Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Exodus 19:1-6 | Date: October 30, 2016 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

In response to Pastor Boyd’s admonition, I have four things to say.

A Word of Agreement

Number one, a word of agreement. It is, I think, a very good thing to sing heartily to the Lord in the congregation. I think it’s a wonderful way, particularly for you parents with children with you, to show them your interest in the things of God and to sing heartily to the Lord. I think it’s a particularly bad thing about us if we come to the church with a sluggish heart and can’t sing praises to the Lord heartily. So, a word of agreement.

A Word of Excuse

Also, a word of excuse. A lot of factors go into how I sing what. I mean, on the one hand, I try to sing all the various parts because I like that. I’ll sing melody, I may sing tenor, I may even try to sing some of the alto line. But sometimes I’ll try to sing bass, and I can do that, but I’m not a true bass. When I sing bass, you have to be standing here to hear it. So it’s just not that good. So that’s a good excuse. And sometimes, like today, you might have noticed I’ve been coughing a lot. I got some tickle going on in my throat. And it’s just really hard. It happens, Pastor Boyd. Get over it.

A Pledge

Third, a pledge. I will try to do better.

A Pushback

And fourth, a pushback. And I think it can be summarized best like this: God made both the crow and the canary. And whichever it is you are, sing heartily to the Lord.

Exodus chapter 19. I’m glad there’s not an evening service this evening. All right, we are looking at the Bible presentation of the doctrine of salvation, and first of all, we are looking at it in broad picture. And we have gone through the Bible story to show that it is a story of redemption. We’re working our way back through that to show that this story is carried in the main, or the backbone of the story is these major covenants that God made along the way historically.

We saw the covenant with Noah, where God promised to preserve the world order, that he would not destroy humanity again, that he would preserve it in order to carry out his saving purpose that was expressed at the creation week itself. God’s purpose to bless will stand. And then we saw last time the Abrahamic covenant. God promised to Abraham that in him and in his seed all the families of the world will be blessed. And we trace that finally to the New Testament where the New Testament writers show us that that seed ultimately is Christ. In him all the families of the world will be blessed. And then by faith we are joined to Jesus Christ and by faith in him both Jews and Gentiles become the seed of Abraham in Jesus Christ and are blessed.

Now today we come to the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai. It’s often called the Sinaitic covenant, sometimes called the Mosaic covenant, the covenant made with Israel. Sometimes, as we have in the New Testament, it’s referred to as the Old Covenant. And we’ll see what is significant about that.

First of all, let’s begin our reading with chapter 19, verse 1.

“On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. And they set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, you yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.'”

And Moses then takes this report to the people of Israel. Now chapter 20, we commence with the words of the covenant.

“God spoke all these words saying, ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who’s in your gates, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.'”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this, your word, and we’re grateful for the wonderful story of redemption that we read in it. We ask again that you will be our teacher today, that your spirit would take the word that he himself has inspired. Open our minds and our hearts to receive it, to understand it, to be shaped by it, and most of all, to be directed by it to a firmer faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we ask, amen.

God had promised Abraham that he would, through his seed, bless all the families of the world. We saw that last time. We also saw last time, just rather briefly, that God also promised to Abraham that he would make of him a great nation. And that, as we saw just briefly, was in large part the story of the book of Genesis. God has promised to Abraham that he would give him a seed through whom a great nation would arise, and yet Abraham himself is a very old man, his wife is very old, and still childless. And there are all of these threats to God’s promise that present themselves through the book of Genesis. There’s the old age of Abraham, the old age of Sarah, the barrenness of Sarah, the barrenness of Rebecca, the barrenness of Rachel, the question in chapter 22 if Isaac even will live. Or is he going to be sacrificed? These various threats throughout Genesis raising the question: will God’s promise to Abraham stand?

And by the time we get to the end of the book of Genesis we find that God has indeed kept his promise to Abraham. That his son, Isaac, has had a son, Jacob, who has had 12 sons. And now we have the 12 tribes of Israel, as we call them. They had now made their way through the Joseph story, you remember, down to Egypt where they are safe there. We open then the book of Exodus, and we find that God had blessed the people of Israel, this family of Abraham, and they had indeed, just as God had said, been fruitful, they had multiplied, and they’re growing in number and increasing greatly.

