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In this earnest word which concludes a section of his address to the people, Moses is summing up his deliverance. It has been called by Havernick "the classic passage" upon the subject of death and life as understood in Old Testament times. "Shut out from the true community of life (Lebensgemeinschaft)," says Havernick," the sinner puts in only a pretended life (Scheinleben), without God, enduring and promoting ruin in himself, until death physical, with its terrors, overtakes him. The Divine penalty manifests itself to the sinner as death." Let us consider what is here suggested. And -

I. GOD IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. He was before all things; in him they live and move and have their being; by him all things consist. Life physical is from him; but so also, and in a much fuller fashion, is life spiritual. The inner man is from him, and depends upon him for sustenance. And when his only begotten Son came into the world, he gave him to have life in himself (John 5:26), so that of him it could alone be said, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). We recognize in God, therefore," the Fountain of living waters," from which, to their own great damage, men are separating themselves, as if the broken cisterns of their own hewing could ever slake their thirst (Jeremiah 2:13).

II. LOVE ATTACHES US TO THIS SPIRITUAL FOUNTAIN. As we love God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, we find that we have begun to live. On the other hand, the loveless life is only a pretended life, and carries within itself the "Anathema Maranatha" (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:22). Love places our heart at a level with God's, and the riches of his life flow into us. As Emerson, writing of gifts, says, "The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at a level, then my goods pass to him and his to me. All his are mine, all mine his." It is exactly in this magnanimous spirit God deals with those who love him. All his life and fullness flow down to us; we cannot, of course, take all in-our measure is a small one, but we are filled up to our capacity with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18).

III. LOVE GIVES BIRTH TO NEW OBEDIENCE. If we love God, we shall keep his commandments (John 14:15). In the eye of love, his commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). Our meat is found in doing the will of him that sends us, and in finishing his work (John 4:34). We say with the Master, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy Law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:8). And so, in the terms of the passage before us, we walk in God's ways, and keep his commandments and statutes and judgments. Now, this obedience strengthens the spiritual life. Just as exercise invigorates the body, so work of a spiritual kind invigorates the soul. We not only find rest in coming to Jesus, but refreshment in taking on us his yoke and his burden (Matthew 11:28-30).

IV. SUCH A LIFE OF ATTACHMENT AND OBEDIENCE UNTO GOD TENDS TO PERPETUATE OUR POWER AND EXISTENCE. Other things being equal, a religious life tends to perpetuate physical power. The calm which pervades the faculties, the wholesome exercise which devotedness to God administers, the deliverance from fear which religion bestows in face of all possible vicissitude and change, - all this favors health and longevity. Of course, Christianity does not need now such outward testimonies as these. Many saints are sickly, and die young; but religion never made their sickness a whir more serious, nor shortened their career by a single day. They would have been less easy in their sickness, and it would have cut their thread of life more quickly, had they been strangers to its solaces and joys.

V. SEPARATION FROM THE SOURCE OF LIFE IS DEATH INDEED. In this striking passage, while "good" and "life" go together, so do "death" and "evil." The idea in death is not cessation of existence, but separation from God. Adam and Eve died the day they doubted God's love and ate the fruit. They ceased not to exist that day, but died out of fellowship with God. Hence we are not to associate an annihilation view with the Biblical idea of death. Men die when they are separated from God as really as the branch broken from the stem. Sin is the mother of Death (James 1:15). It brings it forth, because it separates the soul from him who is the Fountain of life. The Jews found in their national experience how deadly a thing it is to disobey their God and to depart from him. Nor shall their calamities cease till they return to him. Meanwhile, may we see to it that we cleave trustfully and lovingly to God, and have increasing life in his favor! - R.M.E.

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KJV: See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

WEB: Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;