The giving of the Law was the climax to a lengthy saga, and only when we see it in that framework of events do we grasp its real purpose. In fact the climax to the saga consisted in two events - the giving of the Law and the making of a Covenant. If we concentrate on either without regard for their historical setting we will most likely miss altogether the remarkable fact that what the book of Exodus really does is to spell out the Gospel. It is all there, as plain as day.
Let us swiftly review that saga so we see it.
The book of Exodus opened with the Hebrew people in a tragic plight. They were slaves; and such was the immense and solid power of Egypt, there seemed no hope they would ever escape from their wretched bondage. But God had set His love on these despised sons of Jacob, and on His own initiative He stirred all nature and history to bring about their deliverance under the leadership of the man Moses. Soon, in spite of their determination to hang on to such a cheap labour force, the Egyptians had lost the Hebrew tribes to the desert beyond the sea, and to their God there.
Israel woke up to find herself a free people, with every prospect of a splendid future - and all by courtesy and arrangement of Yahweh, their God. They were excited and thrilled beyond belief, as the song they sang on the far shore of the Red Sea clearly shows.
God then led them into the Sinai Peninsula for the formal introductions, so to speak, so that they might learn exactly Who their unexpected Benefactor was.
They came to Marah, where the bitter waters were made sweet.
They came to Elim, a lush oasis, where they were refreshed and strengthened.
As they moved on and their food supplies diminished, they were fed with manna and quail.
They came to Rephidim, a place of enormous significance to them, where the lack of water blinded them at first to the real meaning of their arrival there: that God had kept the promise He had made to Moses at the beginning, had assumed total responsibility for them, and was altogether to be trusted. He supplied their need of water. They learned there at last to rely on Him in earnest when they had to fight for their lives with Amalek.
Soon they were visited by a foreigner and found to their delighted surprise that the telling of all that God had done for them had the power to awaken faith in others. The outsider coming in among them was blessed, and in turn blessed them.
All this constitutes the prelude to Sinai and the giving of the law.
It had taught them
...
• that the God of Heaven sets His love on the weak and the
despised, on the enslaved, on those who have neither faith nor
future
• that He opens His heart in love to men and women while they
are still strangers to Him
• that He delivers them with a strong hand and an outstretched
arm, making Himself known to them as their Saviour
• that He guides, heals, sustains and protects His people in
waste and trackless places.
All this they learned. And what is all that but the Gospel?
Throughout, God Himself took the initiative. He came down out of Heaven and presented Himself alive and marvellous in their midst. And through it all He asked of them in return nothing - except to trust Him, to rely on Him absolutely, to let Him be God to them! Only when they came to Sinai did He ask something of them. The lesson of faith learned, He shared with them at last the purpose He had had in mind for them all along, and what it would require of them. And what a marvellous purpose it was. "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob," God says to Moses (Tell them this): "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore," (here is the marvellous thing), "with all this recent experience behind you, obey my voice, keep faith with me, and you shall be my special possession among all peoples. For all the earth is mine, and you shall be in it for me a kingdom of priests, set apart to do me high service to the rest of men. (Exodus 19:4-6) You shall be my personal representatives to the peoples of the world, who, by reason of their sin, are estranged from the love I bear them. If you will accept this high office, then through you I will bless the world - will cleanse and enrich its life.
"Will you do it? If you will - if you will covenant with me to do it - then here are the conditions that will have to be met if you are to succeed in it: here are your 'sealed orders':
"First, you shall have no other gods before me - I must be able to count on your entire and swift obedience.
"Second, you shall not fashion any graven image of me, because your task is to propagate the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about me, and there must be no hint of distortion in its presentation.
"You shall wear the Sabbath like a wedding ring, as a quiet advertisement that you belong to Me."
... and so the commandments follow, one by one.
It was not by keeping the commandments that they commended themselves to God as being fit for the task: He chose them for it before they had even heard the commandments. Long before they were fit for the task, long before they understood what God wanted of them, long before they were even fit to stand before His face, God had drawn them to Himself and given them such an experience of His love and power and sheer goodness, blessing them over and over again with His grace, that the impulse to respond had been awakened.
Then they were given the 'ten words' - not until then. "In the light of all I have done among you and for you," God says, "in the light of all you are now ready to do for me, and because the desire to undertake this thing is in you now, you will do things thus and so. For these are the things that are necessary for the right discharge of your calling. These are the things that delight me. These are the things, such that if you do them or avoid them, no cloud of misunderstanding or of illwill shall arise between us, and no falsehood will appear in the witness you bear to Me."
