the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Day by Day Devotional - Year 1 of 5
Deuteronomy 27:1-19
Written "very plainly" on large stones that had been covered with dazzling white plaster, the law was placed in a conspicuous position on the mountain as a testimony to all Israel. Nobody could claim that they did not know it. We who have the complete Bible in our hands have even more responsibility.
This monument to glorify the law makes us think of the magnificent Psalms 119 which unfurls in its 176 verses the marvels of the Word of God and what it means for the faithful believer. This psalm begins by proclaiming the blessing of those "who walk in the law of the LORD." "Thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal," was how it had been ordained (Deuteronomy 11:29). Sadly we do not hear the tribes proclaiming the blessing. Effectively the people were "under the law" and "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Galatians 3:10). Cursed . . . cursed . . . cursed . . . is the sentence which Israel was to hear twelve times (vv. 15-26). However the same passage in Galatians announces that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law" by taking it upon Himself (Galatians 3:13). Henceforth we are no longer under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14).