And then we read that ominous statement early in chapter 1 of Exodus, that there arose a king who did not know Joseph. A new dynasty had taken over in Egypt and the connections were not there, and viewing Israel now with all of his numbers as a threat, Israel we find in chapter 1 of Exodus chafing under slavery. We are introduced also in chapter two of Exodus to the early life of Moses, and we’re clued in already that something special is in store with regard to this boy, this young man, Moses, but then he leaves Egypt. But we also read in Exodus chapter 2 verses 24 and 25 that God heard the groanings of Israel and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

And so in chapters three and four of Exodus, we have the call of Moses. And then finally he makes his way to Egypt. And in chapters seven through 12, we have the confrontation of Moses and Aaron against the Pharaoh of Egypt. And we have the 10 plagues, climaxing, of course, in the Passover and the great Exodus from Egypt when the people of Israel are set free. We find them passing then through the Red Sea and the various marches then that accompany that saga in the following chapters as well.

But we have this exodus from Egypt. The crossing of the Red Sea then is the great act of redemption by which God has made Israel his people, and this redeeming Israel out of Egypt—the exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea—becomes something of a paradigm for God and for later prophets to refer to, saying, “This is the redemption that I did for you because I’m committed to you. I’ve committed to you by promise to your father Abraham.” And it is a paradigm then for a future deliverance in bringing them back from the exile. It is a paradigm for even greater deliverance that will come later as well. This is God’s great redemptive act which becomes the pattern of God’s deliverance for his people.

But all of that is in the earliest, or the first section of the book of Exodus. And then we come here to chapter 19, as we’ve read this morning. They are now at Sinai. It is three months later after the Exodus, and God meets with Moses and all the people of Israel at the mountain. Chapter 20, verses 18 and following describe the event—that there was a thick cloud and thunders and lightning. It was an awesome event to be in the presence of God. But God has met with them, and this was the goal of the Exodus: for him to meet with them now at the mountain and constitute them as a people. That’s the significance, I think, of chapter 19 verses 1 through 6 that we read, and also chapter 20 verses 1 and 2 in the prologue to the Ten Commandments. God has brought them to this place now to make them his people and to constitute them as a nation that was promised to Abraham.

And so we come to the Mosaic Covenant or the legislation of Sinai as it’s called, or the law given at Sinai. This was a covenant that God made with Israel through Moses as their intercessor. This covenant that God makes with Israel here is something of their constitution. This is the law of the land. This is what constitutes them as a people. This is the law that God has given them. This is the law that they will live by. And so God gives them regulations regarding virtually every area of life, teaching them, “This is what your obligations are.”

Now we have, you’ve probably heard, some of you heard the terminology of a suzerain-vassal treaty in the Old Testament world. There are several of these that historians have uncovered, and we see that there’s a general pattern that’s being followed here as well, that a leader or ruler would come and take over a people, but he would offer them safety and offer them protection. They would be his people, but then there are their obligations as well. They must pay their taxes, and they must not revolt, and they must be loyal, and all of that kind of thing. And that’s the general kind of framework that we have here with this covenant with Israel. God, now the King, constituting the children of Abraham as his people, constituting them as a nation. Here’s the Constitution, the law by which you will live. And here we know now how you will be marked out as the people of God here on earth.

And so from here on, here is how the people of Israel know how to please God. Here is how they know what to do to serve God in this law that is given at Sinai. This, by the way, is the dominating idea that carries us through Exodus and giving the law regarding the tabernacle and the construction of it. This is what dominates now through Leviticus and giving us the instruction concerning the form of worship of the old covenant people. This is what dominates through Numbers and the wilderness wanderings: will they be faithful to what God has commanded, live up to their terms of the covenant? This is what dominates in Deuteronomy as well when Moses is calling Israel back to faithfulness as they stand on the brink of the promised land. You must be faithful to the covenant that God has given to you.

We find this through the historical books when the prophets would come to the kings and talk to them and deliver a word from God continuously. It is calling them back to faithfulness to this covenant God made at Sinai. If you will have God’s blessing, you must obey and keep the terms of the covenant. We find it through the prophets as well when the writing prophets are calling Israel back to faithfulness to God. It is calling them back to fidelity to this covenant that God enacts with them here at Sinai.

Or if we could back up and look at an even larger perspective, we could back up to Genesis chapters 1 through 3, as we saw a few weeks ago, that God now is reestablishing his kingdom, his rule, on the earth. Man was created to do this. We are to be God’s vice regents, to image God in the world. There was rebellion against that. Man is exiled from the garden. But God now is on the move to reestablish his rule, to reestablish his kingdom on the earth. And here was to be a people of God. He was to be their God. They are to be his people. And the law that God gives them here at Sinai distinguishes them as God’s people and apart from the world. So now we have not only a nation of promise being realized, but we also have the promise of God’s rule being realized as well, the kingdom of God moving in.

