Ebal and Gerizim.
This ceremony turns on the idea of the Law as primarily entailing a curse. Blessings and curses were both to be recited (Deuteronomy 27:12, Deuteronomy 27:13). But the curse seems to have been first pronounced, and it only is given in the record. It has the lead in the transaction. The explanation is obvious. Deuteronomy 27:26 shows that, in strictness, none can escape the curse (Psalms 130:3; Galatians 3:10). A blessing is pronounced from Gerizim, but it is abortive, as depending on a condition which no sinner can fulfill.
Hence:
1. The stones are all placed on Ebal.
2. All the sons of the bondwomen are placed on that mount (cf. Galatians 4:21-31).
This is preferable to supposing that prominence is given to the curse, inasmuch as, under law, fear rather than love is the motive relied on to secure obedience. The appeal to fear is itself an evidence that "the law is not made for a righteous man" (1 Timothy 1:9). It brings strikingly to light the inherent weakness of the economy (Romans 8:3). When a Law, the essence of which is love, requires to lean on curses to enforce it, the unlikelihood of getting it obeyed is tolerably manifest. As an actually working system, the Mosaic economy, while availing itself of the Law to awaken consciousness of sin and to keep men in the path of virtue, drew its strength for holiness, not from the Law, but from the revelations of love and grace which lay within and behind it. We learn—
I. THAT THE LAW IS COMPREHENSIVE OF EVERY PART OF OUR DUTY. A variety of sins are mentioned as examples. They relate to all departments of duty—duty to God and duty to man. The list is avowedly representative (Deuteronomy 27:26).
Note:
1. That it covers a large part of the Decalogue. The first table is fairly represented by the second commandment, and a curse is pronounced on the making and worshipping of images (Deuteronomy 27:15). The precepts of the second table are involved in the other verses—the fifth commandment in the curse on filial disrespect (Deuteronomy 27:16), the sixth in the curse on murder (Deuteronomy 27:24), the seventh in the curses on the grosser forms of uncleanness (Deuteronomy 27:20-23); the eighth in the curse on removing the landmark (Deuteronomy 27:17); the ninth in the, curse on slaying another for reward, which may include perjury (Deuteronomy 27:25); while Deuteronomy 19:19 may be viewed as forbidding breaches of the law of love generally.
2. That the sins against which the curses are directed are mostly secret sins. The Law searches the heart.
3. That the usual care is shown for the interests of the defenseless (Deuteronomy 19:18, Deuteronomy 19:19). It is touching, in the heart of so awful a malediction, to find this tender love for the blind, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow. Wrath and love in God are close of kin.
II. THAT A CURSE WAITS ON EVERY VIOLATION OF THE LAW'S PRECEPTS. The position of Scripture is that every sin, great and small, subjects the sinner to God's wrath and curse. It derives this truth, not, as some have sought to derive it, from the metaphysical notion of sin's infinite demerit, as committed against an infinite God; but from its own deep view of sin, as involving a change, a deflection, an alteration, in its effects of infinite moment, in the very center of man's being. There is no sin of slight turpitude. A holy being, to become capable of sin, must admit a principle into his heart totally foreign to the holy condition, and subversive of it. In this sense, he that offends in one point is guilty of all (James 2:10, James 2:11). Sin is in him, and on a being with sin in him the Law can pronounce but one sentence. His life is polluted, and, being polluted, is forfeited. The curse involves the cutting of the sinner off from life and favor, with subjection to the temporal, spiritual, and eternal penalties of transgression. The denial of this article leaves no single important doctrine of the gospel unaffected; the admission of it carries with it all the rest. It gives its complexion to a whole theology.
III. THAT THE SINNER MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE JUSTICE OF THE LAW'S CLAIMS AGAINST HIM. The people were required to say, "Amen." This "Amen" was:
The Law declares God's judgment against sin. And this:
1. Is echoed by the conscience. Fitfully, reluctantly, intermittently, yet truly, even by the natural conscience. The "Amen" is implied in every pang of remorse, in every feeling of self-condemnation. Every time we do that we would not, we consent unto the Law that it is good (Romans 3:16). The very heathen know the "judgment of God, that they which commit such things" as are here specified "are worthy of death" (Romans 1:32). But it needs the spiritually convinced heart to render this "Amen" hearty and sincere. The true penitent justifies God and condemns himself (Psalms 51:1-19.).
2. Was acknowledged by Christ as our Sin-bearer. In Christ's atonement, it has been truly remarked, there "must have been a perfect 'Amen' in humanity to the judgment of God on the sin of man. Such an 'Amen' was due to the truth of things. He who was the Truth could not be in humanity and not utter it—and it was necessarily a first step in dealing with the Father on our behalf" (J. McLeod Campbell).
3. Will yet be joined in by the whole universe (Revelation 15:2; Revelation 17:1, Revelation 17:2).
CONCLUSION. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). In him no condemnation (Romans 8:1).—J.O.