Exodus 19 

¹ On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. ² After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. ³ Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ⁴ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. ⁵ Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, ⁶ you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” ⁷ So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak. ⁸ The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. ⁹ The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. ¹⁰ And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes ¹¹ and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. ¹² Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. ¹³ They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.” ¹⁴ After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes. ¹⁵ Then he said to the people, “Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations.” ¹⁶ On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. ¹⁸ Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. ¹⁹ As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. ²⁰ The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up ²¹ and the Lord said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish. ²² Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them.” ²³ Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.’” ²⁴ The Lord replied, “Go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the Lord, or he will break out against them.” ²⁵ So Moses went down to the people and told them.

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel Blood Meridian, the ominous character known only as the Judge expresses his brutal and nihilistic philosophy of life by asking this question: “If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now?”[1] The premise behind the Judge’s question is that man is on his own, that there likely is no God, that, if there is a God, He is a deistic God watching indifferently from a distance, and that we look to the heavens for help in vain.

Of course, such a sentiment flies in the very face of the Christian religion, which holds at its core the conviction that God has indeed come to lost humanity. He has come definitively in Christ Jesus, but He began to reveal Himself before the incarnation of Christ. He did so, for instance, at Sinai through the giving of the law. This was an amazing act of generosity, God’s revelation of Himself. In so doing, God brought us out of darkness into the light of His own truth.

In Exodus 19, the Lord is preparing His children for the giving of the law. In so doing, the Lord offered the answer to the Judge’s question. In point of fact, the Lord God has “interfered in the degeneracy of mankind.” He has given His law and he has given His Son to save us from the law’s condemning sentence.

The giving of the law emanates from the awesome holiness of God, as is evident when we consider our text.

Obedience enables us to receive and enjoy God’s loving desire for union and relationship.

Foundational to the giving of the law is the truth that obedience enables us to receive and enjoy God’s loving desire for union and relationship. Sin disrupts our relationship with God. Obedience allows us to see and enjoy God.

¹ On the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on that very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. ² After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. ³ Then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, “This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ⁴ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. ⁵ Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, ⁶ you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” ⁷ So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak. ⁸ The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.

As the Lord set the stage for His self-revelation at Sinai, He named His stated desire for doing so: “you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This will perhaps sound familiar to you. Peter says something very similar to the Church in 1 Peter 2:9.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Behold the unchanging heart of God! It is the same in the Old Testament as in the New. He desires for His people to live in loving relationship with Him as a treasured possession and kingdom of priests! The IVP Bible Background Commentary offers an interesting insight into this first image.

The phrase “treasured possession” uses a word common in other languages of the ancient Near East to describe accumulated assets, whether through division of spoils or inheritance from estate. That people can be so described is evident in a royal seal from Alalakh, where the king identifies himself as the “treasured possession” of the god Hadad. Likewise in a Ugaritic text the king of Ugarit’s favored status as a vassal is noted by naming him a “treasured possession” of his Hittite overlord.[2]

What the pagan king Alalakh dares to proclaim for himself, the Lord God says of His own people: we are his treasured possession. God does not desire groveling subjects, He desires a restored and exalted people who bare witness to His own glory. That cannot happen without obedience, as His words make clear. To be all that God wants us to be and to see of God all that He desires for us to see of Him, we must be obedient.

The first question in the Westminster Catechism is significant in this regard.

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

That is famously and well said: to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever. But that enjoyment cannot take place within one who is rebelling against the Lord God. There is an inviolable link between our trusting and obeying God and our being able to see, know, and enjoy Him.

Tragically, many do not understand this. For instance, Time magazine columnist Roger Rosenblatt wrote an article entitled “God is Not On My Side. Or Yours.” In this column, he spoke of how he viewed God. He made a rather amazing statement in this regard: “So indefinite is my idea of God that I do not even connect it to morality…”[3]

This is not the God of Sinai. This is not the God of Bethlehem. The God of scripture, the God revealed in the law and the prophets then, definitively and ultimately, in Christ is no vague deity who is disconnected from the lives of His people. Rather, He is the God who is known through the path of trust, faith, and obedience.

God is other, transcendent, and holy…but has drawn near and revealed Himself.

And He is the God who is other, transcendent, and holy, yet inviting, and welcoming. Both of these realities can be seen in God’s instructions concerning His appearance.

⁹ The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said. ¹⁰ And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes ¹¹ and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. ¹² Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. ¹³ They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.”

Eusebius argued that the one who came to Moses in the cloud was not the Father but rather “the One whom we name as the Word of God, the Christ who was seen for the sake of the multitude of Moses and the people in a pillar of cloud, because it was not possible for them to see him like their fathers in human shape.”[4] Eusebius argued that what we see in Exodus 19 is a Christophany, an Old Testament appearance of Christ.

Perhaps. Regardless, the Lord foretells that He will descend in awesome power. He would come, He said, in a cloud on the mountain. Roy Honeycutt’s explanation of the physical dynamics of this divine manifestation is unfortunately unsatisfactory and reductionist.

That the mysterious forces of storm, fire, and earthquake were equated with the presence of God should occasion no surprise. One would expect ancient men to equate the powerful and the mysterious with the divine to a degree seldom approximated in a scientifically oriented age.

            The Lord revealed himself to ancient Israelites in keeping with their own patterns of thought, as, in this instance, the belief that God was present in the storm and fire.

            In viewing ancient media of revelation one would do well to remember that the validity of revelation does not depend upon the media used. Legitimate revelation may come through a succession of physical and psychically conditioned media which are part of the temporary thought processes of a culture, without adversely affecting the validity of the revelation.[5]

Honeycutt appears to be suggesting that the details of this account are possibly just projections of the ancient mindset onto a dynamic they could not otherwise explain. Frankly, this is not how the account reads. It reads as if God indeed came in cloud and fire onto the mountain. As a result of His holy presence, any who came unbidden to the mountain would be executed, but executed in a way that did not involve direct physical contact; they would be stoned or shot with arrows.

