40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 84 (Exodus 19:7-20:2)

Episode Date: May 30, 2017

Mount Sinai is a freaky place. Darkness, thunder, lightening and threats of death. What are the differences between Sinai and Calvary? Moses brings the words from God to the people. We know them as the 10 commandments but is that the best way to understand them? Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price talk about all this and more in this episode.

welcome to 40 minutes in the old testament i am daniel emery price and i am kicking it with chad bird-alicious here we are here we are bro how's it going it's good it's good it's a it's a good day uh had a good weekend good start to the week so we are doing good down here in texas right our things in arkansas they're good man the weather has turned it's uh it's all warm out now i i think it's i think the cold's done uh and it's just gonna get warmer and warmer from this going on so i like it but right now it's nice man the days are in the 70s sweet sweet yeah i got uh i got facebook friends up in montana and over the weekend they're posting pictures of snow oh man and all i can think of is a divine curse has fallen upon the people of montana i refuse

to live anywhere north of like kansas city yeah i'm i'm definitely a south of the nasa dixon line person yeah maybe sunshine and warm weather yeah you live a little too far south because uh because it's a little too hot there at times yeah we get our three weeks of winter every every year it's a little too hot that's about it i know i lived in other than phoenix for a while it's too hot yeah yeah phoenix is phoenix probably outdoes us well there's no clouds there there's no trees there it's just you and the sun it's like sinai it is it is american sinai i literally when i lived there was it was the first time or first portion of my life and the only portion of my life where part of my morning regimen was like lotioning my body because the sun like sucks all

the moisture out of your body and so as you get ready yeah you just dry up and so you in the morning you're like lubing your body up and you're putting in eye drops i never had to do that before it's just ridiculous it's just when you know it's i think that i think the fact that people live in phoenix and the fact that we built like a huge city there it's just it's sort of like the tower of babel it's like a huge defiance like we could live here and you're like what are you doing why would you do that it doesn't matter how bad this section of creation is we're going to We're just going to be stubborn. Yeah, it's a –

Phoenix is a total testament to man's arrogance. Yes, it is. Geographical theology, right? That's it. That's it. Like, why would you live there? I mean, it's the same in North Dakota. It's just some – you know?

You're just trying – It's a different extreme. You're just trying to prove something. One's hot, one's cold, right? We got this. Oh, man. So where are we at in the Old Testament, in Exodus here? Yeah, yeah. So speaking of the desert, we are in the desert.

We are at the foot of Mount Sinai. That's where we left off last time. We covered about the first eight verses of chapter 19 of Exodus. So we're going to pick up there and talk about the rest of the chapter and maybe we'll see, maybe get into the Ten Commandments. But we're still kind of in the. The introduction to that, because this part is important because it kind of sets the it kind of sets the whole stage, literally, like, you know, you get ready for a play. You got to get everything set up, got to get the stage just right for the main performance. So that's coming in Chapter 20. So this is all all preparations for what's about to happen in Chapter 20. so there it's the third month as we talked about last time since they left since they left egypt and they finally made it to mount sinai and god begins the chapter by talking about

what he did for for israel he brought them out uh they are his chosen nation he talks about how they are a kingdom of priest to him and uh they are the ones who are the bearers of his his covenant and his special treasure among all the peoples of the world. It's a lot of good stuff, a lot of really grace-centered language there at the beginning that accents what God's done for Israel and what he will continue to do for Israel and their special place among all the peoples of the world. So that's the beginning, all about the first eight verses. And then we pick up here in verse 9, and the rest of the chapter talks quite a bit about kind of the external stuff.

