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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO BRING PEOPLE TO HIMSELFEXODUS 24:1-18INTRODUCTION How do you know that God loves you? If we were sitting down over a cup of coffee and I asked you to tell me how you knew that God loved you specifically, what would you say? I’ve thought a lot about this question and I am certain there is no more important question that you will ever answer in your whole life. How you answer that question will determine everything about you. Your answer will determine your ability to love others, especially those who hurt you. Your answer will determine how you invest your time and resources. Your answer to that question will determine how and for what you pray. It will in large measure determine your emotional condition. It will determine how you respond to suffering and disappointment in your life. Most importantly, how you answer that question reveals whether you are trusting in Jesus Christ or some false caricature of him, whether you are a true Christian or a false one. Exodus 24 contains the answer that God would give if any of us were to ask him, "How do I know that you love me?" It is the climactic chapter in the book of Exodus. It is the point to which the entire story of God’s saving Israel out of Egypt and his giving them the law is aimed. It is both the climax of what precedes and it foreshadows and points ahead to what follows, not only in the life of Israel but ultimately in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This chapter tells us the great end for which God made the universe and sent Christ to save it. It shows us God's love for lost sinners. The short answer to the question is this: we know God loves us because he has done everything to bring us into a permanent relationship with himself. We know he loves us because he gives himself to us. We do not know whether or not God loves us based upon the circumstances of our lives. When you and I only talk about God’s love and goodness when good things happen to us or when we escape bad things from happening to us we are not only thinking wrong but we are living in direct opposition to God. The only way you can know that God loves you is to know that he has entered into a covenant relationship with you, wherein he promises to be with you forever and to bring you to live with him forever. This is the point of Exodus 24. Here God reveals to Israel and to us the reason that he has done all he has done on behalf of Israel and the reason he has done all that he has done for us in Christ. That God's love is seen in his working to secure a permanent relationship with us, not in his giving us a happy, middle class life in America, should not be difficult for us to understand because we experience this in our human relationships all the time. My 7-year-old daughter Jaimee appreciates it when I buy her ice cream or when I make her lunch or when I clean the swimming pool for her. But doing things for her and giving her things are not what she really wants from me. What really communicates love to her is when I go swimming with her, when I eat lunch with her, when I sit and talk with her while we eat our ice cream. It is my presence, my being with her that is the chief evidence of my love for her. I think this is true in all of our relationships. We appreciate it when people do things for us but we know they care for us and love us when they take the time to be with us. That is the point of Exodus 24: God is out to show us that his love is supremely manifested in his working to bring us to live with him forever. His love moves him to accomplish a salvation that ends in his living with us and our living with him in an intimate relationship. MAIN POINT God’s love for his people is manifested in his bringing us to live with him forever, therefore… I. He prepares us for the encounter (vv. 1-8) Chapter 24 begins with God’s “invitation”, which is really a command that Moses, after returning to the people from his receiving of the law, is to return up the mountain to God with his brother Aaron, Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel. They are to return together so that they can worship Yahweh, at a distance, on the mountain and so that Moses can come near to God once again. Notice, just as in chapter 19, the majority of the people cannot approach God at all. Only those whom God chooses and calls are able to approach him and even among those there is only one who has the right to enter into his immediate presence. This three fold division of the people based upon how close each is able to come to God is going to be institutionalized in the next chapters when God tells Moses how to build the tabernacle. There are three spaces in the tabernacle. There is the outer court where all the ceremonially clean men are able to enter. Then there is the Holy Place where only priests, the descendants of Aaron can enter and then there is the Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant rests, where God says that he dwells among Israel and into which only the High Priest and then only once per year can enter. All of this, we are told in the book of Hebrews is a picture of the real temple in heaven. What we are witnessing here is a revelation of how things work in God’s heaven. Drawing near to God is reserved for only those whom he chooses. The “invitation” itself communicates what a privileged status belongs to those who are bid to enter into God’s presence. There is no better invitation than this one. As we will see in a moment, it is a shocking and amazing thing that human beings are brought into the presence of God. The thing to notice is that before these representatives of Israel can enter into God’s presence some things need to take place. First, Moses relates to the people all the words and laws that God has given. In other words, he repeats the 10 Commandments and then all of chapters 21-23. After he finishes relating to the people God’s law, his requirements, the people respond as they did back in Exodus 19, “All that God has said, we will do.” Then Moses writes down all the words he just spoke to the people. He finishes