I have already looked at Horeb, “the Mount of God,” as the witness of grace and glory, or of redemption and the kingdom, being the spot where the Lord of Israel first showed himself in the burning bush, the symbol of grace or salvation, and aft err wards displayed glories and joys of the kingdom in the intercourses of Jethro and the ransomed tribes of Israel.
But, though all this has passed, the congregation are still in the same place; and the place, as we shall now see, is still giving us to read its title to be called “the Mount of God.’
In the opening of our present chapters, we reach the third month since the Exodus. A new era is thus noticed by the Spirit, and, accordingly, new scenes and new thoughts will be found to unfold themselves. The heart of the people is here called into exercise. Moses, the mediator, passes and repasses between them and the Lord, and all this tests the mind that was in them, and ends in proving the security of the natural man, and his confidence in himself to do all that the Lord shall command. (19.)
But this, their way, was their folly. They had been brought out of Egypt by him who dwelt in the bush, “the God of grace,” the God of Abraham; Isaac, and Jacob; and the same hand had led them through the desert up to the mount where “the God of glory” had, in figure, shown his kingdom and joy to them. But now, as soon as the Lord, having thus shown what he was, turns, as it were, to inquire what they were, and whether they would now trust in themselves rather than in him, the ground of the heart is discovered, man is found to be self-confident and boastful, ready to enter upon terms with God, rather than be simply debtor to him for grace and glory.
Accordingly, this mount, where all so lately was the peace and honor of the kingdom in the presence of Jethro, now, on the departure of that mysterious stranger, becomes the fiery mount. It puts on new attributes altogether. It is preparing itself to consume the sinner, a mount of blackness, and darkness, and tempest, where the voice of God is heard in righteousness, where the ten words, or the covenant of the law of works, putting man to the trial which he had too confidently submitted to, are now to be published.
But what will such trial end in? It must leave all their comeliness as rottenness. The burning mount of the law here gives them at once to know the terribleness of that righteousness which they had challenged, and they can but cry out in the fear of it. (20.)
This however, so far, was as it should be. This cry of fear was the proper, seasonable fruit of the ground on which Israel now stood, as the Lord himself afterward says. (Deuteronomy 5. 18.) And according to this fear they stand afar off. But the mediator draws near to the thick darkness where God was, and there, as between the Lord of Israel and his people, he receives the statutes of the kingdom which were to make Israel the Lord’s nation,—a separated people, who were to have the Lord for their God and King, bearing his image and superscription upon them; and he is promised also an angel to go before him, presiding, as it were, over this covenant of the nation, in whom the name of the Lord of Israel was to be; so that if they obeyed him they should be blest, but if they refused he would not pardon their transgressions. (21.-23.)
The mediator having thus received the book of the statutes of the realm, and the promise of the angel of the covenant, the covenant itself is solemnly sealed. It is dedicated with blood. (Hebrews 9:18,19.) The altar and the twelve pillars are raised, and the altar is sprinkled. Then the book of the covenant is read; and, on the people undertaking obedience; they are sprinkled likewise. Thus, Jehovah and Israel are joined in the conditional covenant, the blessing of which rested on their allegiance, and the representatives of the nation are called up to eat and drink in the presence of the God of Israel; for all as yet is reconciliation, the blood of the covenant being upon them, and no trespass as yet committed: It was the sight of “the God of Israel” they now get. They may look unhurt, and unalarmed. There is no danger of gazing here, as there had been when the law of the ten words was delivered. (19: 21.) It may last but for a short moment, but this is a sample of that day when the God of Jeshurun shall be known as riding on the heavens for Israel’s help, and in his excellency on the sky (Deuteronomy 33.); when the king shall be seen in his beauty, when Zion shall be a quiet habitation, a city of solemnities, and the glorious Lord shall be there, lawgiver, judge, and king. (Isaiah 33) The glory did not make them afraid; the hand of such an one was not heavy upon them. There he was in all his honor, but they could eat and drink before him. (24.)
Thus, the covenant in which the nation was now to stand is settled, the parties to it bound, and the whole avouched and concluded. Moses is then called to take up another position. And this is done with due solemnity also. His minister Joshua accompanies him a certain stage, but he goes upward to the mount where the Lord was. The glory was still promising to the people, on the one hand, he would, on the other, punish the transgressions of the people against God. Accordingly, we see him afterward appearing at Bochim, there to avenge upon them the quarrel of this covenant. (Judges 2:1.) there, as devouring fire in the eyes of the children of Israel, but the cloud covers it for six days. Then on the seventh (expressive, it may be, of the rest into which Moses was now about to be conducted, beyond all the terror of the fiery mount), the voice of the Lord out of the cloud calls him, and Moses goes up into the midst of it, and gets him into the mount. Hither he had been either on a level with the people, while the ten commandments, the moral law, was delivered, or a little separated from them as the mediator of the nation, while the statutes of the realm were published. But now he enters into further intimacies with the Lord. He is called to the top of the hill, beyond the region of darkness and thunder altogether. The heads of the nation are left in the camp, —the vision of the God of Israel is folded up, and he is called to the very midst of the cloud, where the Lord was dwelling and shining.
