At the close of the wandering in the wilderness, Moses said to the people, “All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments, or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger; and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” Deuteronomy 8.1-3
“The word of God is living and active.” Hebrews 4.12. Christ said, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6.68. Through the prophet He says, “Incline your ear, and come unto Me; hear, and your soul shall live.” Isaiah 55.3. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live.” John 5.25. That time had come in the days when the children of Israel were in the wilderness. In the giving of the manna He was teaching them that men could live only by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Note this well. God was proving them by the manna, whether they would walk in His law or not. But at the same time He was teaching them that the law is life. Jesus said, “I know that His commandment is life everlasting.” John 12.50. They were to keep the commandments that they might live, but they could keep them only by hearing them. The life is in the commandments themselves, and not in the individual who tries to keep them. He can get no life from his own efforts, yet he is to get life through the commandments. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The reason is that the word itself is life, and if we listen attentively to it, we shall be made alive by it. “O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48.18
Jesus said, “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” Matthew 19.17. But it is not by our efforts to conform to a certain standard, and by measuring ourselves by it to see what progress we are making, that we get righteousness and life. Such a course makes Pharisees, but not Christians. Abraham kept all the commandments of God, and yet not a line of them was written. How did He do it? —By hearkening unto the voice of God, and by trusting Him. God bore witness that he had the righteousness of faith.