God's right to command is founded on love. Our trust first; then, when the springs of faith are already flowing, our obedience. Obedience on any other basis will be hollow and unreal, giving God no satisfaction and us no delight.
The keeping of commandments cannot make us good, nor make us fit to stand before God, nor give us a place in His love. Only God Himself can do all that - just by being the God He is: a God gracious and forgiving, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
But let that grace once put its spell upon our spirit, once let Christ show us God as He really is - a God who out of the sheer goodness of His heart chooses to love us mixed-up rebels, rescues us from bondage, puts a new song in our mouths, guides, refreshes, sustains and protects us in the wasteful wilderness of this world, and calls us to the highest and noblest service of His kingdom - once let Christ open our eyes to the truth that God is all that to us, and faith, gratitude and adoration will bubble up into an eagerness in us to obey. The seed of goodness will be planted in our heart and be growing, needing only to be trained up. We shall say with the Psalmist, "I will run the way of your commandments because you have set my heart at liberty." (Psalm 119:32) The heart of the matter will be already in us. "Sin shall not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:14). You have, not the Law of Commandments to flog you, but the God of Grace to inspire you.
God Himself, not His Law, makes us righteous.
Nothing in the Exodus narrative runs counter to the Gospel.
But once that response is awakened, God seals it in the making of a Covenant. Through their representatives, the elders of the tribes, He entered into a solemn Covenant with His people Israel.
Covenant is one of the dominant themes of the whole Bible.
Every time we speak of the Old Testament or the New Testament we are speaking of Covenant, for the word 'Testament' means 'Covenant.' And the Bible testifies throughout to the fact that God, the Maker of the worlds, is a covenanting God. To be drawn into a living relationship with Him in any age is to be drawn into a relationship which is covenanted, a relationship of pledge and promise. Think of anyone who enjoyed a relationship with God: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, David, even Jesus: His relationship with them was a Covenant relationship. It always is; the very meal we share at the Lord's Table is a Covenant Meal, where the Covenant in which God and we are bound together is continually renewed. "This," said Jesus, "is my blood of the New Covenant."
It is of the greatest importance therefore that we understand the Bible's teaching about Covenant. When we do, we shall understand how God is bound to us, and we to Him. In the Exodus narrative we learn how the Covenant came to be made.
Note again the steps that led to it:
i. God elects (chooses) this undeserving people ... sets His love upon them. The first step is Election.
ii. He reveals Himself - as the God of nature and of history who in His power and love is wholly to be trusted. The second step is Revelation.
iii. By so revealing Himself - as their Saviour, Redeemer, Sustainer and Provider - He awakens faith in them. That has been the whole thrust of the Wilderness cycle of incidents - Marah, Elim, Rephidim etc. The third step is faith.
iv. He declares His purpose in electing them - that they are to be a missionary people, devoted to the task of bringing the knowledge of God to the rest of men. The fourth step is witness - mission.His missionary purpose is threefold: His elect are ...
a. To know Him. They are to be the guarantee that a true knowledge of God shall not perish off the face of the earth.
b. To show Him. They are to exhibit His character in their lives, both individually and in community.
c. To share Him. They are to share that truth with the whole world.v. He declares the terms of the service to which they are called. For the Israelites this turns out to be the Law, the Ten Words being the core of it. The Law represents the obligation which Israel willingly accepts as the claim God has upon them in the light of His election and the service to which He calls them. The fifth step is obedience.
vi. When Israel indicates her willingness to accept this bond God enters into Covenant with her.
• God on His side binds Himself to be wholly faithful to His people.
He will be true to them, as the God He has shown Himself to be.
• Israel on her side binds herself to be faithful to Him in the service to which He has called her. The sixth step is Covenant.
To recapitulate those steps ...
i. Election
ii. Revelation
iii. Faith
iv. Mission
v. Obedience
vi. Covenant
What are they but the same six steps by which any man or woman becomes a Christian now?
i. The ground of our whole relationship with God is His choice of us. "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," said Jesus. (John 15:16)
In the New Testament as in the Old the reason for God's choice of us to salvation service is hidden in inscrutable mystery. No reason is ever offered why God, in the secret counsels of His own will, should set His love upon any child of man, other than that it is simply, but inexplicably, in His nature to do so. God is like that. The believer has to say, "I am a believing man, a believing woman today, trusting God through Jesus, because God, in the mystery of His will, set His love upon me and called me." Being a Christian depends on God's decision for us before it rests on our decision for Him.
ii. Again in the New Testament as in the Old, faith in God is kindled in us as He reveals Himself - in Jesus and His Cross, for us, as in Moses and the Exodus for Israel.
