Coromandel Baptist Church

Sunday 20 September 2009 Exodus 20:18-26; 24:1-18

God's Covenant Affirmed

The passages indicated in our Bible readings this week speak of Israel's affirmation of the covenant God had forged with them, and this in the context of worship. The instructions for the building of the altar that would be the centre piece of the covenant affirmation ceremony (Ex. 20:22-26) and the actual covenant affirmation itself (Ex. 24:1-11) are separated by the instructions about various laws (Ex. 21-23, sometimes called the Book of the Covenant) which were to form the basis of Israelite judicial practice. They are examples of how the Ten Commandments would be applied in Israel's national life. Of these we will say a more on a later occasion. Here our focus is on the Israelites' response to God and on the God who comes to them in order to bring the fear of his love to Israel.

The fact that an altar was built in order to receive animal sacrifices, and that the blood of these had to be sprinkled on the people, indicates that even their covenant affirmation had to be covered by God's gracious provision of sacrifice, since the people affirming their devotion to the Lord were sinners still. In subsequent chapters, the narrative goes on to describe the alacrity with which the people turned to idolatry and the corrosive effects of this within the covenant community. Before this, however, we are given an insight into the relationship into which God had called his people (e.g. Ex. 24:9-11), and Moses as their representative in particular...to come into his presence on the holy day and to enter into his glory and his rest (Ex. 24:16ff.).

The passage immediately following the given of the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:18-21) highlights some curious features. In the previous chapter Moses had brought the people out to the foot of the mountain (19:16-17), as he had been instructed to do. The people had been warned to not to break through the boundaries God had set (i.e. to gaze out of curiosity) as the mountain was holy, consecrated to the Lord. We observed in an earlier sermon that in some senses the Tabernacle that was a sort of portable representation of the Sinai event in Israel's history, particularly with the divisions of space between the most holy place, the holy place and the outer court. Moses, as the mediator of this covenant and as God's prophet-priest, could go into the very presence of God atop the mountain (at God's command only), but the rest of the people were to be kept at a distance. Nevertheless they were to be in the realm of the Presence, and were given to hear the Lord's voice directly, so that they might know the gracious words of their Redeemer-Lord and live in his will. In Exodus 20:19 the people do not want to hear the voice directly (so also Deut. 18:16 cf. Deut. 5:24; 9:10) while in verses 18 and 21 it is made plain that they stood ‘at a distance'. The reiterated phrase is significant. ‘The Hebrew...usually means "far away" (see 1 Sam. 26:13; Is. 22:3; 23:7). Why did they run away? Fear of God, fear of the law and fear of judgement were just too much for them to bear. In other words, they realised their guilt and unholiness before the awesome God, and they knew they were deserving of his condemnation' (Currid, Exodus, Vol.2, p. 53).

In this context Exodus 20:20 gives up its meaning. On the surface it seems contradictory: ‘Do not be afraid....God has come...in order that the fear of him may remain...' The fear of the people was not the fear that God wanted them to have. He wanted them to have a different sort of fear. They hid in fear (as in Genesis 3:8), but the coming of God in salvation brings the gifts of grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, joy and redemption; to save not to destroy. The God who has brought them to Mt. Sinai, had brought them to himself on eagles' wings, so that they may be his people and that he might be their God. He had come to them in Egypt to deliver them and to fulfil all of the promises made to Abraham. He brought them to himself out of love, and for the purpose of love, that through the covenant promises the nations might be blessed. He desires to dwell with them, and to seat them at his banqueting table, to provide green pastures and quiet waters and restore their souls, having rescued them from the hard labour of Pharaoh and delivered them from the slavery of the gods of Egypt. So the true fear of the Lord lies in the mercy of God, as in Psalm 130:3-4 (cf. Jer. 31:34; 33:8-9; Ezk. 16:63; 36:31 in its context; Hos. 3:5; Rom. 2:4; etc.) which the whole event of the exodus had been...mercy beyond measure and grace in abundance. The people, then, had not understood the nature of God who had come to them. They still perceived him as like unto one of the gods of Egypt, or perhaps as like the greatest of all Pharaohs in terms of spiritual power. Certainly their expression of idolatrous worship narrated later in the account (Ex. 32:1-6). However, we are given a true picture of the way in which God wanted his people to relate to him in Exodus 24:9-11. This is the goal of all his saving actions that we might be with him, in his presence, at peace around his banqueting table.