But he is not long there before we learn the secrets of that holy place, and how it was that he got there, and in what that virtue lay that could enable him to pass, as it were, all the devouring fire unharmed. He is there in company with Christ. That is the secret. The shadows of good things to come there pass before him, and one by one tell out this glorious truth—that God can be a just God, and yet a Savior,—that he can conduct a sinner safely up the fiery mount, without the smell of it passing on him. For Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believeth. God’s claims in righteousness are all answered in the Person and obedience of Jesus. The brazen altar, with all that intervened from that to the mercy seat itself in the holiest, is shown here to Moses. All pass in review before him. And the minister of the sanctuary, in his mystic garments, is shown to him also. And thus he learns Christ in his fullness; and learning that, he learned how he could stand in such peaceful communion with God beyond the summit of the fiery mount. He saw in him that mercy could rejoice against judgment; that provision was made in him and by him for the discharge of sin, for the magnifying of the law, for the acceptance of the sinner, and for the letting out the full flow of boundless and unmingled goodness to save and to bless us, (25. 31.)
All this, however, was to Moses only. The people were still within view of the mount as a mount of devouring fire. (24: 17) And they speedily show themselves to be material fit for such fire, vessels fitted to destruction, incurring the vengeance of that holy place; by refusing the very first voice that had issued from it. For instead of having none other gods than the Lord who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, they take a golden calf, which their own hands had made, to be their god. This was entire forfeiture of all blessing under that covenant; and in token of that, Moses, on returning down the hill, breaks the tables of the law to pieces, and never puts them into their hands to keep and to do them. (32.)
This was a great moment for the discovery of what man was. O how differently the path of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ended, the God of grace and salvation; Who dwelt in the bush. He had led them forth in entire safety out of Egypt, the place of the taskmasters; not a dog had wagged its tail against them, not a hoof was left behind, not a feeble person was among their tribes,—all harnessed and full-handed they had gone forth; and he never left them, as we saw just now in our previous paper, never forsook them through the droughty desert, till he had planted them in the joy and glory of “the Mount of God.” But they then trusted in themselves, and took their own way, and all now is closed in disaster and ruin, the very pledges of their covenant, the ground of their confidence, being shattered to pieces. This was sad and shameful indeed. But while we thus mark their sin, we are called to see their repentance also They mourn on hearing the word and anger of the Lord. They put off their ornaments. They go outside the camp, as conscious that the place of convicted sinners or unclean lepers became them. They watch the ways of the mediator, and stand adoring. And may I not add, that they feel unable to stand before the bright light of righteousness, so that Moses has to veil his face. (33. 34.)
All this was repentance, the way of poor convicted, self-condemned sinners. And while they are thus, the Lord is preparing something blessedly suited to them. He makes known to them his secret. Moses delivers the patterns of heavenly things to them. And all that they have to do for their full Comfort, is to follow by faith: this unfolding of God’s counsels concerning them. They have only to do according to the patterns, and they shall soon read their title to unmixed blessing. Just like Noah. He had only to build an ark according to God’s command, and he should soon find that he was building something for his own safety. Obedience was his blessing. And so here. They have but to render the obedience ‘of faith, by just giving forms and substances to the patterns as Moses commands, and then they will see in the sanctuary a refuge and relief for guilty sinners destroyed by the thunders of Sinai, as they now were.
And so they do, blessedly are they here seen rendering the obedience of faith and of a changed mind. They do all for the tabernacle, as Moses commands, and that too with willing hearts, so that he has to restrain their zeal and devotedness. And with all this willingness there was no willfulness; for they are careful to follow the patterns in all things, that all may be according to God’s purpose, though rendered willingly by them.
All this was further fruit of repentance. I do not know that in any period of their history we see them in a healthier, happier condition of soul than now during their making of the tabernacle. The materials were supplied by the willing offerings of the people, and the silver half-shekels which they had paid as atonement-money. These materials Were then fashioned by workmen divinely skilled, according to patterns divinely exhibited. And when all was finished, they brought it to Moses; and Moses had but to say of it, that it was all good, all according to God, and to bless them. Judgment they—reaped before (32: 28), but now blessing. (39: 43.) Then after all had been ‘finished for the sanctuary in this obedience of faith, the mediator presents the whole in due form to God, compacted, as it were, and fitly framed together; and then the Lord has only to crown and quicken it all with his presence. The cloud rests on it, and the glory enters into, it. (35. 40.)