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Deuteronomy 10:17
“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.”
If Moses had written verse 17 as a fill-in-the-blank at the end, leaving every man to give his own illustration of the phrase, “The great, the mighty, and the awesome God,” allowing us each to pick up the quill and write from our own diary of faith the most significant proofs of God’s unique character, all the scrolls in the world couldn’t contain the whole of them.
But think of it, friend: Moses has already described in Genesis God’s creation of the cosmos, His calling of Abraham, Sarah’s miraculous conception of Isaac, His raising up of Joseph from a slave to a prince, His salvation of Noah’s family during a worldwide flood, and much more. Not to mention the wonders Moses witnessed with his own eyes expressed in Exodus through Numbers, wonders like God speaking through a flaming bush or parting the Red Sea or thundering from Sinai or feeding the pilgrims with Manna or bringing water from a rock or creating a Tabernacle with all its sacred instruments, and on and on. That is, as Moses writes of God’s mighty power and awesome nature, think of the flood of illustrations that must’ve poured through his memory before his quill met the parchment. Think of all the anecdotes he could’ve mentioned as testaments to God’s greatness, might, and awesome power, which is why I’m initially surprised that he singles out God’s impartiality above all else. Is that really the primary attribute that comes to his mind? Is God’s integrity really more significant than His creative handiwork or His faithfulness to His people or even His holiness expressed in the law? Perhaps not, but the more I marvel at Moses’ choice here, the more integral God’s integrity becomes.
Friend, do we treat impartiality as a fundamental quality of virtue or a nice bonus? Is it the cake of godly character or just the icing on top? For Moses, and for the God Who inspired Moses, impartiality is everything. And I wonder: if the people who knew us best were to write a list of our greatest attributes, how high on the list would integrity be?