All right, so much for the background and how it fits in the Bible storyline. In a one-time look at this, it’s something so big, we have to, of course, deal in broad swaths. Let me give you just a few of the prominent features of the Old Covenant, of the Mosaic Covenant.

Some Prominent Elements Are a General Overview

First of all, of course, there’s the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, which we have read in verses 3 through 17. I came across something recently. Are any of you familiar with the McGuffey Reader? It’s a textbook that was used in school back before most of us. I found in one of them a nice summary of the Decalogue:

“Above all else, love God alone.
Bow down to neither wood nor stone.
God’s name refused to take in vain,
the Sabbath rest with care maintain.
Respect your parents all your days,
hold sacred human life always.
Be loyal to your chosen mate.
Steal nothing, neither small nor great.
Report with truth your neighbor’s deed,
and rid your mind of selfish greed.”

All right, a nice summary of the Ten Commandments. This is the law that God has given to Moses, and this is the law to which the people of Israel are obliged. Now, if you’d like to turn forward in your Bible just a little bit to Exodus 34, you’ll see an interesting statement here regarding the Ten Commandments. Look at Exodus 34, verse 28:

“So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water, and he wrote on the tables the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.”

Notice that equation that he’s making there. The words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. So in some sense, the Decalogue is foundational to the Old Covenant. This is the basic statement, or in a sense, the law covenant summarized. These are the words of the covenant. It’s not by accident that when Moses has the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, you remember what is placed in the Ark of the Covenant? It was the tables of the law. This is the words of the covenant. So these are the foundational demands of the covenant that God makes with Israel, a kind of summary statement of the law.

We might point out as well that the fourth commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” has a particular significance as well. That’s picked up in chapter 31, if you’d like, verses 12 and following, you find a statement that the Sabbath is the sign of the covenant. You might remember in the Noahic covenant, the rainbow was the sign of the covenant, the symbol God has made this promise. With the covenant with Abraham, it’s circumcision as the sign of the covenant or the symbol that symbolizes the covenant, the promise that God made. And now the sign or symbol of the old covenant is the Sabbath. And because of that, it bears a particular importance. And we find that in Exodus 31 as well. Above all, above all else, make sure you keep the Sabbath. It’s the sign of the covenant. And to violate the sign of the covenant is to throw off the covenant altogether.

It would be like, let’s say my wife and I had a big fight. Never happened. But say we had a big fight. And I grabbed my slipper and threw it at her. Or my shoe and threw it at her. What if I took my wedding ring off and threw it at her? Which is worse? Of course that’s worse. There’s a symbolic nature to that, right? And that was the significance of the Sabbath to the Old Covenant. This is the symbol, the sign that we belong to God in covenant relation. And so we keep the Sabbath as Israel. Israel keeps the Sabbath in order to show that they belong to God in covenant relation. So much more to say there, we must move on.

Penalties are assigned to the Ten Commandments. With seven of the ten, it is the death penalty. Particularly with the Sabbath, that is emphasized, the death penalty for each of these. There are three exceptions to that. Command number eight, theft. It is not the death penalty that is given for that, but very conveniently arranged that either two-fold or four-fold would be restored, depending on the circumstances. Number nine, bearing false witness. I think this is a particularly just arrangement as well. If you bear false witness against your neighbor in court and it is discovered, you then will receive the same punishment as the falsely accused would have had himself. And then for the 10th commandment, “you shall not covet,” there is no stated punishment at all, presumably because it is too difficult to judge.

All right, prominent features of the Old Covenant: we have the Decalogue. To treat the Decalogue in five minutes like that or less is just a crime, but we do. The next prominent feature of the Old Covenant is what’s called the Book of the Covenant. The Book of the Covenant—you find this in chapter 20, verse 22, or in my Bible it says “laws about altars”—all the way through chapter 24, verse 7, or to the end of chapter 23, really. Essentially, in the main, it is chapters 21 to 23, what’s called the Book of the Covenant. And what this is, is simply an expansion and more details given to obligations of the people regarding their life together as a nation. What we call civil laws, what we call moral laws, social laws, religious laws. So we have here case studies involving slaves—what to do if this, what to do if that, what to do if the other. Regarding homicide, if it is deliberate premeditated murder, if it is accidental homicide, if there are these circumstances, or if two men strive together and this happens. If this happens, then this. It’s case laws like that regarding property damages, bodily injuries, regarding society, justice, neighborliness. What happens if you dig a pit and your neighbor’s ox falls in and is hurt? What do you do then? What kind of punishment is assigned to that? And so on. The Book of the Covenant, a prominent part of the Old Covenant itself.

