“For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life…” Deuteronomy 32:47
“When Christ, who is our life...” Colossians 3:4
Moses in the review of the Law did not plainly declare the substance of the Law. This accounted for the way the Israelites viewed the Law or Ten Commandments and its attendant ordinances. They have always viewed it as unrelated fragments, isolated and individually separated. They see the offering of grains, animals and observances of certain ordinances as individually separate and unrelated to a substantial whole. They did not see it as holistically substantiated in a personality i.e. the person of Christ. This attitude was reflected in their eventual dealings with the offerings whereby they offer it without regard to the substance. However, in the New Testament, Apostle Paul implies that “your life” that Moses is referring to is “Christ, who is our life.” (Colossians 3:4).
He further stated that Christ has taken away our sins by, “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principality and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” Colossians 2:14-17 (see Colossians 2:1-23). Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the Law. The word of God said “All have sinned …” He became our sin, was made sin in our place. The Law said “the soul that sinneth shall die.” This requires justice from a just and merciful God, he provided Christ as our justification, sanctification, righteousness, and redemption.
Furthermore, Christ is the sacrifice for our sin, the altar upon which the sacrifice was offered and he is the high priest who offered the sacrifice, having offered himself for our sin. It therefore does not matter if you are not naturally descended from Israel. What matters is being in Christ, that by the faith of God you believe in Christ and his holistic redemptive work for you on his cross. Any man, nation, tribe, or religion which fails to see the Ten Commandments as a whole in its panoramic view, will live a fragmented life.
Listen to what Paul said emphatically that “Your real life is Christ.” Seek to attain to this divine substance of the Ten Commandments. “See I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil…therefore choose life that both you and your seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:15- 20). This implies that the Ten Commandments is a whole (entire or complete, including all parts or aspects with nothing left out, not divided or regarded as consisting of separate parts). Christ is the whole, the ‘life’ which Moses set before them, and which God has set before every man in the gospel. Any other choice is death. ‘Therefore choose life.’
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