We draw near because Christ our Mediator has gone where we never could, and he has brought us with him.
Within the twenty-five-verse narrative of Exodus 19, Moses makes three of his seven trips up and down Mount Sinai, which might not sound all that enthralling, but the events that lead up to the actual giving of the law in the next chapter make this one of the most important sequences in the entire Bible. Some commentators have even suggested that, in fact, it is the most important chapter. Whatever the case, this passage refuses to be ignored, even as the exultant Decalogue awaits being declared. With all the attention that’s given to the laws that boom forth from the summit of Sinai, it is critical to consider what precedes that moment, as the Lord offers his people an indispensable word about what it looks like to be in a relationship with him.
1. God Acts First
What does it mean to be the people of God? And what makes that an ongoing reality? What is it that maintains their status as God’s people? These are incredibly resonant questions, especially since Israel has already showcased just how flimsy their devotion is on several occasions. Even beyond that, though, these questions reverberate through the heart of the majority of the ecclesiastical schisms in church history. The question of how unholy sinners can belong to and relate to a supremely holy God has long been debated by the likes of Paul, Luther, the prophets, and even Christ himself.
Despite how often the church has misunderstood its identity, longevity, and mission during various epochs, most of those inquiries are resolved, surprisingly so, in a text that serves as a prologue to the law. But this isn’t like those prologues and prefaces you’re inclined to skim or skip on your way to more important pages. Before any command has been etched in stone, before any “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not,” before any requirement has been put upon them, telling them what they must do or how they must act, God tells Moses to tell the rest of Israel all that he has done for them (Exod. 19:2–4).
It’s notable that the Lord’s first words in the covenant confirmation ceremony are words that recap what he has accomplished on his people’s behalf. The only reason Israel belonged to the Lord is because the Lord made them his own. They didn’t earn this relationship, nor did they deserve it. No amount of merit or worth in them prompted God to make them his people. The reason they belonged to God is pure mercy.
Before any requirement has been put upon them, telling them what they must do or how they must act, God tells Moses to tell the rest of Israel all that he has done for them.
That’s it; that’s the reason. They were made his people because of his merciful choice, because of his word of promise (Deut. 7:7–8). God didn’t wait for Israel to find their way to him — he went out of his way to draw them to himself. They didn’t scratch or claw their way out of Egypt — God brought them out. They didn’t steer themselves through the treacherous terrain of the wilderness — God shepherded them all the way. They belonged to him because he brought them to himself, even if they kicked and screamed along the way.
2. Mercy, Then Law
From first to last, Israel’s story is one where God takes the initiative to make them his people and to keep that relationship alive. And, of course, that’s our story as well. If God waited for us to find him, we’d be irreparably lost. But just as the Lord called and brought Israel to himself, so too does God leave the ninety-nine to find the one. This is the good news that announces Jesus has come to us, to rid us of the enemies of sin and death, and to bear us on his shoulders and bring us to himself. All because ours is a God who is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4).
It wasn’t our merit that incited God’s condescension in Christ, especially since we have none to speak of. It was all mercy. “When our Savior appeared,” Paul writes, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy” (Titus 3:4–5). The point is that God’s mercy always comes before God’s law, even here in the foothills of Sinai. This doesn’t mean the law has gone quiet. It still gets the first word in the sinner’s ear, indicting, exposing, and shutting mouths. The law accuses — lex semper accusat — no one cries mercy who hasn’t first been cornered. So while the law gets the first word, mercy does the first work. This is no accidental or circumstantial emphasis; this is the order that allows us to relate to a holy God and stay in relationship with him, apart from which we have nothing.
I am reminded of the scene when the woman who was caught committing an adulterous act is dragged into the plaza, where Jesus was preaching (John 8:1–11). The discoverers of this woman’s infidelity are eager to entrap the Galilean Rabbi, but Jesus is not so easily enmeshed in the affairs of the pious. Despite the woman’s faults, which were glaring, she is relieved and restored by the words of the Savior, who tells her, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). The order is vital. She isn’t told not to sin so that condemnation won’t come for her. Rather, it’s mercy, then law.
Once we start tinkering with the sequence of those words, we end up misconstruing how God relates to us, and we to him. The law accuses — lex semper accusat — and Israel was about to feel that accusatory word deep in their bones. No one mistook the thunder and the lightning for an invitation to start climbing. As J. Alec Motyer aptly reminds us, the law is not a “‘ladder of merit’ by which we try to climb, through grim obedience, into his ‘good books’ — rather, it is a way of life revealed to those who are already by redemption in his good books.”[1] The Ten Commandments weren’t given so God’s people could earn God’s favor, precisely because they already had it.
3. The “If” That Trips Us Up
The law that was revealed on Sinai is the expression of the holiness that characterizes God himself and serves as the thoroughfare by which a nation of former slaves can live as “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). What so often trips us up, though, is that little word if: “Therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession” (Exod. 19:5). If we aren’t careful, or if we aren’t paying attention, that “if” can change the entire tone of this scene.
The temptation is to read what God is saying as a condition, as if he will only make them into a holy nation and a kingdom of priests depending on their fidelity to the law. From a certain point of view, we can read this “if” as if Israel’s “status” as the Lord’s “treasured possession” is dependent upon them and how well they’re able to obey his voice and keep his covenant. In that catastrophic scenario, the “if” twists God’s words over his people into a carrot of covenant relationship that is dangled at the end of the stick of their performance. “You’ll be mine if you do this.”
Their status as God’s people comes from a decision God made about them, as well as a deliverance God won for them, both of which spring from God’s merciful heart.
