Called to Holiness
Week of April 7, 2013
Bible Verses: Exodus
19:1-6,10-14,16-19.
Lesson Focus: This
lesson can lead you to value holiness in your daily life, and by God’s power
strive to attain it.
God’s People are to Obey Him: Exodus
19:1-6.
[1] On the
third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on
that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. [2]
They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and
they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the
mountain, [3] while Moses went up to God. The LORD called
to him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of
Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:
[4] You yourselves have seen what
I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to
myself. [5] Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my
voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all
peoples, for all the earth is mine;
[6] and you shall be to me a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak
to the people of Israel." [ESV]
[1-6] From 19:1 through to the end of
the book of Exodus, Israel camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, a period covering
the best part of a year. Exodus sets the story of the Sinai period in the
framework of the seven ascents of the mountain by Moses into the presence of
the Lord. The first three ascents are grouped together in chapter 19 and were
preparatory in nature [3-8a, 8b-15, 16-25]. During the first ascent, the Lord
called Israel to be obedient to His word – those whom the Lord has brought to
Himself [4] are obligated to hear and obey [5a], with promises of blessing to
follow [5b-6]. During the second ascent, the Lord made arrangements whereby His
people may receive His word. The obligation to obey is undergirded by the
marvel of revelation, and, as only a holy people can meet with the Lord, there
had to be a time of preparation while they awaited the trumpet of invitation. With
the third ascent, the people, Moses and the priests themselves were made aware
of the awesome intensity and seriousness of the holiness of the Lord and that
this is a God not to be presumed upon or lightly encountered. Israel as an
elect people were brought near to God and directed to obey revealed truth, and
they had to be committed to personal holiness and sensitive to the presence of
the Holy God. Exodus is indeed the book of the presence of the Lord among His
people. This is seen in His coming to share their humiliation in Egypt [3:8]
and in the gracious condescension of His walking with them, bearing with them
and providing for them as they journeyed from Egypt to Sinai. Now, however, we
begin to learn alongside the Israelites that Moses’ initial exclusion from the
presence of the holy Lord [3:5] is a paradigm of the reality that sin excludes
and holiness threatens. The fire in the bush [3:1-3] and the fire on the
tabernacle [40:38] may seem manageable and domesticated, but they are both the
same as the raging inferno of holy fire which descended on Sinai [19:16-18].
The message and
meaning of the first ascent centers around three statements in verses 4-6: What
the Lord has done [4]; What the Lord requires [5a]; and What the Lord promises
[5b-6]. The sequence of these three statements is extremely important for our
understanding of the Old Testament and, indeed, of the whole Bible and of our
place as the covenant people within it. The sequence is the saving acts of the
Lord, our response of obedience and the blessing which obedience brings.
Nothing must ever be allowed to upset this order. Notice, therefore, the past
tenses of verse 4 and the contrasting future tenses of verses 5 and 6. The
Lord’s great act of deliverance and salvation has already been done [4], and
this is why verse 5 can speak of the Lord’s covenant as an existing reality and
something to be kept, that is, preserved and guarded. It was in pursuance of
His covenant promises that the Lord came to His distressed people in Egypt
[2:24] – not to make them His sons but because Israel was already His firstborn
[4:22]. The redemption He achieved for them fulfilled the great covenant
promise that I will take you to be my
people, and I will be your God [6:6-7]. It was not, therefore, that they
were ordered to obey in order that they might enter the covenant, but that,
already being within the covenant, they were called to obey so that they might
enjoy the benefits and privileges of God’s people. What was true of the old
covenant is true of the new, and we enter on exactly the same basis of grace
and continue in exactly the same obedience of faith. (1) What the Lord has
done. The three instances of divine action in verse 4 are a deliberate
summary of Exodus 6-19. The Israelites had seen it all, that is to say, they
knew it at first hand. They had been there when the Lord devastated Egypt, it
had happened before their very eyes. They knew all about the caring,
safeguarding wings of their divine eagle, and now they were in the very company
of their victorious, sufficient Lord. The people had experienced the watchful
and supportive guardianship of one so infinitely stronger and more able than
themselves, and now they found that they had been welcomed into His presence
and accepted into intimacy with Him, not by their own efforts or merits, but
because He brought you to myself.
This initial divine act of what God did in Egypt contains several truths.
First, Yahweh is Lord of all the earth. He is God over Egypt as much as over
Israel. Secondly, His divinity is expressed in sovereign control and direction
of earthly events. Egypt, a superpower of the day, was utterly without power
against the will and visitations of the God of Israel. Thirdly, in Egypt the
Lord implemented His ancestral choice of Israel, He remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob
[2:24]. So, along with sovereignty and victory, we can number election among
the things the Lord did to the Egyptians.