There's some words here as well, but there's a lot of external stuff happening here that indicates that, without a doubt, that God is coming down upon Mount Sinai, and he's getting ready to deliver the 10 words. So first of all, we pick up here in verse 9, where God says to Moses that he's going to come in a thick cloud in order that the people may hear when he speaks, when he speaks with Moses, and so that they may believe in Moses forever. Now, this picks up something that we've heard before back at the Red Sea, where it says, I think that was around the end of chapter 14, 15, something like that, where it said that the people believed in the Lord and in Moses. So we've heard this kind of language before, where the people believe not only in Yahweh, but they also believe in his mouthpiece, his chosen servant, Moses. And it's going to become increasingly important because, as we're going to see later in chapter 20, after the Israelites hear God actually speak the Ten Commandments, they're going to beg that speak to them directly, but instead that there's a middleman between them and God. So they're going to ask that God speak to Moses and then Moses relay God's words to the people. So Moses is being, as the story progresses, just like Moses is being brought a little bit more and more to the very center of things where he becomes kind of the mouthpiece of God. What Moses says is what God says.

So God speaks to Moses. He's going to he's going to come in a thick cloud and people are going to hear God speaking and they're going to believe not just in God, but in Moses. So that's kind of the way it starts out. And we'll see more of that as the story goes on. But then with verse 10 and in the verses that follow. We have the setup. Protecting the what you might call the sacred borders around around Mount Sinai. So God says to Moses that he's supposed to go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. And they're supposed to to wash, wash their clothes and get ready for the third day. So there's this there's this three day preparation period that that's about to take place.

So they get to Sinai. But God doesn't immediately come down and speak the Ten Commandments. There's like this time of preparation, both, I guess you could say, externally and internally. Internally in the sense that the people are simply getting ready. They're opening their ears and their hearts to what's about to happen. But externally, things are taking place too. So they're supposed to wash their clothes. and a little bit farther down it says they're supposed to refrain from any kind of sexual contact that's in verse 15 so you got the washing of the clothes the the refraining from sex and

then a third element of this these external preparations is that nobody not even an animal is supposed to go so close to the mountain that they can touch it so there's like this i guess you'd call it a fence an invisible fence if you will that's set up around the mountain no one is supposed to go there except moses and he takes aaron with him so there's you can see that what's taking place here at mount sinai is really what you might call a a foreshadowing of what is going to take place afterward at the tabernacle because as many people have pointed out at this point mount sinai and the surrounding area becomes a a replica of the tabernacle and and later the temple the tabernacle you basically have uh you have three

different areas if you will you've got the holy of holies which is where only you know the ark of the covenant is and only the high priest can go in there once a year so it's the most sacred place the holy of holies and then outside of that you get the holy place and the priests can go in there they daily go in there and they take care of the candles and they offer prayers and once a week they eat the show bread that's in there that kind of stuff so a few more people can go there and then outside of that courts around the the tabernacle where everybody can go all the israelites can go and you can kind of see that here as in the rest of the narrative so the top of mount sinai where only moses can go that's the holy of holies that's where god is in fact it says later that

He's on the top of Mount Sinai. So the top of Mount Sinai becomes the Holy of Holies. And then some of the people later in the story are allowed to go up part of the mountain. That's kind of like the holy place. Else is outside of this area. They're not supposed to go in there and under penalty of death. In fact, it says if if an animal or a person tries to touch the mountain or go up on the mountain. than they're to be stoned or shot through with arrows.

They're not even supposed to be touched. They're supposed to be just executed on the spot. So we see at Mount Sinai then kind of this beginning stage, what we're going to see later with this idea of sacred space, what's often called spheres of holiness, where you have increasing degrees of holiness the closer and closer you get to the Holy of Holies. So Mount Sinai is already showing us what's going to happen later at the tabernacle.

So you can kind of think of the tabernacle then as a perpetuation of Mount Sinai, because everywhere that the tabernacle goes and then later when the temple is built, where the temple is at, that is the ongoing presence of God in the Holy of Holies, just like he was present at Mount Sinai at the beginning of the covenant. covenant uh formulation yeah what you know what what's interesting about sinai is i mean sinai becomes pretty synonymous um with the law you know um in the new in the new testament we see we see the you know paul use uh use sinai and use even moses as a as a as a type of the law right and uh i i think that what you see in all in all of that besides the obviously the correlation of the temple but even the temple in a lot of ways um this is god unmediated right this is this is not uh christ for you it's just god with his law and uh and you can't go there and you can't touch you can't approach him you can't touch it that's how it is without christ there's no there's no

