get its horns caught in the branches of a thicket on top of a mountain (Gen. 22:13). Today, the mountains of Palestine are barren.(1)
Israel was required to obey God's commandments as a representative son. Israel was under the covenant. In order to declare the covenant authoritatively, a person must be under the terms of the covenant. To remind them that they were under these terms, Moses warned them of God's chastening. There had been negative sanctions imposed on national Israel for her disobedience. These sanctions testified to Israel's status as a son. Chastening was a negative sanction intended to restore the father-son relationship. It was not a sanction designed to beat down and destroy those brought under them. It was not the permanent negative historical sanction that God demanded that Israel impose on the inhabitants of Canaan.
Israel's status as a firstborn son reveals why God told Israel to destroy Canaan. The Canaanites were second-born sons of God: disinherited sons. They were occupying the inheritance of the firstborn son. But why did this give Israel the right to kill them? In the Mosaic law, there was only one case where a family member was authorized to take part in the execution of another family member: when the convicted member had tried to lure the sanctions-bringing member to worship a false God (Deut. 13:6-10).
Canaanites were a threat to Israel because they would eventually lure Israel into false worship. This was the reason God gave Israel for destroying the Canaanites. The presence of Canaanites in the land would be a constant source of temptation (Ex. 34:11-16). If allowed to remain in the Promised Land, the Canaanites would eventually become bonded to Israel through marriage (Ex. 34:16). As the second-born sons in the household, they would lead Israel into rebellion against the Father. God knew this, and so He announced that He had judged the Canaanites in advance and had found them guilty. Israel had to serve as God's executioner. The firstborn sons and the second-born sons could not occupy the same landed inheritance.
This theme of the inheritance of the firstborn and second-born sons is found repeatedly in Genesis. Again and again, the firstborn son proved to be the disinherited son. It began with Adam's rebellion; the inheritance was transferred to God's chronologically second-born son, Jesus Christ.(2) The second-born Son became the firstborn judicially. This theme of the rebellion of the firstborn continued with Cain's slaying of Abel. Esau was also the firstborn, but God told Rebekah that the younger would rule the elder (Gen. 25:23). This repeated reversal of the legal pattern of inheritance was based on God's grace in re-inheriting the younger brother through adoption while condemning the disinherited older brother. The Canaanites as elder brothers had gained possession of the land, but as disinherited sons, their claim was invalid. Israel, by God's grace, had become the firstborn son with lawful title.
Suffering and Imposing Negative Sanctions Moses had already reminded them that God had humbled them in the wilderness (Deut. 8:2). This suffering was a form of chastening. Their suffering was to remind them that they were under the terms of God's covenant as a son. God had already called them to impose His permanent negative historical sanctions on the wilderness side of the Jordan. This had led to the expansion of Israel's inheritance. Reuben (Israel's firstborn), Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh inherited this land (Num. 32:33). This served as a down payment on the national inheritance. God had shown that He would deliver their inheritance to them through military conquest. They should not fear their enemies.
The four decades of negative sanctions were not intended to destroy them but rather to confirm them in the covenant. They were sons, not bastards. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons" (Heb. 12:6-8). The legal bastards -- disinherited sons -- were about to be publicly disinherited.
Sonship is by oath consigned. There must be a physical representation of this covenant oath in order for it to become the legal basis of inheritance. The Israelites had not yet been circumcised, which is why they had to be circumcised before they could begin the war to inherit Canaan (Josh. 5:8). Outside of Canaan, they had already begun the conquest, but the actual inheritance of the trans-Jordan lands was delayed until after the defeat of Canaan (Deut. 3:20). The tribes dwelling on the wilderness side of the Jordan also had to be circumcised before lawful title to the inheritance could be legally transferred by God to His firstborn son. Israel's physical suffering at Gilgal was preparatory to the far worse physical suffering of the Canaanites. Israelites had to experience the negative physical sanction of circumcision before they could lawfully impose the negative physical sanction of death inside the boundaries of the Promised Land.
Those who were formally under the God's covenant sanctions were the only people authorized by God to impose negative civil sanctions in Israel. Citizenship is established by oath. Those who seek to impose negative civil sanctions and participate in the political sacrament of voting must first place themselves formally under the terms of the God's two covenants, church and State.(3)
Conclusion Moses announced the requirement that Israel, as the son of God, was required to keep God's commandments. God had been humbling them for four decades. Now, He was about to bring them into a bountiful land which would be their inheritance. The sequence was as follows: negative sanctions as a means of maturity through chastening, obedience to God's law as an ethical requirement, and inheritance in history. The chastening, while a negative sanction, was in fact confirmation of their legal position as inheriting sons. So, this negative sanction was a form of grace. Once again, we are reminded that grace precedes law. But this passage also indicates that law precedes the transfer of the inheritance in history.(4)
The second-born gentile sons of Canaan had been disinherited by God in Abraham's day: "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15:16). This verbally imputed disinheritance -- what we might call definitive or judicial disinheritance -- was to be achieved progressively: "I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land" (Ex. 23:27-30). This disinheritance was to be finally achieved in history: "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them" (Deut. 7:1-2).
The covenant's development in history is reflected in the structure of the covenant: sovereign grace, hierarchical sonship, law, sanctions, and inheritance. The conquest of Canaan, from God's definitive promise to Abraham regarding the inheritance of Abraham's sons to the final defeat and disinheritance of the Canaanites, is representative of all of man's history. While this covenant sequence was always broken by Old Covenant Israel, as represented by the survival of a remnant of Canaanites in the land, the New Covenant sequence moves toward historical fulfillment of this sequence. "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth" (Ps. 37:9).
Footnotes:
1. This created a major cinematic problem for the movie Abraham, filmed in Israel and starring Richard Harris. The mountain top scene where Isaac was to be sacrificed had no way to introduce the ram. The ram just happened to show up and was conveniently captured off-camera by Abraham.
2. Paul established the distinction between the first Adam and the second or last Adam, Jesus Christ: "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit" (I Cor. 15:45).
3. This principle of civil law remains covenantally authoritative. It is dishonored in New Testament times by every system of civil government that bases citizenship on anything other than public Trinitarian confession and communing membership in the institutional church.
4. This was true even in Eden. Adam in Eden was supposed to gain experience in obeying God's law before moving outside the garden's boundaries into the world.
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