The Works of

Rev. Prof. Dr. F.N. Lee

31 March

The Lord kills, and the Lord keeps alive!

Deuteronomy 32:39

‘See now that I, even I, am He!… There is no god, with Me! I kill, and I make alive! I wound, and I heal! Neither is there any, that can deliver out of My hand!’ Deuteronomy 32:39.

Calvin comments: “God…Himself comes forward…. He addresses Himself to the faithful…. He always remains the same — whether He kills, or makes alive…. He alone is pre-eminent…. Our faith is then truly fixed in Him…, so as not to cease to hope in Him — even when He seems to ‘slay’ us…. God would have His promises to quicken us — in death itself…. None can deliver…out of His hand!”

And Calvin adds in his Sermons on Deuteronomy: “‘Behold how it is I Myself, and there is no other god with Me!’… We must…return to God…. It is to no purpose to know…, without the warrant of God’s Word…. There is but only one God, and that…is He to Whom we must turn again….

“The chief point, is to know God — to do Him homage; to walk in His fear…. We must taste of His mercy to return freely to Him — being thoroughly persuaded and resolved that we shall find mercy at His hand…. That is the reason why he (Moses) says that it is ‘He Who kills and makes alive’…. When we have done amiss, and God warns us of our faults — then we have need to resort
to His infinite goodness….

“God seems not to play the Physician toward us when have we been as it were dead and laid in our graves. Neither does this seem to be agreeable to His nature, to put us to death…. But, as I said before, He must…do both the one and the other…. His goodness is ready to utter itself towards those who return to Him with repentance….

“When we fall through infirmity, let us not be afraid to turn again to our God! Neither let us think that He has quite cast us off. Although His hand be sore upon us, and He smite us as though He meant to use wrath and vengeance against us — yet, let that not make us to shrink from Him but rather let us understand that as He has made the wound so He is at hand to heal it….

“Moses says that God having put to death, makes alive again…. God first kills and lays in the grave, before He restores to life again…. It is needful for us that our Lord should put us as it were to death — to the intent to make us…taste that life which He gives to those that return to Him….

“He adds that ‘no one can deliver out of His hand’…. We must always understand that there is no deliverance…. We must make our account to Him — until He of His Own infinite goodness has received us and become an atonement with us….

“We ought to weigh well the words of Moses — ‘It is I…, it is I Myself that am everlasting, and there is not any other god’…. It is He on Whom we must wholly rest…. It behooves all of us to know that each of us has need to hold himself…by force in the pure singleness of God’s Word.” For the Lord kills, and the Lord keeps alive!