approaching this there's no there's no lay in your hand to this um and i think that you see that like vividly there where you even get too close to this thing and the penalty is death you know and we see over and over again in scripture that that nobody can see god uh no one can stand in his presence this kind of thing um and so i think that within sinai uh you do see this um this sort of this is how it would be always apart from Christ. We'd just all be screwed. Yeah, exactly. And that, if everybody's familiar with the New Testament book of Hebrews

and kind of the overall message of that, that's exactly the main point of Hebrews. It talks about how the way into the holy place, while the tabernacle was still standing the way into the holy place had not yet been disclosed right you still had these barriers you had uh the veil between the holy place the most holy place you had all kinds of restrictions as to who could go where and then the book of hebrews says that because christ has come because god has assumed our humanity and not only that but as our high priest has gone into the holy of holies not with the blood of animals but with his own blood

then he has opened up the way for us because he is god for us so that the way into the most holy place has now not only been been disclosed to us but as hebrews says we can not with fear and trembling but with boldness and confidence we can enter into the most holy place through the blood of through the blood of christ so everything changes everything changes with the coming of god in the flesh and christ is our high priest was restricted in the old testament is now not only opened up but it's like thrown open so that we have access to the place that only the high priest had access to and that only once a year and never without blood but now you know like happens in the gospels the veil is rent in two between the holy place and the most holy place

and the door is thrown open so that through christ we enter into that place that was formerly restricted only to one guy yeah i mean this is why uh for sinners you can uh sinners can just run to calvary but with sinai there is no like come all you weary are you downtrodden and broken and sinful come to sinai yeah no no no that's no yeah it's the exact opposite it's like come near sinai touch it and you're dead yes yeah you're gonna be you're gonna be stoned or you're going to be shot through. Even your goats and your sheep and your cattle. If one of them wanders too close to the mountain, they're dead.

Yeah. I mean, you see here the great contrast. I mean, this is the extremity of the law, and then we see the extremity of the gospel in its opposite. Yeah, and that's really what we're driving at, is that you do then see between Sinai and Calvary like this stark contrast between the law and the gospel where the law does not allow you to...

It's basically saying this, that you cannot lay your hand to the law and survive. Yeah, not as sinners. Yeah, it's deadly. And in that way, it's the total opposite of the gospel, which is which is life-giving you know the contrast could not be clearer or greater than what we see just even i guess you could say uh you know structurally architecturally between the two because what we have in the old testament you have walls you have barriers you have veils you

have threats you have all these various spheres that are open only to certain people the sacrifice takes place out in the open it's not inside some you know secluded chamber it's right outside the gates, a public sacrifice that takes place to which not only like the high priest or the priest or even just the Israelites, but every person, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, lepers and people who are perfectly healthy, everybody is invited to enter into the holy place because of the, the openness of, of grace and the gospel. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. So, uh, what happens next? So, uh, we've got this three day preparation. Everybody's getting ready.

And, uh, verse 16, it says what happened on the third day. And this was, this was one of those, you know, I think we all have, we all have moments, uh, in our, in our lives where things happen. Like you, you know, you'll say, I'll never forget when such and such happened. Well, this would have been a day when the Israelites would never forget what took place next, just because it was so incredible what happened when God comes down on Mount Sinai. This kind of reinforces what we were just talking about, because you don't see like some, oh, I don't know, some outward natural manifestation that communicates like love and grace, but you see the exact opposite. you've got thunder you've got lightning flashes you got this thick cloud you got this loud trumpet sounding so you got all this uh stuff happening in creation when god clothed as it were in all

of this stuff like this is his this is his clothing of creation that he puts on when he descends upon mount simon so you don't see god but around him you hear all the stuff surrounding him and that's god coming down upon the top of mount sinai and as if we didn't need to be told this it says all the people who were in the camp yeah you bet they trembled i mean who wouldn't be this was scary stuff and so you have moses bringing brings the people out of the camp to uh to meet god it says they so they stand there at the foot of mount sinai and i kind of picture them all like there you know like well how close can we get because nobody wants to die right so like keeping keep a little bit of distance there while all this stuff is happening in creation

sinai it's smoking like it's on fire this is the lord descended upon it in fire so you got the whole mountain i it's kind of a uh it's almost the i get the impression it's like a combination of one of these huge thunderstorms where you got lightning flashing and thunder clapping. It's a combination of that and a volcano. If you kind of picture all of those, you picture a volcano where there's this huge thunderstorm around it.