These were all things which the Lord had already achieved. There was nothing
conditional about them. They did not await, nor were they dependent in any way
upon, some particular response on Israel’s part. Irrespective of anything about
them, God acted in such a way that they were liberated by His victory, cared
for and protected by His providence, and brought to Himself. (2) What the
Lord promises. A broad correspondence can be traced between the Lord’s acts
described in verse 4 and what He went on to promise. First, by what He did in
Egypt, He demonstrated that all the
earth is mine. And it was out of all nations that He chose Israel, making
them His treasured possession. The
word for treasured means a ‘personal
treasure’. We must understand it against the background of the absolutist
monarchies of the ancient world, where the king was the theoretical owner of
everything. Within this total ownership, He might gather and put to one side
things that He specially prized and considered to be His own in a unique way.
It was this that was His ‘personal treasure’, His choice, valued treasure.
Secondly, there is the idea of the priestly people, a kingdom of priests. The elect, covenant people are citizens of
the kingdom of the divine King, but within that kingdom, ideally considered,
each citizen is a priest, with the privilege of priestly access to the king’s
presence. Thus it was that the Lord, who in Egypt had implemented His choice of
Israel as His treasured possession
and who came to them as protector and provider during all the miles of their
pilgrimage, now gave them the right to come to Him, to be free in His presence,
to be His priests. Thirdly, how well all this links in with the reality of a holy nation. In one sense Israel is one
nation among the many which make up earth’s peoples, but in another sense
Israel is a holy nation, distinct from the rest, commissioned with sharing and
displaying the divine nature and living in the likeness of God their Savior [2
Peter 1:2-4]. This is the point at which their privileged status (my treasured possession) and free
access (kingdom or priests) becomes
the public testimony of the holiness whereby they show themselves to the world
in all their distinctiveness, and whereby God is glorified in His holy people. (3)
What the Lord requires. We come now to the if which forms the bridge between what the Lord has done and what
He promises, the only if in the
whole sequence. Unilateral divine decision and action had made the Israelites
the Lord’s elect, the objects of His providential care and the people of His
intimate presence. Before them, by promise, He set the enjoyment of those very
things that He had done: to know themselves as His treasure, to have access to
His presence as His priests and to show forth His holy glory to the world. But
this can be so only if they obey … and
keep. The significant if with
which verse 5 opens relates not to covenant status but to covenant enjoyment.
Status comes by the acts of God; enjoyment by the responsive commitment of
obedience. Obedience is not our part in a two-sided bargain, but our grateful
response to what the Lord has unilaterally decided and done. There are two
aspects to this response of obedience. First, covenant people are required to obey my voice. Our God is a speaking
God who communicates His word to us; we are to be characterized by obedience to
what He says. The hallmark of the genuineness of the people of God is that they
possess, listen to and obey the word of God. Secondly, covenant people are
called to keep my covenant. As yet
the Israelites did not know what this would involve, but they would soon learn
that there were particular stipulations or requirements for living within the
covenant. The main dimensions of covenant living were marked out by the voice
of the Lord Himself declaring His ten commandments [20:1-17] and the detailed
applications revealed through Moses [20:22-23:19]. This all amounted to a
distinctive personal, social and national life – the lifestyle of the covenant
people.
God’s People must prepare to
Meet Him: Exodus 19:10-14.
[10]
the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today
and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments
[11] and be ready for the third
day. For on the third day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight
of all the people. [12] And you shall set limits for the people all
around, saying, 'Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of
it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. [13]
No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast
or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall
come up to the mountain." [14] So Moses went down from the mountain to the
people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. [ESV]
[10-14] The people’s impulsive response
in verse 8 was totally correct – even if uninformed (they did not yet know what
the Lord would say) and unaware of their own inability to sustain a life of
obedience. But what else do we want to do when we recollect the divine mercies
but to pledge total loyalty, to allow gratitude to overflow in commitment and
to vow that life will be different and pleasing to God our Savior from now on?
But how is an impulse to become a way of life? It is necessary that God should
speak and make His will known. The people had pledged obedience, and the Lord
now proposed to honor their intention by speaking to them [9]. By doing this He
leads His people on to the lifestyle in which their impulse to please Him will
work out in their obedience to the word He speaks. The Lord transforms impulse
into obedience by His spoken word. The connection between the life of obedience
and the word God speaks is inseparable, for the Word of God transforms our best
intentions into actual conduct. Holiness is obedience to revealed truth. By
moving directly from the word which God speaks [9] to the holiness which God
requires if we are to meet with Him [10], Exodus reflects the way biblical
thinking works. The Word of God is designed to be life-changing and, as the
Bible teaches us, nothing is truly known until it permeates from the mind to
the heart and will: understood in thought, loved in heart and obeyed in will.