God never calls for blind faith. Always He calls for faith in response to truth - truth He exerts Himself to supply, as He has in Christ.
iii. Again when God chooses us today, revealing Himself to us for faith through Christ, it is always for service that He does so. Not just for salvation, but for salvation service. "You did not choose me, but I chose you, and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit." (John 15:16)
The Church in the purpose of God is to give herself, to spend her life as Christ did, for the world. We, the elect, have been chosen by God for service to the non-elect. He loves them too - and it is for their sake that we are chosen. The Church is God's Covenant to the world. Isaiah 42:6, "I the LORD have called you in righteousness, have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."
iv. For us too the only response God asks of us is that of faith, a faith real enough to express itself in obedience.
v. For us too, there are 'sealed orders' ... the Law, not of Moses, but of Christ: "A new commandment I give to you," Jesus said, "that you love another. As I have loved you, so are you to love one another." (John 13:34)
Our solemn vow to be bound by that law is the requirement God makes of us if the Covenant between Him and us is to be real and effective.
vi. On this basis of election and revelation in Christ on God's side, and of faith, obedience and the acceptance of mission on our side, God enters into Covenant with us.
Finally, the Covenant was sealed.
Sacrifice was offered; half its blood was sprinkled on the altar, and half on the people, and then, face to face with God, they ate and drank together in His presence.
By sacrifice and shared meal the Covenant was established.
We shall the better understand Covenant if we know what a feature of life covenant making was in Bible times, not just in Hebrew society, but in all Eastern societies; and not only in the area of their religious life, but in the area of family and business life too. Covenants were frequently made. They were made so that men could be sure of one another and trust each other. They achieved in those days what men later sought to achieve by requiring of each other that they swear an oath, and what we today try to achieve by drawing up legal contracts.
God made a Covenant with Israel for just that purpose, so He could be sure of them and they of Him, so each knew exactly where they stood with the other. Israel knew what she could trust God for, and what He expected of her.
To explain briefly how covenants were made, the phrase used was 'to cut a covenant.' The reason for that is found in Jeremiah 34:18 where God says: "And the men who transgressed my Covenant, and did not keep the terms of the Covenant they made before me, I will make like the calf they cut in two and passed between its parts."
What happened was
this:
• An animal was cut in half, and the two halves laid out so a
sort of pathway was formed between them. The covenant was sworn while
the parties stood in that space between the two halves
(See
Note 1 below),
meaning, "If I betray the covenant, let it happen to me as it has
happened to this animal, for I shall have 'split myself apart'." They
'cut a Covenant.'
• A cut might then be made in their forearms, and their arms
held together so their blood mingled: symbolically they united their
two lives thereby into one.
• They then exchanged names.
• Finally they sat down to a shared meal with each other; the
sharing of the meal was understood to be a ratification of the
Covenant they had made.
A special relationship was set up between those who entered into such a covenant: it bound them in lifelong loyalty to one another. The word for that covenant loyalty is dþsþ, - chesed. In our Bibles it is translated, 'loving-kindness' (AV) or 'steadfast love' (RSV). So absolutely binding was this 'chesed' that it obliged each party entirely to overlook any and all faults of the other (except the breaking of the covenant, of course) ... that is what Chesed meant!
That is how God binds Himself to us in the Covenant He makes with us.
• God 'cut a Covenant' with His people at Sinai - bound Himself to them, and they to Him in a bond of absolute loyalty. The procedure followed was standard procedure. They could not very well cut an animal in half and stand the whole nation between its parts, nor could they very well mingle their blood with God's! But the cutting of the animal was done symbolically when the 'young men' - representatives of the people - offered sacrifice.
•The blood was mingled symbolically when Moses threw half of it over the altar (representing God) and half of it over the people, as though to say, "You and God are now as one."
• Then they took His Name upon them.
• And finally God called them representatively to a shared meal with Him when He called the seventy elders into the mountain, as we read in Exodus 24:11, "They beheld God, and did eat and drink."
There is a word in Psalm 89 which, though addressed originally to David, can be applied directly to us: "My steadfast love I will keep for him for ever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. If his children forsake my law ... if they violate my statutes, then I will punish their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with scourges; but I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant, or alter the word that went forth from my lips."
God on His side is altogether to be trusted. "If we are faithless He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." Whether in judgments or in mercies He will be true to us, and the eternal Covenant which He has sealed in blood.
Note 1:
Note how this procedure was observed in the Covenant made with
Abraham, Genesis 15:10, 17-18. I take the smoking pot and flaming
torch that passed between the parts to be symbols of God.
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