Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 5 July 2009 Exodus 19:1-25; Hebrews 12:18-29

The God Who Makes Covenant

Commentators alert us to the fact that the opening verses of Exodus 19 contain various grammatical, linguistic and stylistic features that mark this chapter off from the material that has preceded it. In Exodus 19 we are brought to a new phase of God's dealings with his people, one which is central to the whole of his purposes in salvation history. The weightiness of the chapter lies in its revelation of the holy God who makes solemn covenant with his people. The core of the covenant law is found in the gift of the commandments (spelled out in Exodus 20) which were the content of the covenant. Here, in chapter 19, the emphasis is on the revelation of the God who makes covenant.

The whole concept of covenant needs some elaboration, and while some of these comments will be reiterated in later material it is good that we give some consideration to it now. Firstly, when we speak of the divine covenants in the Scriptures we note that all of them have the same elements in that God takes the initiative; God makes promises associated with that particular covenant; God declares the terms of the covenant (including the stipulations and obligations); and God himself superintends the covenant arrangements. These elements hold for all the OT covenant arrangements (e.g. Abraham, Noah, David, and here, the Mosaic covenant) and are self evident in the new covenant sealed in Christ's blood.

Secondly the various divine covenant formulations all serve the purpose and furtherance of God's plan in salvation history. Each reveals a further aspect of God and his purposes, and all are fulfilled in the new covenant of which Jesus is the mediator. For this reason we cannot consider any covenant in isolation from this goal. This is the basic assumption behind Paul's discussion of the covenants in Romans and Galatians, for example.

Thirdly all of the covenant arrangements proceed from grace. God takes the initiative in establishing the covenant with sinful people, who have no claim on his favour. The obligations of each of the covenants proceed from grace, not towards it.

Fourthly, all the covenants are related to worship. The goal of each, and the telos of them all, is that God's covenant partners may be free to worship him, which worship is perfect freedom. Here, in the Mosaic covenant, the whole narrative ends with the worship sanctuary of God flooded with the presence of his glory (Ex. 40).

Exodus 19:1-9 recounts the gracious action of God in bringing his people to himself by his own redeeming power, and the intention to make Israel a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Exodus 19:10-15 recounts the instructions for preparation to receive the words of God. Exodus 19:16-25 recounts the actual coming of the Lord to the mountain, in a theophany that shook the earth and the very souls of the people. Israel had already seen the glory of the Lord in the pillar of cloud and fire, but this was something even more magnificent again. It is a further revelation of the God who had called them to himself, one in which the utter disparity between his holiness and the sinfulness of humanity was emphasized in great power. There was to be no ‘breaking through to gaze' out of curiosity (Ex. 19:21) lest the Lord break out to judge such arrogance. The whole mountain became holy ground, and none save those specifically called (Moses, and then, in a different context the elders) could set foot on the mountain. There could be no abrogation of holiness. In some senses the Tabernacle was a representation of the event, almost as a portable depiction of Sinai...the outer camp, the holy place, the most holy place etc., with the Law of God's presence at the very centre and the whole preserved by God's gracious gift of atonement.

Throughout the account Moses is portrayed clearly as the covenant mediator. It is he who ascends and descends from the mountaintop to the people, according to the will of God, to represent God to them and vice versa. In Exodus 19 we read of three such ascents (19:3-8a, 8b-15, 16-25) and throughout the course of the narrative to the end of Exodus 34 there are seven such ascents in total, culminating in his intercession for the people after the incident of the golden calf. Because of Moses' appointed role as mediator we may call this covenant the Mosaic covenant, not because it is instituted by Moses, but it is given by God through Moses.

Given the sequence of events-the law was given to a redeemed people. Israel was already his son (Ex. 4:22) and their deliverance had been in accord with the covenant promises already made to Abraham concerning them (Ex. 2:23-25)-it is clear that the torah of the covenant was never a ‘ladder of merit' (to use Motyer's term) to gain status with God. Grace precedes law, so that the keeping of the law was to be the obedience of love, thankfulness and joy, not the obedience of duty. So how should we understand the ‘if' of Exodus 19:5-6?

The ‘if' of Exodus 19:5 ‘relates not to covenant status, but covenant blessing' (A. Motyer, The Message of Exodus, p. 193). Even when Israel disobeyed, they were still in a covenant relationship with God and thereby brought themselves into the covenant state of judgment...but they were still God's people. The gift of covenant status was conferred by God's grace. Covenant blessing could only be known by abiding by the terms of the covenant as God himself graciously stipulated. Thus the ‘if' does not mean that disobedient Israel would not be in covenant relationship to God, but it does mean that they would not enjoy the blessings of the covenant (indeed, they would instead come under its curses), and they could no longer function as a priest nation. The final extent of the covenant curse on disobedient Israel would be the loss of the worship sanctuary, so they could not there intercede for the nations or through that means of worship enter into the covenant blessings by which the nations would be blessed.

The role of this covenant in the plan of God is the subject of much apostolic preaching in the NT, but while it may variously be called a covenant of the ‘letter' not the Spirit, a minister of condemnation and death (2 Cor. 3:6, 7, 9), it still serves the covenant of promise. The Law is good and holy, but the action of the Law in relation to fallen human fleshly pride is to bring condemnation, judgement and death...shutting us up to grace. The veil of this covenant is removed in Christ (2 Cor. 3:14), i.e. it is only in Christ that we come to see the Law as it truly is and the purpose of the Mosaic covenant as it truly is. In Christ we see how God has brought us to himself; so that we may love him and rejoice to do his will (i.e. keep his law).

The theophany of God's holy presence on Sinai was awesome and brought terror to the hearts of the people. His voice was unbearable to them, so much so that they asked Moses to speak to them in God's stead (Ex. 20:19 cf. Deut. 18:16). The people had prepared themselves as Moses had commanded. They had cleansed their garments (Ex. 19:10) as an indication of their holy status and they had kept themselves away from sexual relationships (Ex. 19:15) because they were to be single minded in their attention to God. However, on the third day (Ex. 19:11, 16) the Lord himself descended on the mountain, and to guilty hearts this presence was abject terror.