Friday
Friday
The Blessings of Mount Sinai
Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Exodus 19:5–6
It took the Israelites about three months to reach Mount Sinai for the rendezvous with Yahweh that he had proposed to Moses. Once encamped at the foot of the mountain, they stayed about a year. And here God gave his redeemed people three precious gifts—a renewed covenant, a moral law, and atoning sacrifices.
The renewal of the covenant came first. Again and again during the story of the patriarchs, God had announced himself as the God who had made a covenant with Abraham and renewed it with Isaac and Jacob. And the exodus took place because he had remembered his covenant. But now that the exile was over and the prospect of the Promised Land was before them, it was time to confirm or renew the covenant. So God told Moses to say to Israel, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession” (vv. 4–5).
Secondly, God gave Israel a moral law, obedience to which would be Israel’s side of the covenant. Its essence was the Ten Commandments, elaborated and supplemented by other statutes. These we will be considering next week. Thirdly, God made generous provision for remedying any breaches of his law. This involved the building of the tabernacle, the institution of a sacrificial system, and the appointment of a priesthood to administer it.
The essential significance of these arrangements was a profound paradox. On the one hand, God said, “I will dwell among them” (25:8). But on the other hand, nobody was permitted to penetrate through the veil into the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle except the high priest on the Day of Atonement, taking sacrificial blood with him. So the veil stood for the inaccessibility of God to sinners. This paradoxical combination of access and inaccessibility was done away by Christ, when the veil of the temple was torn down from top to bottom. Now all of us are invited to draw near to God through Christ.
For further reading: Hebrews 10:19–25