At the Foot of Sinai

 Exodus 19-20

            First, we have a beautiful declaration of the Lord’s mercy toward Israel. Technically, the word translated ‘eagle’ here is probably some sort of carrion bird—a vulture or a buzzard, not a bald eagle—but the image of a bird soaring effortlessly still holds. For the Lord, all the work of the plagues and crossing the Red Sea and providing food was just…effortless. Then, there is Israel’s election, that they would be the Lord’s treasured possession. He’s not renouncing the other nations; ultimately, their redemption is the goal of Israel’s life. But Israel has a holy, a priestly, purpose. To be a priest is to be a mediator between one’s god and the rest of the people. Israel has that function between the Lord and all humanity.

            Second, there is the theophany, the visible manifestation of an invisible god. The images of cloud, thunder and lightning, a voice like a trumpet, and the shaking of the earth come back in various ways throughout the Scriptures as a way of indicating the presence of Israel’s God. Later, in chapter 20, the people were terrified by the way God chose to show Himself. There’s something important there. When Martin Luther expounded how Christians should regard the 10 Commandments, he began each explanation with reference to fearing God and loving God. Sometimes we contemporary Christians forget the fear part. When I was a child in confirmation class, I remember my teachers telling me it wasn’t really fear, but just respect. Well, I dare you to tell that to the people of Israel! They were afraid! Sinful humans (so all humans, by nature) cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. Even as we are forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we remain sinners in this age of the world. So, yes, we approach the Lord as children of a loving God and are given that access, but we also approach Him in humility as beggars before a glorious king.

            Third, we have what we call the 10 Commandments. Actually, they are the prologue to a covenant, a legal form in the ancient Near East. In this case, it is what we call a suzerain-vassal covenant, and it stipulates the relationship between a superior (the suzerain) and the underling (the vassal). The superior declares what he has done to be superior, as the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Then he declares what he expects in return, usually loyalty and here that loyalty is spelled out in terms both spiritual (no other gods, no graven images, honoring name of Lord, remembering His holy day) and moral (honoring authority, life, marriage, etc.) Eventually in this kind of covenant there are usually specific threats about what will happen should the subordinate party fail their obligations. In the case of the Mosaic covenant, we see those spelled out when the covenant is renewed in Deuteronomy (see Deut. 28-29).

            In order to understand how we are to apply these various laws, I direct you to a sermon I recently preached (the full service is here; the sermon itself begins at 29:15 and runs to 46:49). In short, we are going to have to keep in mind that the Lord made this covenant with Israel for a time, until the Messiah came, and once the Messiah came this covenant lost its force. Much of what follows in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy applies to us only insofar as it 1) agrees with natural law and the New Testament, 2) points us to Jesus, or 3) gives us some kind of example of our own life of faith. We’ll deal with the challenge of application together for several weeks, but hopefully we’ll find that it is not without its rewards!