Before the LORD met Moses on Mt. Sinai, He dealt with the Jews according to His grace; grace apart from any works, or virtue of the people. Our Lord was as a mother eagle carrying for her young.
Exodus 19:4, “Ye (the Jews) have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself.”
The Lord offered a legal agreement with His people Israel. The Jews in this agreement were required to satisfy God’s righteous requirements. Unlike the Abrahamic covenant, this agreement had conditions attached to it. Let’s take a closer look at it.
Exodus 19:5-6, “Now therefore, IF, ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, they ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”
Note the conjunction, “If.”
The word If signifying the conditional nature of the contract between God, Moses and the Jewish people. “If they would obey God’s voice, if they would keep his covenant.”
Knowing they did not have it within themselves to please God apart from grace, the people in their pride and arrogance said,
Exodus 19:8, “All that the LORD hath spoken we will do.”
Those who believe in spiritual superiority, who are self-righteous, and legalistic, in Moses day, in present, and future; these will continue to walk a wayward path, stumbling upon the Rock.
A stumbling-block is a trap-stick, a stick on which the bait is fastened. When an animal strikes against it, the trap is sprung. It’s a snare: and as a metaphor in N.T., in a moral sense, an offence against God. Christ is said to be the rock of stumbling, for those who believe not.
Salvation by grace alone was/is a radical concept to both Jew, and Gentile. Sinai is a great illustration of the futility of trying to conform to God’s righteous requirements, through and by the personal efforts of man.
How easily we fall into sin?
Exodus 32:1-10, reveals to us that before Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the tablets of stone; the people had already violated 5 of the 10 commandments.
The law was never intended to be a permanent cure for achieving righteousness for the Jews. The N.T. reveals that the ceremonial sacrifices of bulls and goats could only cover sin temporarily, from year to year, but never to take sin away permanently.
Hebrews 10:4, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” The law was intended to be a schoolmaster.
Phillip LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com