We are told nothing of the spiritual exercises the people engaged in during
their three days of preparation. Wash
their garments is to be understood in the sense of having clean clothes
ready to wear on the third day. Frequently in the Bible, clothes are used as
symbols of the nature and intentions of the wearer. By the third day the people
were ready to present themselves as purified in heart and purposing holiness,
and their fresh clothes symbolized this. The intervening days did, however,
impose a discipline which required the people to keep the idea of holiness in
the forefront of their minds. Living as they were at the foot of the mountain,
the people must have constantly been aware of God’s holiness, but they also had
to accept their own position as unworthy to approach Him and acknowledge the
peril with which holiness threatened the unworthy. They also had to accept the
discipline of submissive waiting and not venture onto the mountain until the
trumpet called. All this could be called ‘holiness in the mind’, the keeping of
all that the holiness of God means constantly in mind and memory, day and
night, and living thoughtfully in the light of that holiness.
God’s People experience God’s
Presence: Exodus 19:16-19.
[16] On the morning
of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the
mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp
trembled. [17] Then Moses brought the people out of the camp
to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. [18]
Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on
it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole
mountain trembled greatly. [19] And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder
and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. [ESV]
[16-19] The morning of the
third day dawned with thunder and lightning as well as a thick cloud over the
mountain by which God manifested Himself rather than a cloud that hid Him, and
a very loud trumpet sound. This was a storm theophany where God manifested
Himself to His people in the form of a storm. The fact that everyone in the
camp trembled reflects not merely the combination of impressive sights and
sounds, but the realization of God’s impending presence and the dangers
associated with it. The trip from the Israelite encampment near the mountain to
the foot of the mountain itself may have taken some hours, as the thousands of
Israelites moved in organized fashion behind Moses. It is not clear whether
they ringed the entire mountain or merely gathered around the base of one side,
though the latter seems more probable. They were likely organized by tribes and
families, but otherwise may have been grouped in a large mass in preparation
for watching Moses ascend the mountain and so that they might hear his words
all together as a group when he was speaking to them directly in the process of
relaying messages between them and God. Gathering together in one large body at
the foot of the mountain may also have made it easier to keep the rule about
not breaching the boundaries, since everyone was able to watch everyone else
under such conditions, as opposed to having the people scattered around the
entire base of the mountain where isolated groups or individuals might have
been tempted in the absence of oversight to go partway up the slope for shade,
a better view, or the like. When the Israelites looked up the mountain, they
saw virtually the whole engulfed in smoke rather than simply seeing smoke
surrounding the pinnacle. The smoke also billowed upward as would be the case
when smoke came out of the chimney of a furnace, so the Israelites saw smoke
surrounding the mountain as well as heading skyward from the top. God descended
to the top of the mountain in the form of fire. The entire mountain quaked
greatly, something all the Israelites would have felt and presumably have been
terrified by. This is a relatively typical part of the storm theophany as it
takes place. Descriptions of other storm theophanies not uncommonly include
earthquakes as well [see Judges 5:4-5; 2 Sam. 22:8; 1 Kings 19:11; Psalm 18:7;
68:8; 77:18]. All this was accompanied by the sound of the trumpet, apparently
concomitant with the conversation of Moses and Yahweh. The Israelites saw all
of this happening at once. They also could hear and see that God was speaking
to Moses and vice versa. The days of preparation were over, the trumpet had sounded,
and the Lord was doing what He had promised, conversing with Moses in the
hearing of Israel, and in this way establishing authorized lines of
communication and revelation.
Questions for
Discussion:
1. What are the three
statements that verses 4-6 center on? What is the importance of these three
statements concerning our covenant relationship to God?
2. What three things did
Yahweh do for Israel in verse 4? What truths can we learn from this verse?
3. As a result of His
actions in verse 4, what does God promise and require in verses 5-6?
4. What is the purpose of
the commands to the people in verses 10-14 and all the imagery in verses 16-19?
What picture of God do we get from these verses?
References:
Exodus, John Mackay, Mentor.
The Message of Exodus, J.A. Motyer, Inter Varsity.
Exodus, Douglas K. Stuart, NAC, B&H Publishing.
Exodus, Philip Ryken, Crossway.