Sect. 4. — The Promise and Covenant with Abraham renewed with the Israelites.
Sect. 4. — The Promise and Covenant with Abraham renewed with the Israelites.
Ant. And, sir, did the law produce this effect in them?
Evan. Yes indeed, it did; as it will appear if you consider that although, before publishing this covenant, they were exceedingly proud and confident of their own strength to do all that the Lord would have them do. Yet when the Lord came to deal with them as men under the Covenant of Works — in showing himself a terrible judge, sitting on the throne of justice like a mountain burning with fire, summoning them to come before him by the sound of a trumpet (yet not to touch the mountain without a mediator) Heb. 12.19, 20 — they were not able to endure the voice of his words, nor abide what was commanded, so far that Moses himself feared and quaked — and all of them so feared, and shook, and shivered, that their peacock feathers were now pulled down. This terrible show in which God gave his law on Mount Sinai, says Luther, represented the use of the law. There was a singular holiness in the people of Israel who came out of Egypt; they gloried and said, “We are the people of God; we will do all that the Lord commands.” Moreover, Moses sanctified them, and bade them to wash their garments, and purify themselves, and prepare themselves against the third day: there was not one of them who was not full of holiness. The third day, Moses brings the people out of their tents to the mountain, in the sight of the Lord, that they might hear his voice. What followed then? Why, when they beheld the horrible sight of the mountain smoking and burning, the black clouds and lightning flashing up and down in this horrible darkness, and heard the sound of the trumpet blowing long, and growing louder and louder, they were afraid. Standing far off, they did not say to Moses as before, “All that the Lord commands we will do;” but instead, “you talk with us, and we will hear; but do not let God talk with us, lest we die.” So that now they saw they were sinners, and had offended God; and therefore they stood in need of a mediator to negotiate peace, and entreat for reconciliation between God and them. And the Lord highly approved of their words, as you may see in Deu. 5.28, where Moses, repeating what they had said, adds further: “The Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they have well said all that they have spoken,” namely: in desiring a mediator. Therefore, I ask you to notice that they were not commended for saying, “All that the Lord commands we will do.” “So,” says a godly writer, “they were not praised for anything other than desiring a mediator;” Upon this, the Lord promised Christ to them, even as Moses testifies saying, “The Lord your God shall raise up for you a prophet like me, from among you, even of your brethren. You shall hearken to him according to all that you desired from the Lord your God in Horeb, in the day of the assembly when you said, Let me hear the voice of the Lord my God no more, nor see this great fire any more, so that I do not die: and the Lord said to me. They have spoken well, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” And to assure us that Christ was the prophet spoken of here, Jesus himself says to the Jews, John 5.46, “If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me; for he wrote of me.” And the apostle Peter witnesses in Acts 3.22 that this was what he wrote of him; and so does the martyr Stephen in Acts 7.37. Thus you see, when the Lord had humbled them by means of the Covenant of Works made with Adam, and made them sigh for Christ, the promised Seed, he renewed the promise with them, yes, and the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham.
Ant. I beg you, sir, how does it appear that the Lord renewed that covenant with them?
Evan. It plainly appears in this: that by Moses the Lord gave them the Levitical laws, and ordained the tabernacle, the ark, and the mercy-seat, which were all types of Christ. Moreover, Lev. 1.1, “The Lord called to Moses and spoke to him out of the tabernacle,” and commanded him to write the Levitical laws and tabernacle ordinances; telling him also, Exo. 34.27, “that in the tenor of these words, he had made a covenant with him, and with Israel.” So Moses wrote those laws, it says in Exo. 24.4, not in tablets of stone, but in an authentic book, says Ainsworth, called the Book of the Covenant. Moses read this book in the audience of the people, Exo. 24.7, and the people consented to it. Then Moses sent young men of the children of Israel — those who were first-born, and therefore served as priests until the time of the Levites — to offer sacrifices of burnt offerings and peace-offerings to the Lord. He “took the blood and sprinkled it on the people and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you concerning these things.” By this they were taught, by virtue of blood, that this covenant between God and them was confirmed; and that Christ, by his shed blood, would satisfy for their sins. For indeed, the Covenant of Grace existed before the coming of Christ, sealed by his blood in types and figures.