Scripture Daily

Context No. 1616 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 14:1-16: in context

1You are the children of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. 2For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth. 3You shall not eat any abominable thing. 4These are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, 5the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the chamois. 6Every animal that parts the hoof, and has the hoof split in two and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. 7Nevertheless these you shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of those who have the hoof split: the camel, the hare, and the rabbit. Because they chew the cud but don’t part the hoof, they are unclean to you. 8The pig, because it has a split hoof but doesn’t chew the cud, is unclean to you. You shall not eat their meat. You shall not touch their carcasses. 9These you may eat of all that are in the waters: you may eat whatever has fins and scales. 10You shall not eat whatever doesn’t have fins and scales. It is unclean to you. 11Of all clean birds you may eat. 12But these are they of which you shall not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 13the red kite, the falcon, the kite of any kind, 14every raven of any kind, 15the ostrich, the owl, the seagull, the hawk of any kind, 16the little owl, the great owl, the horned owl,

This chapter opens with a declaration of identity before it gives any commands: you are the children of the LORD your God, a holy people, whom the LORD has chosen to be his own treasured possession out of all the peoples on earth. And then, on the basis of that identity, come the commands: do not gash yourselves in pagan mourning for the dead, do not eat what is unclean. The distinct behavior, the not-cutting, the clean and unclean foods, flows from the identity stated first: you are God's children, his treasured possession; therefore live like it.

The order here is worth noticing: identity comes first, and behavior flows from it. God does not begin by giving commands and promising that if Israel keeps them well enough they will become his children; he begins by declaring that they already are his children, his holy people, his treasured possession, and then calls them to live in a way that fits who they already are. The behavior does not earn the identity; the identity grounds the behavior. Because you are God's children, live as God's children; because you are a holy people, be holy. This is the right order, and it is easy to get backwards. We can slip into thinking that our obedience is what makes us God's, that if we behave well enough we will earn the status of his children, so that our standing hangs anxiously on our performance. But scripture puts it the other way: God declares us his own first, by his choosing and his grace, and then calls us to live as what we already are. The gospel says the same, and more clearly: in Christ we are made God's children, not by our behavior but by his grace, and then called to live worthy of the calling we have already received. The distinct life God asks of his people is not the price of becoming his; it is the fitting expression of already belonging to him. You are the children of the LORD, therefore live like it: identity first, behavior flowing from it, not the anxious reverse.

Do I live as though my behavior earns my standing as God's child, my acceptance hanging anxiously on my performance, or do I grasp the right order, that God has made me his own by grace first, and calls me to live as the child of God I already am?

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