And then, of course, a huge aspect of the Old Covenant is laws regarding Israel’s worship. Laws regarding Israel’s worship. And here we have Exodus chapter 24 and following through the rest of the book with the construction of the tabernacle all the way through the book of Leviticus with all of its instruction regarding the holy days, regarding sacrifices, and so on, and the various times of sacrifice, various kinds of sacrifice, for what purpose, and so on. And of course the climax of it all, the highlight of it all, is the annual Day of Atonement, Leviticus chapter 16. This deals then with the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, the holy days, and so on.

The significance of that should be noted, and we’ll return to this in a little bit. The significance of Israel’s sacrificial system and the laws regarding its worship is simply this: how shall a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people? This God is not like all the other so-called gods. He’s holy. And if the people sin, how can a holy God dwell in their midst? How can he be with them, as it is said at one point, without just breaking out in wrath over them and destroying them? How can a holy God dwell in the midst of a sinful people? And the answer that’s given is this order of worship, and particularly the sacrificial system. And sometimes the instructions are very graphic, that the offerer will bring his animal to the priest, to the tabernacle, he’ll lay his hands on him and he’ll confess his sins, and then cut the throat of the animal and offer it up in worship to the Lord, a sacrifice, symbolically transferring the sin to the animal and the animal being sacrificed in place of the offerer. And in this way, a holy God can dwell in the midst of a sinful people. The sin question is dealt with substitutionally. You know that we’ll get back to that.

Another dimension that we can just throw into one big aspect of the Old Covenant, and that is laws directing the daily life of the people of Israel. As I mentioned, this is the constitution that God has given to the people of Israel. This is the law of the land, and it is given to regulate all of the areas of life. And so there’s what we call civil laws, what we call dietary laws, laws of cleanness, and so on. And the idea behind all of that is to preserve Israel as a distinct people among the people of the earth, to preserve Abraham’s seed as a distinct nation before God in order for God then to bring about his promise through them. So this is the law of the land. All right, so much for that, the prominent dimensions of the covenant.

The Character of the Mosaic Covenant

Next, I want to mention just briefly the character of the Old Covenant, the character of the Mosaic Covenant. Go back to chapter 19. Now I want you to think back to what we saw with the Abrahamic Covenant. You remember when God came to Abraham and he said, “I will, I will, I will, I will, I will”? It was a promissory covenant that God says, “I’ll do this for you, I’ll do that for you, I’ll do this, I’ll make you a great nation, I’ll bless the whole world through your seed, I’ll bless him who blesses you, I’ll curse him who curses you.” And God makes these repeated promises, “I will do this, I will do this, I will do this, I will do that.”

And that is precisely the note that is missing when we come to the Mosaic Covenant. Notice verses, chapter 19, we’ll begin with verse 5:

“Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and holy nation.”

“If you will, then I.” And you can trace this kind of language over and over and over and over again throughout the Pentateuch especially. It is a covenant that is in a very real sense conditioned on Israel’s faithfulness to God. “If you will keep this covenant, then I will bless you in every dimension of your existence. I’ll make your crops plentiful. I’ll protect you from your enemies. You’ll dwell in safety. If you, then I.” Which again is the broadly typical character of these suzerain-vassal treaties of that day. And God comes to Israel making them his nation, but laying on them their responsibility to be faithful to him.

The End of the Old Covenant

Now that raises the next point. And that is the end of the Old Covenant, or the obsolescence of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant became obsolete eventually. That’s why in the New Testament it’s called the Old Covenant. It was replaced with a—you could guess it—New Covenant. So let’s talk just briefly about the end of the Old Covenant.