It's like that because you got smoke coming out of the mountain like it's on fire, but you also have thunder and lightning. You got this blast like the blast of a trumpet and the whole mountain is shaking. so i guess you can add an earthquake earthquake in there too so this i mean this is this is going all out here there's nothing in in creation that's not in some way involved involved in what's

happening here the the sound of the trumpet gets louder and louder moses speaks god answers him with thunder it says the lord came down on mount sinai to the top of the mountain and then god calls moses to the top of the mountain this is kind of a funny back and forth here so all this is happening the people at the foot of the mountain god says to moses come up the mountain and so moses goes up and then as soon as he gets up there god says to moses hey go back down and warn the people one more time that they're not supposed to come on the mountain not supposed to try and ascend the mountain to take a look at me and tell the same thing to the priest that everybody is supposed to stay where they are and moses moses tries to get into an argument with

god this is verse 23 he says look look god the people can't come up because you warned us you said set bounds around the mountain and consecrate it but god is adamant he's like nope go down again And tell the priest and the people not to break through to come up here. Bad things happen to them. So Moses has to go back down the mountain. He's getting his exercise that day. He goes back down the mountain to the people. And he relays this warning to them.

So God wants to make sure they know that they are not allowed to break through, to come up the mountain. that only moses and he says he takes aaron with him only they are allowed back to the top of the mountain so that's that's everything that's taking place to lead up to to chapter chapter 20 happens at mount sinai is it's kind of interesting it is uh picked up again a lot later in scriptures uh well at lots of different places but what we're talking about specifically with all these kind of you know, pyrotechnics going on around Mount Sinai is picked up in my favorite, just Hebrews, big, big surprise there. It's the most Old Testament of the New Testament books. But in Hebrews chapter 12, it references all this stuff that's happening at Mount Sinai,

the thunder, the lightning, the trembling, the shaking of the mountain, the shaking of the people all of this and i'm in i'm in hebrews 12 uh 18 and he's the writer to the hebrews is uh is addressing the people and he's going to contrast two mountains and this kind of fits in what we were talking about earlier dan about the difference between law and gospel and here's what he says it's one of my favorite parts of hebrews it says for you have not come you have not come to a mountain that may be touched into a blazing fire into darkness and gloom and whirlwind into the blast of the trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them for they couldn't bear the command if even

a beast touches the mountain it will be stoned and so terrible was the sight that Moses said I am full of fear I mean that's That's quite the Image so that's not the Mountain he says that you've come to That was the mountain that the Israelites came to That was full of

All of this all of these External indications Of A God that you don't want to mess with Because it's the God of the God of the law So he says all of that And then he transitions to talk about the mountain that you've come to. He says, but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, to God, the judge of all, and the spirits of righteous men made perfect.

and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. Like I said, it's one of my favorite passages because this beautiful, beautiful contrast between the two mountains. So you haven't, you Christians, he says, haven't come to a mountain that's going to condemn you, that's going to instill you with fear and with trembling, but instead you've come to a completely different mountain. You've come to Mount Zion, you come to the heavenly jerusalem you come to jesus you come to his sprinkled blood that speaks better than the than the blood of abel so that's the great contrast between the old and the new covenant and the old covenant you came to this place of fear and trembling the place which in

which the law condemned you but now in christ you come to the new covenant you come to mount zion you come to this place where there is forgiveness where there is life and salvation and healing and notice he says you he didn't say you you will come this isn't some kind of future prospect he says you have come you've already arrived so in christ you've already come to mount zion you've already come to the heavenly Jerusalem you've already come to this healing sprinkled what you get in the gospel yeah that's good that's good i feel i feel like people within christianity a lot of times are always trying to get you to go check out that other mountain though like yeah they want you yeah go back to it right they're like hey zion's good

