Moses Told a Generation Who Were Not There That the Covenant Was With Them

He worked it out at somebody else's baptism.

He was standing at the back, where he always stands, and a girl he has known since she was small went into the water, and her father was crying, and the whole room sang the thing they always sing.

And he thought: I cannot remember ever deciding this.

Not doubting it. That is the part he keeps having to explain to himself. He was not standing there thinking it might not be true. He has never thought that. He was standing there realizing that he had received all of it, complete, at an age where he had no say in anything, and had never once turned it over in his hands and looked at it.

He is twenty-eight. He has not missed much. He would not know how to leave and does not want to.

He just does not know whether what he has is his.

Moses says the covenant is with them, not with their fathers

There is a sentence in Deuteronomy that is almost startling once you notice who is being spoken to.

Moses is addressing a generation that mostly was not at Sinai. Their parents were. Most of that older generation is dead.

And he says:

The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. (Deuteronomy 5:2-3, King James Version)

Not with our fathers, but with us, even us.

He is not being loose with history. He is making a point on purpose, and it is a strange and generous one: whatever happened at that mountain, it is not a family heirloom that belongs to the people who were physically present. It reaches the ones standing in front of him.

What you were handed was never only somebody else's. Deuteronomy 5 says so about a generation who had missed the original event, and it is His Spirit who makes an inherited thing land as personally addressed.

Jesus asks the second-hand question first, and then the other one

There is a moment where He does this deliberately, in two steps.

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? (Matthew 16:13)

They answer easily. Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, some Jeremiah. It is a survey question and they have the information.

And then:

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? (Matthew 16:15)

But whom say ye.

He asks the reported version first and lets them give it, and then He turns and asks for theirs. He does not treat the first answer as worthless; He treats it as not yet the question.

And Peter answers in his own words, out loud, in front of everybody.

You are being asked the second question and you are old enough for it. Matthew 16 has Him putting it directly after the survey, and it is the Holy Spirit who is credited two verses later with the answer that came out.

They started with somebody else's testimony and did not stay there

There is a whole town in John chapter 4 that goes through exactly this.

A woman tells them about Jesus and they come out to see for themselves. He stays two days. And then they say this to her, and it is more affectionate than it looks:

Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. (John 4:42)

Not because of thy saying.

Read what happened and what did not happen. They did not conclude she was wrong. They did not leave the town or reject the person who brought it to them. They went from having it on somebody's word to having heard Him themselves, and the two things sit next to each other with no conflict.

That is the whole shape of this. Not a departure. A move from second-hand to first-hand, in the same place, among the same people.

You are able to have this become yours without going anywhere. John 4:42 has a whole town move from thy saying to we have heard him ourselves in two days, and it is His Spirit rather than a change of address who does it.

Paul says a faith can be inherited and genuine at once

And here is the verse that refuses to let these be opposites.

When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. (2 Timothy 1:5)

Unfeigned means unpretended. Real.

And in the same breath Paul traces exactly where it came from: a grandmother, then a mother, then him.

He does not treat the inheritance as a mark against it. He names the chain and calls the faith at the end of the chain genuine, and he is persuaded of it.

So the question is not whether it was handed to you. Almost everything of any value was. The question is whether you have looked straight at it, and that is a different question with a different answer.

You have something that is inherited and genuine at once, and those were never opposites. 2 Timothy 1:5 calls it unfeigned in the same sentence that names the grandmother and the mother it came through, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than a dramatic story who makes something handed down become somebody's own.

The choosing was always part of the ceremony

Joshua, at the very end of his life, gathers everybody, recites the whole history from Abraham forward, and then does this:

Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15)

Notice the order. He recites the inheritance first. All of it, at length, out loud. And then he asks them to choose.

The choosing is not set against the inheritance. It comes after it, in the same meeting, as the proper response to having heard it.

Which means being asked to make it yours is not a suggestion that something is wrong with what you were given. It is the next thing that was always supposed to happen.

You were given it in order to choose it, and choosing is not a rejection of anybody. Joshua 24:15 puts the recital and the choice in one ceremony, and it is His Spirit who makes a choice like that more than a formality.

And it is meant to be said out loud

One more, because the thing to do about this is small and specific.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10)

With the mouth.

Saying it is not decoration. Paul puts it in the mechanism.

And the Psalms use a word that is even more direct about finding out for yourself:

O taste and see that the LORD is good. (Psalm 34:8)

Taste. Not be told about. Not inherit a description of. Find out what it is like directly.

You are invited to find out first-hand. Psalm 34 uses the most first-person word available, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes tasting something different from being told.