writing and early the next morning he gets up and he builds an altar and sets up twelve stone pillars around the altar to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. He then has a number of young, Israelite men help him slaughter an unknown number of livestock to be used as burnt offerings. As I explained a couple of weeks ago, in a burnt offering, the entire animal is placed on the fire that is on the altar and the whole thing is burned to ashes. The point is that God burns up the animal instead of burning up those who offer the animal. He pours out the fire of his wrath that is due to the sinful human on the animal. After the burnt offerings, then an unknown number of young bulls are slaughtered and cooked as fellowship offerings. These animals are butchered and grilled and then eaten by those who offer them as a symbol of their fellowship with God and with one another as the people of God who are made holy by the sacrifices. Now notice that in addition to what he did with the bodies of the animals, he also, when slaughtering the animals drained half of their blood into bowls and the other half he threw against the sides of the altar. Then he takes the Book of the Covenant, which he had just written and reads it to the people. Imagine the scene, all the people of Israel, sitting around in family groups having just finished a meal of grilled steaks, listen as Moses reads again the law God gave, which Moses wrote down. The people again, for the third time, declare that all that the Lord commands they will do. After this profession of faith, he takes the remaining half of the blood and throws it on all the people. The people are all sprinkled with the blood of the lambs and bulls that have been slain in their place. As he sprinkles the blood on the people he tells them that this is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with them in accordance with all these words. Why does he do this? What is the point of putting the blood on the altar and on the people? First, by calling it the blood of the covenant Moses is saying that this blood seals and guarantees the covenant. The death of these animals is what secures all of God’s promises and cleanses them of all their sins. It is the death of the animals that is the assurance that God will fulfill his word and that the conditions of the covenant will be fulfilled. To use the language of the NT, the blood of the innocent lamb both propitiates or satisfies God’s wrath against guilty sinners, thus the blood on the altar, and it cleanses the hearts of all God’s people, thus the blood thrown on the people. The death of the lambs changes God’s attitude towards his disobedient people by satisfying his just anger against us and it changes our attitude towards God by assuring us of God's love for us and that we are now acceptable to him through the blood. We are no longer condemned and need no longer fear the judgment of this God who is a consuming fire. It's obvious, isn't it, that this sprinkled animal blood is pointing ahead to the blood of Christ which perfectly accomplishes what this blood can only symbolize. 1 Peter 1:18, “For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life that you inherited from your forefathers but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.” Romans 5:9, “Since we have now been justified by his blood how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!” Hebrews 10:20-21, “And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience…” At the very moment the people are declaring their willingness and their ability to obey God’s commands God is, through the sacrifices and the blood, demonstrating that they are not going to obtain the promises of the covenant by their obedience but by the obedience and willing death of another on their behalf. This picture of the confessing congregation covered in blood shows that God’s people are not those who obey his law because no one obeys his law as will be seen in just a few chapters, but God’s people are those who have the blood of the sacrifice sprinkled on them. We are not guilty not because we are not guilty but because God accepts the perfect obedience and the willing death of the Lamb of God in our place. It is only by this blood shed for us that we are able and willing to come near to God. All who attempt to come near apart from this blood thrown against the altar and this blood sprinkled will be burned up in the fire of God’s just wrath. God’s love for his people is manifested in his bringing us to live with him forever, therefore…
II. He promises a grand feast and provides tastes to entice us (vv. 9-11) After being cleansed by the blood, Moses, Aaron, Nadab & Abihu along with the seventy elders go part way up the mountain. Then we read one of the most shocking verses in the Bible. We are told they all saw the God of Israel. That title, “the God of Israel,” reminds us of the book of Genesis and the first 23 chapters of Exodus. This is referring to the God who made the heavens and the earth, who destroyed the world by flood, who chose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who brought Israel out of Egypt to Mt. Sinai and who has now pledged himself to them exclusively, out of all the nations on the earth, by making a covenant with them and sealing it with the blood of the sacrificial animals. It is this God whom the 74 men see. The reason I said this is a shocking verse is because in just a few chapters, when Moses tells God he wants to see him, God tells him that while he will cause all of his goodness to pass in front of Moses, yet, “you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live… you may see my back, but my face must not be seen.” Based on these statements the NT declares that no has ever or ever will see God. