Life Within the Lines: The Sufficiency of God's Word Text: Deuteronomy 4:1-4
Introduction: The Editor's Red Pen
We live in an age of editors. Not the respectable kind who fix your grammar and spelling, but the kind who believe reality itself is a rough draft that needs their red pen. Our entire culture is built on the arrogant assumption that man is the final editor of his own story. We think we can add a few paragraphs here, delete a few inconvenient sentences there, and somehow produce a coherent narrative. We want to edit our gender, edit our biology, edit our history, and above all, edit our morality. And the source document for all this frantic, prideful editing is the Word of God.
Modern man, and particularly the modern evangelical, approaches the Bible not as a humble reader but as a senior editor with veto power. He comes to the text with his sensibilities already formed by the spirit of the age. He reads about God's judgment and thinks, "A bit harsh, let's tone that down." He reads about sexual ethics and says, "That won't play well in the current market; let's cut that section." He reads about God's absolute sovereignty and mutters, "This needs a rewrite to give man a more heroic role." He wants to add the parts he likes, the therapeutic affirmations and the sentimental platitudes, while taking away the parts that offend his autonomy, the hard demands and the sharp edges of the law.
But a God who can be edited is not God at all. A God whose word is subject to our approval is simply a projection of ourselves, a ventriloquist's dummy sitting on our lap, mouthing our own preferred truths. This is the oldest idolatry, the worship of the self. And it is a short road from editing God's Word to erasing it entirely. Moses, standing on the plains of Moab with the next generation of Israel, confronts this temptation head-on. He is about to reiterate the covenant law, the constitution of their new nation. And before he does, he lays down the foundational rule of engagement: you don't get to be the editor. God has spoken, and His Word is not a suggestion box. It is a closed, perfect, and sufficient revelation. To live is to submit to it entirely. To try and edit it is to die.
The Text
"So now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you. Your eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you. But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you."
(Deuteronomy 4:1-4 LSB)
The Condition for Life (v. 1)
Moses begins with a command that is also a plea, linking obedience directly to life itself.
"So now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you." (Deuteronomy 4:1)
The first word is "listen." In Hebrew, to hear is to obey. It is not the passive reception of sound waves. It is an active, engaged submission that results in doing. He tells them to listen to the "statutes and the judgments." This is comprehensive. The statutes are the established rules, the permanent ordinances. The judgments are the case-law applications. This is not just a call for a vague spiritual sentiment; it is a call to submit to the entirety of God's revealed will for every area of life, personal and civil.
And notice the consequence: "so that you may live." This is the great Deuteronomic principle that echoes through all of Scripture. God's law is not a burden designed to crush us; it is the framework for human flourishing. The world, the flesh, and the devil all lie to us and say that freedom and life are found in throwing off God's constraints. God tells us the truth: the lines He draws are the boundaries of life. Outside of them is only death. The fish is free in the water; on the beach, it is not free, it is dead. Man is free within the bounds of God's law; outside of it, he is just a carcass.
This life is not just about breathing. It is about dominion. "Go in and take possession of the land." Obedience is the key to inheritance. God gives the land, but they must take it. This is the great paradox of grace and effort. God's gift enables our work. We are to be a people who conquer, who build, who plant, who create a culture to the glory of God. But this cultural mandate is only possible through covenant fidelity. When a nation abandons God's law, it loses its inheritance. It rots from the inside out and is eventually dispossessed. Look around you. Is that not what is happening to the West?
The Un-Editable Word (v. 2)
Here we find the central pillar of the entire passage, the principle of a closed and sufficient canon.
"You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you." (Deuteronomy 4:2 LSB)
This is God building a perimeter fence around His revelation. He says, "This is my territory. You don't get to move the property lines." There are two ways to move the property lines, and both are acts of rebellion.
First, "you shall not add to the word." This is the sin of legalism and human tradition. It is the sin of the Pharisees, who buried God's law under a mountain of their own regulations. It is the sin of every church that binds the consciences of men with rules God never made. When you add to God's Word, you are implicitly saying that God's Word is insufficient. You are saying that God forgot something, and you need to help Him out. This is blasphemous arrogance. It puts a yoke on people that God never intended and ultimately makes the Word of God void.