The problem with that is that the Lord has already said they were his, which means their status as the Lord’s highly valued property wasn’t in jeopardy. And how do I know that? Well, because even after they’ve failed for centuries, God still calls them his treasured possession (Mal. 3:17; cf. Deut. 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps. 135:4; Titus 2:14). Their status as God’s people comes from a decision God made about them, as well as a deliverance God won for them, both of which spring from God’s merciful heart.
Accordingly, the “if” in Exodus 19:5 isn’t about status. What’s at stake is their enjoyment of all the blessings and privileges associated with their identity as God’s people, along with their influence among their neighbors (Exod. 19:5). This, as you might imagine, is supremely important for understanding the purpose of God’s law, which is meant to minister to us by showing us how holy God is, and how unholy we are.
4. Living Like What You Already Are
Although the law discloses to us what holiness looks like, it can never make us holy. This is where the gospel comes in and makes us holy through the gift of grace and the Holy Spirit. However, the ongoing ministry of the law continues to reveal our sin and shows us how to live as God’s people. The motivation to live as his people isn’t to get into a more favorable relationship with God. Rather, it’s to show the world that we belong to him.
The obedience to which God’s people are called isn’t an obedience that can make them any less or any more his people. It’s obedience that evidences to friends and neighbors what was already true of them because of what God did for them. It’s obedience that exhibits their belonging. And as they obeyed and observed God’s words, they not only reflected God’s holiness among the nations, but they also deepened their enjoyment of God himself.
Motyer’s commentary again proves insightful: “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.”[2]
Put differently, none of the law’s threats comes at the risk of forfeiting their status as the beloved of God.
5. A Holy God Among Unholy People
As Moses brings God’s words to the elders and the rest of the people, they respond by affirming a wholehearted embrace of whatever is required of them. Although this is the right response, I’m not sure they understood what they were signing up for, especially since the tone of the scene shifts as the Lord informs Moses that he’s coming to meet them (Exod. 19:10–13). This, of course, wasn’t meant to induce a sense of dread, like Imperial officers overhearing the imminent arrival of Emperor Palpatine. Rather, God meant for his people to understand that he is holy and they aren’t.
The ensuing consecration regimen and the border that’s erected around Mount Sinai aren’t because God wants to keep them at arm’s length. It’s all because he wants to be with them and among them. This is the posture of a holy God who is eager to be in a relationship with very unholy people, and to do that, God demonstrates the gap between them and him — a gap that can’t be crossed by them (Exod. 19:12). And as the day of God’s arrival dawned, God’s people were greeted by one of the most dramatic scenes in all of Scripture (Exod. 19:16–19).
Amid all the smoke and fire and lightning and thunder, the peal of a trumpet pierces the sky, crescendoing as Yahweh himself approaches. This is what it looks like when an infinitely holy God enters an unholy realm. Our fickle, finite minds can barely fathom it, let alone nature contain it. Here comes the Lord, ready to tabernacle with his people.
6. Where You Cannot Go
Moses’s prep work serves as a preview of the forthcoming Tabernacle, the place where God calls his people to worship him, replete with boundary markers identifying where the people are permitted to go and where their priest goes, and a Holy of Holies, where the very presence of God dwells. The foothills of Sinai, therefore, became a site where the function and structure of the Tabernacle was acted out, with the key figure being Moses. Despite all the regulations and prohibitions, only Moses was allowed to venture up. He was the one who went where others could not.
And yet, even after all their preparing, washing, and abstaining, the people of God still weren’t fit for the holiness of God’s presence (Exod. 19:20–25). No one, no matter how hard they try, can make themselves pure. Even our best efforts at cleaning ourselves up fall woefully short of how holy God is. Indeed, the holiness of God is always greater than our thoughts could ever comprehend it to be. Only one man is summoned to stand before the Lord and represent the multitude.
This, of course, makes Moses Israel’s go-between or mediator. And the message is clear: if God’s people want to relate to this God, it will only ever be through a mediator. If we have any hope of relating or belonging to this thrice-holy God, it will only ever be through someone acting as our representative. The good news of Scripture tells us that this is exactly the role Jesus fulfills for us. “There is one God,” Paul says, “and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
7. The One Who Brings You Up
Left to ourselves, left to our own devices or abilities, we’re just like Israel at the base of a terrifying mountain, frantically looking up and knowing we can never go up (Heb. 12:18–21). We can never make it. There’s a line we can’t cross, a gap we can’t close, and a holiness we can’t withstand. And yet, piercing the din of our failure is the good news that we haven’t been summoned to Sinai but to Zion (Heb. 12:22–23). And the difference isn’t that God is any less holy or his righteousness relaxed. The difference is that we have a better Mediator standing in our place.
Even though Moses was able to stand between God and the people, he was never actually able to bring them up. Moses could represent them, but he couldn’t transform them. He could speak for them, but he couldn’t secure their standing for them. The gospel is the announcement that Moses is no longer our mediator. Jesus Christ is (Heb. 12:24). He is the one who comes all the way down into our mess of sin and death, goes up to the cross, and closes the gap that Sinai exposed.
Because of him, and his blood, which speaks a better word over us, we don’t stand afar off. We draw near. We are invited to come close, not because we’re so good or because we have behaved well enough or because of how clean we are or because we have obeyed. We draw near because Christ our Mediator has gone where we never could, and he has brought us with him.
Sinai can show us what it means to be holy, but it can’t make us holy. It can’t secure your standing before the Lord. Your relationship with God doesn’t hang on your ability to climb; it rests on who comes down to bring you to himself. The good news for the church is that the God who thundered on the mountain is the same God who takes on flesh to bring you near to him.
What makes us into God’s people? Mercy alone. And how do we relate to him? What keeps us in a relationship with him? Mercy, in the form of a Mediator who stands for us.