The first hint that this covenant will become obsolete is in Psalm 110. And there God says to the Messiah, “You are my priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” Priesthood. All right, think back. From what tribe do the priests come? From Levi, right? It’s the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical priesthood is a prominent part of the Old Covenant. That the priesthood comes from the tribe of Levi. From what tribe does the Messiah come? Judah. And so God says to the Messiah in Psalm 110, “You are my priest forever.” A priest from the tribe of Judah? How do you do that? Implicit in that is a prophecy that there will come a time when this old covenant will be obsolete. Messiah will be praised after another order, the order of Melchizedek. We’d love to explore that further, but that’s for another time. But that’s our first hint of the eventual obsolescence of the old covenant. Psalm 110.

Well, then sure enough, we find in Jeremiah chapter 31 that the prophet comes along and says, “I’m going to make a new covenant with you. It will not be like the old covenant.” And we’ll see this in the next time that we deal with the covenants. “It won’t be like the old covenant that I made with you at Sinai, which covenant you broke. You didn’t keep the terms. I’m going to make a new covenant with you.” And this, of course, is the covenant that is inaugurated in Christ’s blood. It’s the covenant that we commemorate every time we observe the Lord’s Supper. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

This theme is picked up in the New Testament in several different kinds of ways. One is just the fulfillment theme that comes up—that the old covenant pointed forward to realities that have come to realization in Christ. We’ll see more of that in a minute—that it anticipated things that are brought about in Christ. Hebrews chapter 7 through 10 picks all of this up in a big way and uses the language of the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant having been set aside and God then making a new covenant with a better priesthood and better promises constituting then a better covenant that is made with God’s people now.

In Hebrews chapter 8, the writer makes the point that the covenant, the old covenant, could not provide what it demanded. And Israel failed to keep the terms of the covenant, so the covenant collapsed and finally was replaced. And so in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, again, it’s called the old covenant that was fading away. So God makes this covenant with Israel, demands things of them, and says, “If you, then I will bless. If you do this, then I will bless.” Israel finally fails and fails and fails and fails and fails and fails. And finally, God says, “We’re going to have to have a new covenant.” And that’s what we’ll see next time.

Now, by the way, this consideration here on the end and the obsolescence of the Old Covenant is what answers for you that very common question that’s asked: why is it we don’t obey all of the laws of the Bible? Why is it we don’t obey all the laws of the Old Testament? Well, here it is, and the simple answer is we’re not under that covenant. We are under the terms of a new covenant. That covenant was given to a people for that time, and now that covenant has been eclipsed with a better covenant. Well, all of that is bristling with all kinds of questions that people write books about, but we must move on.

What Is the Purpose of the Old Covenant?

And here’s where I want to spend the rest of our time. With all of that—that God has brought the people out to make them a nation, he’s placed these demands upon them (“Do this and I will bless”), here’s the worship that you will observe, here are the sacrifices that you will observe, here are the laws that distinguish you as a people—eventually this law collapses. This covenant collapses and has to be replaced. And so the question arises: why then? Why bother? Why the Old Covenant at all? Surely God knew that it wouldn’t last forever. Why then the Old Covenant? Or what is the purpose of the Old Covenant?

Number one, just quickly, the Old Covenant was for the purpose of preserving and supervising Israel as a distinct people through whom God would bless the world. The covenant was given to preserve and supervise Israel as a distinct people through whom God would bless the world. We should at this point—we don’t have time—but we should at this point go to Galatians chapter 3 where Paul deals with this question straight on. If God made a promissory covenant to Abraham, why then, 400 years later, do we have this kind of covenant, a covenant of law, brought in for the people of God? And the answer that he gives, at least in part, is that it was given to supervise Israel as a distinct people so that through them God would bless the world. I think I will pass on the rest of that.

Purposes of the Old Covenant: one, to preserve Israel as a distinct people through whom God would bless the world. Number two, and the Apostle Paul makes much of this one, to reveal sin. To reveal sin. And I want you to look at this in Romans chapter 3. Romans 3 verses 19 and 20. I’ll wait for you to get there because I want you to see it yourself. Romans 3 verses 19 and 20:

“Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that,” and here’s the purpose clause, “so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become held accountable to God.”

“So that every mouth may be stopped.” Have you ever tried to share the gospel with someone? And if you’ve witnessed much at all, you’ve heard this: “I think, I think…” and you know something’s good gonna come, “I think that if you just keep the Ten Commandments, God will let you into heaven.” Now when people say that, I’m very happy to take them up on it. And in fact, I think it’s a very good witnessing avenue. “Oh, so if you keep the Ten Commandments, God will save you, keep you in heaven, yeah. Okay, how you doing?” And I go back to Exodus 20 and let’s see how you’re doing on these.

