(The fiftieth in a series of sermons on Exodus, preached January 15, 2012.)
Exodus 20:18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
20:22 And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. 26 And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’[1]
Was your New Year’s resolution to read through the Bible in one year?
As far as resolutions go, it’s good one, and, if it’s yours, I wish you well. But in your trip through the Bible, it’s where we’re at right now – at the foot of Sinai, the Ten Commandments given – it seems that our tires go flat and our trip through the Bible grind to a halt. For the next three-and-a-half books, we read laws after law after law, and, honestly, it’s tough.
Most biblical laws seem as helpful for navigating modern life as the horse and buggy. For example, what are we to make of laws governing the treatment of slaves, or establishing religious feasts and special diets, or constructing tabernacles? Maybe there was a time when these things were important, but surely not today.
And some commandments seem downright bizarre. Read far enough, and you’ll scratch your head, wondering why Israelites mustn’t “boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19) or “wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together” (Deuteronomy 22:11). One reason why so many Christians neglect to read the Bible is that they don’t know how to make sense of the Old Testament. Maybe we have better things to do with our time than read the last half of Exodus.
Or, maybe not. Let me give you two reasons why you should be not only curious, but fiercely attentive to the Law of Moses.
First, they are God’s words. When Paul declared, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” he meant the Old Testament with its law, history, prophecies, and wisdom literature. He meant Exodus.
Second, the Law of Moses proclaims Christ. Didn’t our risen Lord, on the road to Emmaus, come alongside two disciples, and, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Exodus 20-40 proclaims Christ.
I suspect that many Christians leave their Bibles closed, not because they’re lazy, but because large parts, like the Law of Moses make no sense to them. In the coming weeks, I’ll do my best to correct that. What we read in Exodus 20-40 is God’s word, his word about Christ.
Let me say now a word about the Law. Before we jump in and look at specific laws, keeping in mind the three categories of biblical law.
First, there are political or civil laws. These laws governed only ancient Israel and structured its national life – not Egypt’s, not Assyria’s, not Babylon’s, not the United States’, only Israel’s. Starting next week, we will look at some of these political laws. In many of them, such as the laws requiring restitution of stolen or damaged property, we observe a basic principle of fairness that we would do well to imitate. But, taken as a whole, they no longer function as a body of law for any nation and were intended to be the law of the land for Old Covenant Israel alone. Still, as we’ll see next week, they are God’s word, and I repeat, they will teach us basic principles of fairness – a fairness we owe to those created in the image of God.
Occasionally, you will hear someone argue that specific Old Testament laws must be incorporated into American law. This teaching is called theonomy, or Christian reconstruction, and it’s wrong. Theonomy’s error fails to see the uniqueness of ancient Israel (no other nation ever was or shall be in a covenant relationship with God).
Second, there are ceremonial laws. These laws obliged Old Testament Israel to sacrifices, the observance of holy days, purification ceremonies and a special diet. These laws separated Israel from the surrounding nations, gave it a distinct identity, instructed the people in holiness, and prepared them for the coming Messiah. Once he came, these laws were fulfilled, and do not bind believers today (see Ephesians 2:15-16 and Hebrews 10:11-14).
Frequently, in evangelical circles you will hear Christians talk about reinstating Old Testament sacrifices in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem after the so-called secret rapture of the church. This error is known as dispensationalism. Dispensationalism sends us in the wrong direction, backward, imagining that there will be a time when some believers will practice the faith in the way Israel did before the cross. This is very sad, very wrong, and a very poor way to read the Bible.
The third category of biblical law is moral law, which is permanent, obligating, and unchanging. It binds man to perpetual obedience, both before and after the fall. It obligates both believers and unbelievers. And God’s moral law is summarized in the Ten Commandments. Think of the Ten Commandments as the abiding principles that are worked out in the civil law, then it’s these commandments that serve as the moral foundation for the civil laws we will study in Chapter 21. The Ten Commandments – God’s abiding moral principles – are applied to the specific laws governing life in ancient Israel.
Now to our text, and what a text it is: “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off” (Exodus 20:18). We Alabamians, especially those of us over in the Harvest area, should have some feel for Israel’s experience. Remember the spring tornadoes? Howling winds - houses shaking – the locomotive rumbling - trees snapping like toothpicks – the furious lightening bolts unleashed.
That’s what Israel sees, feels, and hears the entire time the Lord speaks the Ten Commandments at Sinai (see Exodus 19:16ff). Don’t trifle with Yahweh and his word. In awe, Israel stands before its Creator and Redeemer. This is not a contemporary worship scene. No coffee cups in hand, no idle banter, no Israelites asleep in the pews. Nothing is more serious and solemn and awe-inspiring than meeting with the omnipotent God. In the Ten Commandments he demands their absolute loyalty, and proclaims total authority over their worship, their words, their time, their marriages, their bodies, and their thoughts and desires.[2] They must fear him and obey him.
He is so fearful, in fact, that Israel is desperate for a covenant mediator, one to act as a go-between them and their holy God: “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” One Bible teacher says: “Fear of God, fear of the law and fear of judgment were just too much for them to bear . . . they realized their guilt and unholiness, and they knew they were deserving of his condemnation.”[3]
A leader must be poised in crises and not lose their bearing. Even if fear courses through his veins, a leader must show courage. Moses leads. Look at verse 20: Moses assures the people: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” The vast drama unfolding at Sinai shouldn’t leave you shaking like a leaf and incapacitated by terror. Rather, it is the Lord testing. His holy presence restrains sin.