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God but God the one and only, who is at the Father’s side, he has revealed him.” In 1 Timothy 6:15-16, the apostle Paul describes God in this way, “God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.” If no one has ever seen God then how can v. 10 say that they saw God? The answer is actually in what follows. You will notice that though it says they saw God, there is no description of God but only what God is standing on. In addition, what God is standing on is not actually described but only what it looks like. It is like pavement made of bricks of sapphire, like the purity of the sky. That word "like" is used all over the place when people are given visions of the greatness of the glory of God to let us know that the people are not actually seeing God as he is but the manifest glory of God. There is another clue pointing to the fact that they didn’t actually see God in his actual being. In v. 11 the word translated “saw” is different from the word used in v. 10. It is the word that forms the root for the word “vision”, as when Ezekiel saw a vision of God’s glory or Isaiah saw a vision of God seated on his throne in heaven or the apostle John saw a vision of the glorified Christ in the book of Revelation. In other words, what we are being told is that these men saw God in the only way that humans can see God now and that is in a vision of the likeness of the glory of God, not God himself. Whenever these visions of God are recorded in the Scriptures the “likenesses” all symbolize something that is true. In this case God is standing on something that is blue and pure as the sky. The symbol is quite obvious. The Lord stands over the whole earth, as its sovereign king. He is standing on the sky that surrounds the earth. To say it another way, the “earth is his footstool.” His feet are resting on the blue sky, which encompasses the whole earth. He is outside of, superior to and sovereign over all of creation. This is the God of Israel. The next thing to see in v. 11 is how surprising it is that they have this vision and are not destroyed by God. What the Bible repeatedly communicates from one end to the other is that the most astonishing fact in the universe is that God does not wipe out the entire human race immediately. It is not surprising that God does not stop the conflict in the Middle East. The genocide in Sudan is not surprising. What is surprising is that most nations live in peace most of the time. What is ultimately astonishing is the high and holy God not only permits but commands sinful human beings to enter his presence. God is infinitely high above us and unapproachable. He is a consuming fire. No man can look at God and live. The popular idea that is current in our culture that God is just tickled when people want to know him and willing to let anyone who comes knocking on his door into his house is not only utter nonsense but the height of arrogance. Which one of you would like to try and saunter up to the front door of the White House and knock on the door expecting George and Laura to invite you in to have dinner with them? If I told you I was going to do that you would treat me as if I were either completely crazy or the most arrogant and foolish man you’d ever met. If I attempted to do this I would be quickly whisked away by security and thrown in jail. I would never see the President's face. The only people who get to come to dinner with George and Laura are those whom they choose to invite and who are prepared to enter by going through a very thorough security clearance. If it is so unlikely that a mere human President would welcome you into his home for dinner, what makes you think that the God of the universe, against whom you have sinned would be so happy to have you over for dinner? The story gets even more shocking. Not only do these 74 men see God, not only are they not destroyed when they see God but they actually sit down and share a meal with God. The point isn't that God actually eats but that these men enter into the most intimate setting with God: they share a meal together. We don't share meals with strangers or enemies. We only share meals with family and friends or those with whom we hope to become friends. This meal is a meal that celebrates the covenant that God has made and sealed by blood with the people of Israel. It is a meal that signifies the friendship that the covenant establishes between God and Israel who used to be enemies but are now reconciled to one another by the gracious provision of God. Have you ever noticed that when world leaders get together for meetings that they always share a meal together to celebrate the meeting? This is especially the case when treaties are signed or agreements reached over knotty international problems. This meal that these men share with God is just that, a banquet to celebrate the peace that God has made with Israel. This meal celebrating the reconciliation of God with his people is repeatedly used throughout the OT to illustrate both God's present relationship with his people but even more so, the ultimate, eternal relationship between God and his people in the new heavens and the new earth. Psalm 23:4, one of the most popular chapters in the Bible, contains this line: "You set a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows." The present experience of God's people is that even though we live in the midst of a hostile world yet we daily share a meal with our sovereign king. We are secure because we eat at the king's table. Then later in Isaiah 25 God says, "On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest of wines." In the NT this banquet as the symbol of God's eternal fellowship with his people is used on a number of occasions. In Matthew 8, after the Gentile (non-Jewish) centurion exhibits great faith in him, Jesus says, "…many will come from the east and from the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom (the Jewish nation) will be thrown outside, into the darkness…" What Israel was to learn from this brief, one time meal on the mountain was that God's aim always was to bring all of his people to himself to share in an eternal banquet celebrating the peace he has made through a covenant sealed with blood. I want you to see the ultimate fulfillment of this covenant meal in Luke 22. On the night before he was betrayed, Jesus shared the Passover meal with his 12 disciples. Look at how Jesus describes this experience in Luke 22:14-16, "When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, 