The altar that was to be built (Ex. 20:18-21) was very simple, to be constructed out of natural materials so that Israel might understand they contributed nothing to the worship of God. While the construction of the Tabernacle and all of the accouterments for worship therein was a matter of great skill, this, too, was not of human derivation (Ex. 31:1-10 cf. 35:30-35). The very giving of all these materials for the Tabernacle was a movement of the Lord in the hearts of his people (e.g. Ex. 25:1; 35:5, 22, 26, 29; etc.), to the point where there was an over abundance of provision (Ex. 36:5). The subsequent worship in the Tabernacle was also entirely a gift of God. He described what was to be done, by whom, and how, and even the sacrificial animals and other offerings were from his bounty (cf. Gen. 22:8). This meant that Israel's idolatry was their theft of those things which belonged to God-and which he had bestowed on Israel as a sacred marriage gift-by reason of their being used in the worship of other ‘gods' (e.g. Ezk. 16:17ff.). The prohibition of steps to the altar (Ex. 20:28) was so that there would be no immodesty in the worship, not only for holy decorum, but also because the worship of pagan entities (not least among the Canaanites) was marked by sexual licentiousness and nakedness. It is almost certain that the description of their worship of the golden calf in Exodus 32:6 alludes to such orgiastic tendencies inherent within Israel already.

The actual covenant affirmation ceremony (Ex. 24:1-8) is prefaced by the recitation of the Lord's words and his will. There is a double affirmation (Ex. 24:3, 7) preceding and following the act of sacrifice, and the solemn sprinkling of blood (Ex. 24:8). This double affirmation is the formal ratification of their earlier utterance of loyalty (Ex. 19:8). The blood was to indicate not only that the altar was holy to the Lord (Ex. 24:6) but that the whole people were under the covenant God had made, and that they were his people. The fact that the blood was sprinkled indicated that they stood under the need for a sacrifice, i.e. a life given to God in place of their own. Despite their affirmations, it becomes clear that they were a stubborn and disobedient people still and that they could never approach God on the basis of their fidelity towards him. They needed to be covered by the Lord's own gracious provision, for their covenant loyalty was more imagined than real. Eventually, God would provide his own covenant partner: a Son who would not deal falsely. There are two offering types mentioned: a whole burnt offering (which was an atoning offering for sin and guilt in Leviticus) and peace offering (which rejoiced in the reconciliation between God and the covenant community). Jesus is both to us: the one through whom atonement is made and peace declared.

The covenant affirmation ceremony has as its constituent climax a special meeting to feast with God. The Lord brought Moses and the elders into his nearer presence, there eat and drink with him (Ex. 24:9-11 cf. 18:12). This is redolent of passages such as Psalm 23, where the goal of God is the resting place, which is true fellowship with him, settled in his peace and provided for from his household (cf. Gen. 31:54; Is. 25:6ff.; etc.). In some sense the offerings in the Tabernacle were representative of this ‘table fellowship' with God...that Israel (the people) was really his dwelling place, and that he delighted to bless them (e.g. Deut 12:7). In another sense it was an Old Testament precursor to the father's feast in the return of his prodigal son (Luke 15:22ff.), which in turn is reflected in Jesus' eating and drinking with sinners (Luke 15:1-2). The Lord's Supper is but a foretaste of the great banquet to which our loving and gracious God has invited us, but even now we share in the joy of the Presence as we feast (e.g. Acts 2:46).

In this context Moses is called up higher, to the equivalent of the most holy place, to meet God and to receive the tablets of the Law from his own hand (Ex. 24:12-16). To the eyes of the Israelites it looked like certain destruction (Ex. 24:17), and the fact he was with the Lord a long time gave them grounds to justify their sinful rebellion...perhaps he had been destroyed by this God who seemed so all consuming in his holiness (Ex. 24:18 cf. 32:1)