let's go back to mount sinai you know remember like i bet you like let's go let's go uh you what you really got to do is uh you should try to touch it just touch it that's yeah that's what it is always trying always trying to get me to to climb that that thing man like let's get to the top man like there's all these thunderings and lightnings and lava and hurricanes on there let's go yeah yeah well that was the uh that was where the galatians wanted to take a trip right yeah so they they visited mount zion and it was great you know it's kind of like a a getaway and that's vacation you get you get rejuvenated you get started with that good news of zion and and the gospel but then you you hightail it right back to mount sinai you're going right back under the

law the old adam likes to be yeah yeah yeah yeah that's unfortunate this this idea of the gospel of mount zion kind of getting you going empowering you uh to then run back to mount sinai where you know the real christian life happens as you are obedient and as you live this principled life and as you strive for holiness and all of this all of this stuff which is nothing more than a way of saying that the the purpose of the gospel is the law where it's the exact opposite yeah all serves the gospel yeah yeah yeah you you end up making the the law the end of the gospel uh or the or you know the end of christ as if that's that's his ultimate goal is that so you go to zion where you pick up your climbing gear and then you head back and you're like all

let's go yeah yeah as if as if somehow becoming a christian now is going to enable you to climb to the top of mount sinai and and to be to be the person that is going to be uh obedient and and god pleasing on his own yeah it's the it's it's the ongoing uh sad false teaching that inflicts and has afflicted christianity from the beginning this this drive to push people back under the law once more yeah all right so uh that uh that got us to uh to the end of chapter 19 all right here we go there we go a few minutes left right it's gonna get real now yeah we have 10 minutes left yeah we have 10 minutes left okay all right so chapter 20 uh my goodness this is a This is a hugely important section, so there's a lot of different ways that we can approach the Ten Commandments part of the day.

We'll pick it up next week. So I think maybe just to start out, maybe talk about some kind of bigger questions related to the commandments, and we'll get to more of the specifics as we go on. A couple of interesting things that I think are worth pointing out when you think about the Ten Commandments is, first of all, that probably most people know this, that there's a lot of different ways of configuring the Ten Commandments. I mean, you've got, for instance, in the Jewish faith, first of all, they don't talk about Ten Commandments. they talk about the 10 words so that, and I should say that to begin with I guess, the Bible interestingly, the Bible never has

the phrase the 10 commandments in Exodus 34 in Deuteronomy 4 and in Deuteronomy 10 I think those are the three places they're referred to as the Aseret Hadavarim, which in Hebrew

is the 10 words uh the 10 sayings the 10 speeches something like that literally the the 10 words so that's and that's what the the jewish faith calls them so they don't think of them as as 10 commandments but as 10 words and one of the reasons they do that is not just because that's the language of scripture but because for the jews the first word is really not a commandment at all so here's how this chapter starts out it says then god spoke all these words saying i am the lord your god who brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of slavery so that's the first two verses

and that's what the jews understand to be the first word what we might call the first the first commandment so for them it's not a command at all instead it's a declaration their god that he is the one who has redeemed them from slavery and has brought them out of the land of Egypt. So it's kind of, it's always been attractive to me, only the sense that before God speaks any word prohibiting or requiring anyone to do something, he first of all identifies himself, I am Yahweh,

Secondly, he doesn't just say, I am Yahweh, but he adds this element of faith to it. He says, I am Yahweh, your God. So he is for them, and they then are connected to him by faith. That's the impact of that your word. So he's God for them, and then by faith they confess that, yes, he is our God. And not only that, but he goes on then to say what he's done for them. so he identifies himself there's that word of faith and then he says this is what i've done i've redeemed you i freed you from slavery in egypt so that's the first word for for the jews