“You have no other gods before me.” How you doing on that? “Well, I don’t have any other gods but God.” What devotion did you show to God this week? What devotion did you show to God? What demonstrates that you had more devotion to Him than anything else this week? “Shall not make any graven image.” All right, I’ll give him that, I’ve never carved an idol. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Oh. Oops. “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” “Honor your father and mother.” How you doing on that? “You shall not kill.” “You shall not commit adultery.” “You shall not steal.” Oh. “You shan’t bear false witness against your neighbor.” You ever lied about your neighbor?

All right, here on your own grading, how you doing? And you see what the law does? It stops the mouth. That’s Paul’s language here. It stops the mouth. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in what Martin Lloyd-Jones said, that his definition of a Christian is one whose mouth has been stopped. There comes that point where we recognize that we haven’t done well enough and we need mercy. And the law serves that purpose, to stop the mouths of all humanity. And he makes it here that this is given to those under the law, but the law being given, there’s a sense in which Israel is a paradigm of the whole world. The law being given to Israel, every mouth may be stopped and the whole world now guilty before God. Here we have law objectified, written in stone, and we can measure ourselves against it, and the law demonstrates sin. Now, it does more than that. We’ll see that next time. But the law stops the mouth in demonstrating or revealing sin.

Now, the flip side of that is number three. What’s the purpose of the law? Not only to reveal sin, but to identify the righteousness necessary for blessing. You might—this might strike you as heretical, but hear me through on this. On one level, the law is a very obvious way of approaching God. The law was given to Israel, and it held out an inherent promise in it of life for those who do it. Now I want you to catch that. The law holds out this inherent promise of life for those who do it. And so the rich young ruler can come to Jesus and say, “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus says, “You know the commandments, do them.” And in fact, Paul talks like that at times as well. In Romans 2 verse 13, he said, “It’s those who obey the law who shall be justified.” Or Romans 7 and verse 10, “the commandments which were intended to bring life.” The commandments which were intended to bring life. We have other passages that say the same.

So again, the law is an obvious approach to God for those who do it, but not for sinners. For those who have violated the law, the law offers nothing but condemnation. And so yeah, theoretically, if you could—”I’ve kept the whole law”—God would accept you. How you doing on that? And given that, all that the law can do now is reveal the sin. But on the other side of it, it does reveal and identify the righteousness that’s needed in order to obtain blessing.

And in this way, then, the law also prepares us and prepares the world for Christ. The law, with all of its rigorous demands, inevitably comes to us, showing us our sin and showing us, then, the need of mercy. And then we’re introduced to this man named Jesus in the Gospels who has kept the law perfectly. Here is one who has never sinned, no guile in his mouth. Here’s a man who obeyed God in every point. Here’s a man who loved God enough, worshipped God enough, was devoted to God enough. Here’s a man who prayed enough. Here’s a man who resisted temptation enough. And every time, a man who in every way kept the law perfectly.

I wonder then, could he help me? And if the law with its rigorous demand on obedience, obedience, obedience—obey or be condemned, obey or be condemned—and then afterwards showing me this man who has kept the law perfectly, I’m thrown back, you see, to the Abrahamic promise of grace. That in his seed, all the families of the world will be blessed.

And that then brings us, I think, to the top of it all. Lastly, the purpose of the Old Covenant was to establish structures by which the blessing could come. To establish the structures by which saving blessing could come. I’ve already mentioned the New Testament fulfillment themes that the Old Covenant had a prospective function. It looked forward to a new order, a new covenant, a new prophet, a new priest, a new king, a new covenant that would be made with new provisions and better promises. And especially in all of this is the special focus on the priesthood and the sacrificial system. And for this, I want you to look at Hebrews chapters eight and nine.

Hebrews 8 verses 1 to 7:

“Now the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest, one who is seated on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer his gifts and sacrifices, thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’ But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it was enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.”

And then he quotes Jeremiah 31, that “I’ll make a new covenant with you,” the passage I cited earlier. Now notice here the emphasis on the character of the old covenant, and in particular, the old tabernacle and the old system of worship. In verse 2, notice that Christ is ministering in the true tent in heaven, the true tabernacle that the Lord set up in heaven. Now that becomes very important here because we find then that it is not that this tabernacle as it were in heaven is patterned after what God gave Moses. It’s the other way—that the Mosaic worship system is patterned after the tabernacle that’s in heaven.

