POSITIVE CONFESSION AND CORPORATE SANCTIONS When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled; Then thou shalt say before the LORD thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them: I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead: but I have hearkened to the voice of the LORD my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me. Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey (Deut. 26:12-15).
The theocentric focus of this law is God's oath-bound status as the sanctions-bringer in Israel. The supplicant called on God to enforce His covenant through sanctions: "Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey." He called for God to bless His people today, just as He had blessed their fathers. This law was revealed before God had given Canaan into Israel's hands. God would soon demonstrate the covenantal basis of this law, namely, Israel's victory over Canaan. The victory over Canaan would ratify this law. This was a land law, i.e., having to do with tribal celebrations.
The laws governing the second and third tithes appear in Deuteronomy 14:22-23.(1) This law was different. It mandated a public oath after the presentation of the third tithe, meaning the third-year tithe. This oath went beyond the presentation of the tithe. Basically, this oath was a means of covenant renewal. It belonged in point four of the biblical covenant model.
Confession and Sanctions The person had just brought his tithe into the town. He then was required to declare this tithe as representative of all the other commandments. As surely as he had not cheated God and the recipients of this holy (hallowed) tithe, so he had not broken any of God's commandments. "Then thou shalt say before the LORD thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them: I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead: but I have hearkened to the voice of the LORD my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me." This was comprehensive self-testimony. It covered everything.
For a man to make such a claim, he would have had to be perfect. Such perfection included making atonement and restitution for his sins. In this sense, he was to be as perfect as Job: "There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. . . . And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually" (Job 1:1, 5).
To make an affirmation as comprehensive as the one mandated by this passage meant that the individual making it was renewing his covenant with God. This oath must have been taken in front of a Levite, for the sins in question were not merely civil crimes. He then called down God's positive sanctions on the nation based on his affirmation of his own atoned-for legal status. He was adding his public testimony to the nation's covenantal request for God's positive corporate sanctions. This of course assumed that others in Israel also were making this affirmation. On the basis of their corporate confession, they called on God to bring positive sanctions.
Was the excommunicated Israelite required to take this oath? Was the resident alien? I cannot imagine why. A man outside the ecclesiastical covenant could hardly have been required to affirm it. Although he was required to pay his tithe as the land's steward, he was not required to take an oath that would have been inherently false. As a noncitizen, he was in no position to call formally on God to impose positive sanctions. He was not under oath-bound ecclesiastical sanctions.
Historical Sanctions This oath was a positive confession personally and a positive confession corporately. It did not call down God's blessings on the individual except insofar as he was under God's corporate sanctions. The positive personal confession had to do with his obedience in the past. The positive corporate confession invoked God's past sanctions on Israel's behalf at the conquest as the precedent for His future sanctions. By testifying to their continuing faith in the story of God's covenantal sanctions in the past, they affirmed their confidence in His covenantal sanctions in the future.
A loss of faith in God's past sanctions would have been fatal for this oath. Such a loss of faith would have undermined the confession. Their faith in those sanctions also would have persuaded them to avoid confessing their own individual perfection. If they lied, they could expect no positive sanctions. They could also expect negative sanctions. To the degree that they believed in God's past sanctions against Canaan, they should have believed in God's future sanctions against them for disobedience. "And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God" (Deut. 8:19-20).
Once in each seven-year cycle, they were required to get right publicly with God. The outward evidence of getting right with God was their presentation of the third tithe. The third tithe was celebrated locally (Deut. 14:28). People would have known each other. This would have kept sinners more humble. Their positive confession regarding their sin-free judicial condition invoked God's corporate sanctions: negative if they were lying; positive if they were telling the truth. The nation could not reasonably expect continued blessings if most of the confessors were either lying or ignorant of their own sins.
This act of covenant renewal was preparatory for national blessings. A little over three years prior to the beginning of the sabbatical year, they called on God to provide national blessings. If their prayer was answered, they would have excess crops. This would be a source of the reserves required to store up food for the sabbatical year. A negative response from God would make these preparations much more expensive.
God's Sanctions and Pagan Confession What God did in the past, He is willing to do in the future. There is continuity in history. The next passage affirms that God's goal for Israel was international acclaim:
This day the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched [said] the LORD this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice: And the LORD hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments; And to make thee high above all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God, as he hath spoken (vv. 16-19).
The basis of historical continuity is obedience to God's revealed law. Without obedience, there will be a negative discontinuity (Deut. 8:19-20). The twin sanctions of cursing and blessing determine discontinuity and continuity. Obedience would gain Israel a great international reputation. This means that the pagan nations would honor Israel as a great nation. They would confess the truth about Israel and its law (Deut. 4:4-8).
There would be consistency among God's imputed righteousness to Israel, Israel's actual performance in history, and pagan nations' subjective acknowledgment of Israel's objective righteousness. Two of God's blessings in history are corporate righteousness and corporate confession, even by covenant-breakers. Although members of covenant-breaking nations had a different view of god, man, law, sanctions, and time, they would nonetheless confess that Israel's success, based on the Bible's view of god, man, law, sanctions, and time, was superior to their own. Their public confession would conform to God's confession. They would acknowledge God's blessings as blessings. In this sense, they would publicly abandon their own standards and declare God's. This is why covenant law is a form of evangelism.(2) Because biblical law is attached to positive corporate sanctions and continuity -- long-term development -- its visible results are so manifest that covenant-breakers are compelled by the evidence to confess its superiority.
The pagan's ability to recognize and confess the truth is an aspect of common grace. The objectivity of God's corporate blessings in history overcomes the hostile confession and false perception of God and His kingdom by covenant-breakers. Isaiah prophesied this eschatological condition:
Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand (Isa. 32:1-8).
This does not mean that covenant-breakers are converted to soul-saving faith by the testimony of their own eyes. Conversion is by God's special grace. Those who are not converted will, in the final rebellion, join with Satan in an attack on what is good and successful. The objective testimony of God's blessings on a covenant-keeping social order will enrage covenant-breakers and goad them into a final act of destruction. This will end history. "And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20:9-10). When they rebel, they will rebel against a universal, triumphant civilization that is objectively so successful that it calls forth the religion of revolution.(3)
Conclusion The Israelites had to bring in their third-year tithes. A failure to do so would have undermined this confession. But this confession used the tithe as a model of covenantal obedience in general. They had to declare publicly, one by one, that they had obeyed all of God's laws in the previous seven-year period. This was a covenant renewal ceremony. It called down God's positive sanctions, but this necessarily involved the risk of negative sanctions for false oath-taking.
This corporate event sealed Israel's legal condition until the sabbatical year of release, as either a covenant-keeping nation or a covenant-breaking nation. If God withheld His blessings, they would be tempted to plant crops during the year of release. This would have brought down even greater negative sanctions.
This corporate oath ceremony ceased to be required when the third tithe ceased to be required. The third tithe was a land law primarily and a seed law secondarily. This tithe was a communal tithe that united the members of each tribe in the tribe's towns. It was a tribal law. With the cessation of Israel's tribes in A.D. 70, this law was annulled.
Footnotes:
1. See Chapter 34.
2. See Chapter 8, above.
3. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), ch. 8.
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