and then they have the other the other nine commandments or in their tradition they would say nine words so that's the jewish way the uh for those who who aren't uh either roman catholics or lutherans probably the the way that you learn the commandments is that the first is you shall know over the gods and the second is not to make graven images right right and the other rest of the commandments for uh roman catholics and for and for lutherans we divide it up differently uh we understand uh the first few verses all talking about the first commandment and then we uh our ninth and tenth commandments divide up the coveting between not coveting a neighbor's house commandment 9 and not coveting anything else belonging to the neighbor as as a commandment 10

i am of the opinion so all of that just to say there's lots of different ways to number them yeah i'm of the opinion that any way you cut them up it's weird anyway any way you divide it when you like it's to me i might get in trouble here but uh to me when i when i actually when i actually look at them um i only see nine really because i think i think we rightly combine what what most people in most protestants would divide up into two i think those those are rightly put together but then but then at the back end of that you're like yeah it's weird that this is divided up into so so and i think that it really doesn't matter that much unless um you take the graven images thing and uh and isolate it from worship and then and get into something weird there that then you

can get then you get weird the other the other thing is that i think when when we just decide that these are commandments and uh and one of the reasons why i agree with you and i actually don't like the the term 10 commandments that much it's not because don't hear me it's not because i'm against being commanded to do something or like god requiring or demanding something of me it's not that uh i think that when you say when you when you reduce this down to simply commands you lose um the eschatological promise contained in them so you you take the word shall and decide that it only means that that you are to do this only means must must right as opposed to um where it certainly does mean that like like do this uh but then it also is saying this is

also descriptive of like of of what what we will be like too so and if you just pick one say um thou shall not um covet in one sense it's i must not covet it but as well it's also true is that the day is coming when i shall not covet because of the reality of the first thing that we said because god is my god because because that's true and he has delivered me from the ultimate pharaoh and the ultimate uh you know egyptian army and and you know which is sin death and the devil because that's true because he is my god the day is coming when i shall not fill in the blank uh that will be true of me um and so don't hear me say that it's not it's not uh condemning me at the same time and saying like hey this is what this is what god requires of his creation and man

it is but it's also what he will bring about which is why why 10 words is better yeah it's almost like you could preface each commandment by adding two words and it brings in that uh that eschatological perspective gospel perspective you're talking about so if you add the words in christ at the beginning of each commandment that brings it in right so in christ you shall have no other gods In Christ, you shall not covet. In Christ, you shall not steal. Because in him, his obedience, perfect lifelong obedience to each of these commandments, his keeping of the commandments becomes our keeping of the commandments. So it no longer is something that we must do, but instead it's something that Christ has done for us. and like you said earlier of course the the commandment remains these are things that tell us what we must do and must not do that is the law but from the perspective of the gospel when

you attach in christ to the beginning of these commandments then they become descriptions of who we are not in ourselves but who we are because of what christ has done for us and then reckoned to us by faith. So you've got that double aspect going on with the ten words, as we'll call them. Yeah, I think about when God talks, you know, how stuff happens. That's typically how it goes. When he says, let there be light, there is. And even when he talks to people, so when he says, rise up and walk,

there's there's there's a doing there it sure looks like a guy got up and walked right um but uh but there's a there's a like this is god is causing this to happen through his through his word and so when god says you shall not bear false witness while he is telling me that like this is something i must not do he is also going to make that happen he is going to make me one who does not bear false witness he is going to achieve that like his his word has power i shall i shall not bear what false witness that he's going to bring that about this is also why he's like the author and perfecter of our faith going back to hebrews your favorite book yeah yeah yeah that's perfect so you got to look at him you got to look at the

commandments well lots of different ways but certainly in those two main ways it's not only a Prohibition or requirement But also from the perspective Of their fulfillment In Christ Where like you said It's kind of what in linguistics would be called I think a performative

Like the words perform what they say That's what God does So what he says he makes happen And that's what he has done for us Done for us in Christ That's right and that's it man We're out of time We gotta wrap it up

next week we'll be working our way through these guys and I'm sure that'll be fun. We'll figure out what it is that God is going to deliver to the people of Israel and to us.

So come back next week. Guys, thanks for hanging out. Chad, we'll see you then. Alright man, we'll see you then. Thanks. © transcript Emily Beynon