And so look at verse 5: “They serve a copy and a shadow of heavenly things.” You see that? All of this was a picture of a reality in heaven. Look at chapter 9 and verse 9, “which is symbolic.” The holy place, verse 8, is symbolic for the present age. It’s a symbol of it. Chapter 9, verse 23: “thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites.” Verse 24: “For Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” And then one more, chapter 10, verse 1: “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by these same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.”

So you have this continual emphasis that what Moses had in the Old Testament system of worship was all symbolic of a reality in heaven, a true temple there where Christ himself has entered to minister. And that then gives us the significance of chapter 9 and verse 8, when he’s speaking of this Old Testament worship in the holy place. Notice what he says:

“By this,” I should back up, verse 6, “by these preparations having thus been made, the priest goes regularly into the first section,” that is the holy place, “performing their ritual duties. But into the second, in the holy of holies, only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people. By this the Holy Spirit indicates…”

Now he’s giving an explanation of it all. “By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing.” That is, that old worship system with its tent of meeting, the holy place, the most holy place behind the curtain where the presence of God is—all of that was intended to say the way into the presence of God is not yet open.

If you were in Israel in those times, you could come and you could offer sacrifice, but you could not go into the Holy of Holies. You cannot go into the presence of God. If you are a Levite ministering in the tabernacle precincts there, you could not go into the Holy of Holies. If you’re one of the priests, you cannot go into the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest can go in, and only once a year, and only after certain preparations were made. And the whole system is telling you, “Stay back. You’ve got no right to be in the presence of God. This is a holy God. You can’t go there. Stay back.”

That, he says in verse eight, was the intention of it, to tell you exactly that point. And so he tells us all of the sacrificial system is given as a picture to show us of something better. And that is a sacrifice that was offered by Christ, entering with his blood into the true temple in heaven, offering it before God, where it is accepted by God himself. And now because that is accepted, we may enter into the holy place ourselves. Notice how he says that in chapter 10, verses 19 and following:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.”

You remember when Jesus died, one of the strange events that happened was the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom. And here we have this curtain that’s been dividing, keeping us away from the presence of God for all of these centuries. And now Jesus died and the thing’s ripped from top to bottom. I think significantly, not from bottom to top, but from top to bottom. This is an act of God opening the way into the presence of God. Why? Because now the great sacrifice has been offered. And so Hebrews can pick that up and say, it was divided off by the curtain that is his flesh. And through the torn body of Jesus, as it were, we enter into the presence of God.

How can I, a sinner, enjoy the presence of God? Only if a real, effective, acceptable sacrifice for sin has been offered. And through the sacrifice of Jesus, I’m welcomed into the presence of God. All of this in the old covenant, he’s telling us, was given so that year after year after year after year after year, for all of those centuries, this statement would be made: “You have no right, the way’s not open yet, not until Jesus offers the true sacrifice, who makes propitiation before God.”

That’s the significance then of Galatians chapter 4, when Paul says, “In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law.” This is the significance when we come to those passages that speak of us being made righteous in Christ. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we, sinners, might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He takes our sin and offers the sacrifice in our place. Because of our union with Him, He becomes the representative sinner. But by our union with Him, we become righteous, taking His righteousness as our own.

The Old Covenant ultimately collapsed because Israel could not live up to the obligations. We’ll see more of that next time. The Old Covenant could not enable Israel to keep the commandments. And ultimately, the Old Covenant could not provide forgiveness under those terms. All it could do is provide pictures of forgiveness. But the Old Covenant did accomplish its historical purpose. It preserved a people through whom God would bless the world. It demonstrated the universality of sin. It demonstrated the need of righteousness. And it points us to the perfect law keeper who is himself the law giver, who has become our substitute to offer sacrifice for sins.

And as we read through the Old Covenant, the Old Testament scriptures, we are instructed there by the New Testament; we are instructed to go back. And every time we read of a priest, every time we read of a lamb, every time we read of a sacrifice, every time we read the word “without blemish,” “without spot,” our minds need to run quickly to Jesus. That’s where it’s taking us. He is the true priest who has offered a better sacrifice—in fact, the sacrifice of himself—because He is the Lamb Himself without spot and without blemish, through whom we enter into the presence of God. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, You have given us this important portion of Your Word to demonstrate these oh so important realities of our sin, of your holiness, of your unapproachable holiness, and yet of your grace in providing the great sacrifice through whom we are saved. We offer you our praise in his name today. Amen.