That said, Moses, too, shook with fear. How do we know? The writer to the Hebrews tells us on that dreadful day at Sinai that “[s]o terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” Moses trembled. Not out on the open for all to see. But alone. Like the people he represented before God, he was a sinner. Yet, trembling in fear, he pressed on: “[t]he people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 12:21).
Our New Testament lesson this morning comes from Hebrews 12. Some things have not changed since Israel gathered at Sinai. God’s holy character hasn’t: he is “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Our duty hasn’t: “acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).
But O how we thank God for the changes the New Covenant has brought us! Moses, Israel’s covenant mediator was a great man, but like us, he was a great sinner. We now have a new covenant and a new mediator. Jesus, the holy, perfect, and righteous Son of God is “the mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 12:24).
His blood shed on the cross has achieved for us perfect forgiveness. He doesn’t lead us back to Sinai and Sinai’s terrors, but to another mountain – Mt. Zion – the heavenly Jerusalem. Our citizenship resides in the city of the living God, an assembly that is not marked by terror, but marked by joy (Hebrews 12:22).
What security we have in Christ! No one puts it better than the hymnwriter:
The terrors of the law and of God
With me can have nothing to do;
My savior’s obedience and blood
Hide all my transgressions from view.[4]
In the shelter of his obedience and blood you worship with joy.
And it is the assembly of worship that we turn our attention in Exodus 20:22-26, which begins a section of Exodus called the Book of the Covenant and extends to chapter 24. After the Ten Commandments, it’s not surprising that the first laws applying to the life of ancient Israel begin with worship. Do not the Ten Commandments begin: “You shall have no other Gods before me?” (Exodus 20:3) Banish every idol.
And the second commandment teaches us that the one God must be worshipped in the right way: “You must not make for yourself a carved image” and bow down to it or serve it. Go astray in worship, and all is lost.
So, in verses 22 and 23 the Lord reiterates the first two commandments: here we find a blanket condemnation of idols. “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold.’” (Exodus 20:22-23)
Instead of making idols, the pilgrim people of Israel must construct altars as God leads them through the wilderness. Later, sacrifices will be offered in one place – the Tabernacle and later the Temple. But for now, as it continues its journey, they must remember the Lord and honor his name in worship that is plain and simple and full of thanksgiving. To that place of worship, God will come and bless his beloved people.
On the altar two kinds of sacrifice are offered, burnt offerings and peace offerings. “An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you” (Exodus 20:24).
In burnt offerings, writes John Mackay, “the animals were totally consumed in the fire (29:15-18), turning aside God’s wrath from the worshipper.”[5]
Let’s think, for a moment, about sacrifices for sin. What’s going on with all these animal sacrifices? What’s their purpose?
Think about a sacrificial lamb. According to biblical law, priests took a sacrificial lamb without spot or blemish, which represented the moral purity of the victim. Then they laid their hands on the lamb, confessing the sins of God’s people. By that act, guilt was transferred from the people to the lamb. The lamb was killed, the morally innocent in the place of the unrighteous. All of this pointed God’s people to the coming of his Son, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Jesus dies, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might reconcile us to God. He bears our guilt, and removes our shame. In Christ, God’s mercy comes to us. Through these sacrifices, the Law of Moses leads us to Christ.
After the sacrifice for sin was accepted, there were peace offerings. In fellowship God shared a meal with his friends, all their sins atoned for.[6] When at the Lord’s Supper we eat the bread and drink the wine, we do more than remember Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. By the Spirit’s power, our hearts are raised to where Christ is, seated at the Father’s right hand, and we share fellowship with our Savior as his friends.
Notice the simplicity of the altar in verse 25: “If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it.” If that seems odd to you, just think about the finally chiseled altars of stone built by Israel’s pagan neighbors. These were part of ancient fertility cults. All across the ancient near east, carefully crafted, high quality altars celebrated encounters with their deities through sexual relationships that included cult prostitutes and orgies. That sort of vile behavior must not mark Israel’s relationship with the holy Lord of Israel. Israel’s altars must be simple, not resembling in the slightest way these immoral places.
Which explains the dress of Israel’s priests: “And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it” (Exodus 20:26). The worship of the true and living God must not be marked by sexual immorality.
In our own age, when sexually explicit material floods us, we must be different. Take to heart Paul’s exhortation: “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (Ephesians 5:3). Or, as the New International Version translates: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Ephesians 5:3).
Biblical worship, biblical churches, and biblical ministers must be marked by holiness.
By God’s grace, you’re his New Covenant people, his joyful assembly. In response to God’s word and by the power of his Spirit, let your worship be filled with reverence and awe and purity.
__________
[1] All Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Ryken 678-679.
[3] John D. Currid, Exodus, vol. 2 (Evangelical Press, 2001), 53.
[4] August M. Toplady, “A Debtor to Mercy Alone,” Trinity Hymnal (revised), selection 463.
[5] John Mackay, Exodus (Mentor: 2001), 361.
[6] Mackay, 361.
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