Second, "nor take away from it." This is the sin of liberalism and antinomianism. This is the coward's rebellion. It's the attempt to make Christianity more palatable to the world by snipping out the offensive bits. We take out judgment. We take out hell. We take out the parts about sexual purity. We take out the Lordship of Christ over the nations. When you subtract from God's Word, you are saying that God's Word is excessive or mistaken. You are setting yourself up as a higher judge, a more compassionate god than God. This is the essence of modernism, and it creates a toothless, powerless, and false gospel.
The purpose of this fence is not arbitrary. It is "that you may keep the commandments." A shifting standard cannot be obeyed. If the rules are constantly being amended by human editors, then there is no objective standard to keep. God gives us a fixed, stable Word so that we can know what is expected of us and joyfully obey it. A closed canon is the foundation of a free and righteous society. An open canon, one that can be edited by every generation, is the foundation of tyranny.
A Case Study in Apostasy (v. 3)
God does not leave them with abstract theory. He immediately points to a recent, catastrophic failure as Exhibit A.
"Your eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you." (Deuteronomy 4:3 LSB)
He says, "You don't need to wonder what happens when you edit the terms of my covenant. You just saw it." The incident at Baal-peor, recorded in Numbers 25, was a national disaster. The men of Israel were seduced by Moabite women into sexual immorality and the worship of their god, Baal. They "added" Baal worship to their worship of Yahweh. They tried to have it both ways. This syncretism was a direct violation of the first commandment, and it provoked the fierce anger of the Lord. A plague broke out, and 24,000 Israelites died until Phinehas stood up and executed a man and his Midianite prostitute in the very act of their defilement.
The lesson is brutal and clear. God does not tolerate rivals. He does not share His glory. Theological compromise leads directly to moral collapse, which in turn leads to swift and deadly judgment. God is a jealous God, which is another way of saying He is a faithful husband who will not tolerate adultery in His bride. When the church begins to flirt with the Baals of our age, whether it is Marxism, or sexual revolution, or therapeutic deism, she is playing the harlot at Peor. And God has not changed. He will purge the camp.
The Tenacity of the Faithful (v. 4)
The chapter concludes with a stark contrast. On the one hand, the dead apostates. On the other, the living remnant.
"But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you." (Deuteronomy 4:4 LSB)
The key word here is "clung." The Hebrew is dabaq. It means to be joined, to be stuck to, to be glued to. It is the word used in Genesis 2:24, that a man shall leave his father and mother and "hold fast" to his wife. This is the language of covenantal loyalty. It is a tenacious, white-knuckled, exclusive grip.
While thousands were dying in their sin, a remnant lived. Who were they? They were the ones who clung to Yahweh. They did not flirt with Moab. They did not try to serve two masters. They held fast to the God of the covenant and to His un-edited Word. And the result was life. "You are alive today, every one of you."
This is the great divide that runs through all of humanity. There are those who experiment with other gods, who try to edit the terms of reality, and they are destroyed by their rebellion. And there are those who cling to the one true God. They are not perfect. They are sinners. But by grace, they hold fast. They refuse to let go. And in that clinging, they find life.
Conclusion: Clinging to the Word Made Flesh
This passage is not just a history lesson for Israel. It is a permanent word for the people of God in all ages. The temptation to edit God is perennial. The desire to add our wisdom or subtract His hard sayings is the native impulse of the sinful heart.
But for us, this passage points us directly to Christ. Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). He is the perfect, complete, and final revelation of God. To add to His finished work on the cross is to embrace a gospel of works, which is no gospel at all. To take away from His person, to deny His deity or His humanity, is to preach another Jesus. The sufficiency of Scripture is grounded in the sufficiency of Christ.
The incident at Baal-peor is a picture of the great apostasy that is always threatening the church. The world constantly invites us to its idolatrous feasts, tempting us with sexual license and intellectual respectability. It asks us to just add a little of its wisdom to our faith, to just subtract a few of those outdated moral commands. And when the church gives in, the plague always follows.
Our calling is the same as that faithful remnant in Israel. We are to be those who cling. We are to cling to the Word of God as written, refusing to add or subtract a single syllable. And we are to cling to the Word of God made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord. Faith is this clinging. It is gluing ourselves to Him, holding fast to Him as our only hope for life. He is the one who kept the law perfectly. He is the one who absorbed the curse for all our Baal-peor rebellions. And it is only by clinging to Him that we are kept alive, every one of us, ready to go in and take possession of the world He has given us.