Here we see the awesome power of God. The dire consequences of touching the mountain highlight that we are not dealing here with an earthly entity. We are dealing with something other, a power that can be neither comprehended nor contained. We are dealing with the holiness of God. R.C. Sproul has offered the following perceptive insights into the holiness of God.

Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.[6]

Yes! “Holy, holy, holy!” Seeing and honoring the holiness of God is absolutely essential to grasping an accurate picture of who He is. The divine cautions of Exodus 19 make this clear. But note: He is holy, but He still invites us to come. They are not to touch the mountain, but they are to approach it, they are to come to it. They are to come to it because God has come to it.

Our chapter therefore presents us with two realities: the unapproachable holiness and power and otherness of God and the loving, invitation of this holy God for us to come near. God cannot be seized by fallen man, but He can be approached, for He has invited us to come.

It strikes me that if either of these truths are neglected, it leads to a tragic distortion. If God’s transcendence and otherness are stressed without His inviting self-revelation, God remains an unknowable mystery, a deistic deity that cannot be approached or understood. Richard John Neuhaus described this mistaken view.

            The transcendence of God has been excitedly seized upon by the ringmasters of the circus that is theology today…God, they tell us, is so transcendently transcendent, so ineffably ineffable, so utterly utter, that no words, no creeds, no liturgies, no gestures can possibly claim to speak the “truth” about God. (It is a significant sign of our time that so many put truth in quotation marks.)[7]

On the other hand, if the invitation, the “knowability,” and the welcome are stressed to the exclusion of God’s holiness, transcendence, and otherness, we end up with a reduced deity who is unable to inspire awe. The solution to both of these distortions is the picture of God we find in our text: holy and other but self-revealing and inviting. These balancing realities must be held together.

We are privileged to come to God, but we should come reverently and in full awareness of His holiness and awesome power.

This means that we are welcome to come, but we should come reverently and in full awareness of His holiness and awesome power.

¹⁴ After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes. ¹⁵ Then he said to the people, “Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations.” ¹⁶ On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. ¹⁷ Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. ¹⁸ Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. ¹⁹ As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. ²⁰ The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up ²¹ and the Lord said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the Lord and many of them perish. ²² Even the priests, who approach the Lord, must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out against them.” ²³ Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, ‘Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.’” ²⁴ The Lord replied, “Go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the Lord, or he will break out against them.” ²⁵ So Moses went down to the people and told them.

The people were called to approach, but they were called to approach carefully and reverently after careful preparations. They were to wash their clothes and refrain from sexual relations for three days. They were to come to the Lord, but they were to remember that it was the Lord to Whom they were coming.

One wonders if the modern Church has a high enough view of the character and majesty of God to tremble before His glory? Do we even feel any need to prepare ourselves at all? We have such a very casual approach to worship, do we not? We tend to stand around shaking hands and laughing or talking about the ballgame or the latest news or what the person over there chose to wear to church today, only to stop at the appointed time and take our (normally) accustomed pew to start worship. How very different this seems from God’s instructions to His people in Exodus 19! In Exodus 19 they come before His holy mountain, but they come with awe and a keen awareness of God’s power and glory and majesty.

A clear awareness of the sovereign majesty of God makes His invitation for us to come that much more awe inspiring and it should inspire us to come with a sense of awe. In her prayer journal, a young Flannery O’Connor wrote, “It’s a moth who would be king, a stupid slothful thing, a foolish thing, who wants God, who made the earth, to be its Lover. Immediately.”[8]

Indeed, there is something foolish and audacious about wanting to be in a loving relationship with such a power God. Yet, this God, this God of Exodus 19, calls for us to come. Even more astonishing is this: the God of Exodus 19 – the God of quaking mountains, of cloud and fire, of storm, the God of holy power and transcendent awe – this God is the God who humbled Himself to be born of the Virgin Mary, to come among us preaching the Kingdom and offering love and mercy and grace. The God of Exodus 19 is the God Who lays down His life on the cross, Who bares the sins of all mankind, Who pays the price for our rebellion, and Who then rises in victory over sin, death, and hell.

That is, the God who bids us come is the God who has Himself come to us. It is a staggering truth! He has come to us in Jesus because He knows that we will in fact never be able to make ourselves holy enough to come to Him. We can never bathe enough, fast enough, abstain enough, or purify enough to become holy as He is holy. Therefore, out of the storehouses of His own grace and mercy, He who bids us come to His mountain in Exodus 19 comes to us in Jesus so that He might make us worthy through the blood of His Son to draw near. For “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Would you come before a holy God? You can only come to Him through Jesus. Jesus has made a way. Jesus offers the necessary purification through His own shed blood. This God is one and the same.

This is the immutable God of Sinai and Bethlehem, of holy fire and a baby’s cry, of the quaking mountain and the swaddled cloths. Behold our God: awesome in power and tender in mercy, the thundering God of law and the forgiving God of grace.

Our God is one, unchanging and perfect.

Let us come to His holy mountain.

Let us worship His great name.

 

[1] McCarthy, Cormac (2010-08-11). Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West (Vintage International) (p. 141). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p.94.

[3] National Liberty Journal, February 2002, p.23

[4] Joseph T. Lienhard, ed., Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Old Testament, vol.III. Thomas C. Oden, ed. (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001), p.96.

[5] Roy L. Honeycutt, Jr. “Exodus.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Vol.1, Revised (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1969), p.345-346.

[6] R.C. Sproul, Holiness (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1998), p.26.

[7] Thomas C. Oden, Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), p.11.

[8] Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal. (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), p.38-39.