'I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." In other words, Jesus says that the Passover meal celebrating the blood bought salvation of Israel is a prototype of the eternal banquet in heaven. Then Jesus, as the true Passover Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, transforms this meal into our Communion which celebrates what the Passover was only a dim shadow. The sharing of the cup and the bread by the church is a celebration which both remembers what Christ did for us in establishing peace with God and looks forward to the ultimate end for which this peace was made, eternal fellowship with God. So communion is a sharing in a fellowship meal, celebrating the covenant God has made with us and sealed with the blood of Christ in anticipation of that awesome and glad feast we will all join in when Christ returns. Christ commands us to celebrate communion as an actual, physical, though symbolic participation in that eternal banquet with him and all God's people. Celebrating communion with God's people on a regular basis is a necessary part of living the Christian life. It is not optional. In communion we remember what God has done to establish a covenant of peace with us and we anticipate the reason he made the covenant, eternal fellowship with him. In the communion meal we celebrate the only way a sinner can know that God loves him or her: he has killed his son, sprinkling his blood on us in order that we might safely live with him forever. In communion we get a taste of the joy and security of that eternal banquet that is coming. God’s love for his people is manifested in his bringing us to live with him forever, therefore…
III. He provides the perfect mediator who prepares the place of God’s presence for us (vv. 12-18) The final scene begins after the men finish the meal. God then tells Moses to come all the way to the top of the mountain in order to receive from the hand of God the two stone tablets with God's commands and laws written on them by the finger of God himself. So, after telling the 73 leaders that Aaron and Hur were in charge until he returned, thus indicating that he expected to be gone for some time, he and his assistant Joshua go further up the mountain. As Moses waits on the side of the mountain, the cloud of the Lord's glory comes down on top of the mountain. After six days of waiting the Lord speaks to Moses on the seventh day and commands him to come all the way up. The people of Israel who remain encamped around the foot of the mountain observe that in the cloud is a fire which devours, or a "consuming fire." So Moses, presumably after leaving Joshua somewhere on the side of the mountain goes up into the cloud for forty days and forty nights. We know from what follows that God not only gave to him the 10 Commandments written on stone tablets but also instructions for building a tabernacle where God would dwell among his people and would be worshipped and served by the Levitical priests through daily and periodic animal sacrifices. At the end of the story we have reemphasized the fact that Moses is completely unique and set apart from all other men. He is the only one who is able to come into the actual presence of this God who is a consuming fire and to return with his word. He alone comes down from the mountain having seen God's glory to communicate God's word to his people. It is this mediatory work of Moses that is so clearly used in the NT as the shadow of the much greater mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ. This entire episode is meant to confirm the authority of Moses as the only one who is able to give the complete revelation of God because he alone has truly seen the glory. Yet, as this text shows and as we will discover in the following chapters, even Moses' vision of God is not complete. He never gets to see the fullness of the glory of God. The reason being is that he is not the ultimate mediator but rather he portrays and writes about the one and only mediator who does not simply see the likeness of the glory of God but who comes right from the Father's side; the one who has not simply come down from a mountain but who has come down from heaven; the one who has looked the Father fully in the face and who shares in the Father's divine nature; the one who is full of grace and truth, who can say that if you've seen him, then you have seen God. Repeatedly Jesus by his actions and his words communicates that all that we observe here Moses doing was meant by God to reveal the glory of the Messiah who was to come down from heaven to make a new covenant sealed by his blood. He comes down from heaven not with God's law written on tables of stone but with the Holy Spirit who writes God's law on the hearts of all who believe in him. He is the only one who can protect us from the consuming fire of God's just wrath as he is the only one who has come from God and by his life, death and resurrection has prepared a place on God's mountain where we can safely live and enjoy fellowship with him forever. My dear friends, the only way that you can know that God loves you is to know that he has accepted the death of Jesus in your place, has sprinkled your heart with the blood of Christ and has called you to come to dwell with him on his holy mountain in order to share in the fellowship meal celebrating the covenant he has made with all his people. The way you know that you are loved by God is if you are trusting in Jesus alone to save you from God's wrath. If you have acknowledged your sin and how right it would be for God to send you to hell forever and have pinned all your hope for a good future on Christ, then you can know that you are loved by God. If you know that you are loved by God, then you cannot be harmed, you have nothing to fear. If you can safely share a meal with this God who is a consuming fire, then you have escaped the worst thing that can happen to you and have gained the best thing that can happen to a sinner. God’s love for his people is manifested in his bringing us to live with him forever, therefore…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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