Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Covenant and Justice

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Covenant and Justice

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 058

Dictation Name: RR171AE58

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, oh Lord. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we come to thee grateful that all things are naked and open to thine eyes, that there is nothing hidden from thee, no surprises in all history for thine eyes, that all things are of thine ordination and have, as their purpose, thine eternal glory, thine kingdom, and our fulfillment in thee. Give us grace therefore, day by day, to move in the full assurance of faith that thou art on the throne, to come unto thy presence and cast our every care upon thee who carest for us. Give us grace to take hands off our lives and to commit them into thy care. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 19:1-9. Our subject: The Covenant and Justice. Exodus 19:1-9. “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then 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 an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.”

This is, of course, the prelude to the giving of the law, a very important text, one which can bear a great deal of study. It was three months after leaving Egypt, three months to the day, the Israel came to the desert of Sinai. Sinai is mentioned thirty-two times in the Pentateuch in the books of Moses, and only three times more in the rest of the Old Testament, and in the New Testament in Acts 7:31 and 38, and Galatians 4:24-25. There are references to Mount Sinai without naming it in a few places, as in Hebrews 12:26-27. This is an interesting and important fact. We would normally expect that such a place would be commemorated and rank highly in a peoples’ veneration, and there would be many references to that fact. There was, however, no cult of Mount Sinai in Israel’s history, and of course, outside of the Bible, the references are very few. Among the reasons for this, of course, is first, the fact that the law of God was not greatly loved by the people if loved at all, then or now. During much of Israel’s history the law was neglected. At times it was completely forgotten. God’s law set Israel apart from the nations and as the people told Samuel, they did not want to be different. The book of Judges tells us how very rapidly Israel declined in faith after Moses and Joseph. People do not like God’s law, they prefer man’s law; regulations rather than true law.

It was interesting to read, just this past week, that a university seminar studied the number of regulations imposed by one agency or set of bureaucrats after another, on a hamburger, from the time it was a cow on the range to the time you bought it at a fast food place, they found 41,000 regulations. 41,000. People seem to prefer that to God’s law.

Then second, God chose a desert area and a desert mountain as a place for giving His law, but paganism associated power and fertility together. As a result, in pagan cults, the holy places were areas of fertility. They were trees, streams, anything that marked abundance, animals, like bulls, and so on. For God to give His law to Moses is so bleak a place as Sinai was to go against all current opinion and belief. This set God apart as outside the realm of power as men in that day saw it. From this fact alone, God had to be seen as hardly respectable in the eyes of the world, and as an outside at best.

Then we see that God speaks to Moses, uh to Israel through Moses, and Moses reports back to God with Israel’s answer. In this respect, God was making very clear that more than any human power He could be reached only by means of a mediator. A mediator is a go-between in the reconciliation of two parties, and He is the one who has the access to greater power, to the superior. In such instances, where there is a superior power, there is no approach possible without a mediator. Nor can any communion be established without Him.

You may recall in the book of Esther that no one, not even Queen Esther, could come in the presence of Ahasurus without his scepter being extended towards them or at his command, and if they did so, they died. Authority was jealousy guarded. That’s hard for us to understand, but it was basic to the stability of society in Antiquity. The other extreme, of course, occurred not too many years ago when a welfare mob broke into Nelson Rockefeller’s office when he was governor and proceeded to berate him and tell him to “shut up” when he tried to answer them. That’s the collapse of authority. So, we have come a long ways and not in the right direction.

I was interested in some reading I was doing this morning, to find that one sociological writer admitted that all the modern talk about authoritarianism was loaded, and said “Why not use the word in most of the cases ‘authoritative?’” There is a world of difference between the two. Well, we have a great deal of authoritarianism in our time because we have destroyed authority, and authoritarianism with brute power, as the KGB, and the Gestapo, or the IRS, increasingly, establishes itself by coercion. Authority then is gone.

Moses was the mediator, and as such he was a forerunner and a type of Christ himself. Moses status as the mediator, became very formally set forth in these verses because they are the prelude to the giving of the law. The covenant was now to become more fully set forth, the law inscribed, and the people instructed. Hence, Moses’ mediatorial status became pronounce4d at this point. He carries the word of each party to the other. Since the transgression of the covenant and its law carried the penalty of death, all communication had to be carefully and very clearly set forth. God, in extending His law and grace to Israel was requiring them to be the people of faith and justice, a requirement now laid upon the church and upon all nations.

In verse 5, God’s word to Israel is that they must keep His covenant. The word “keep” in the Hebrew is “shamar,” to hedge about, to protect, to guard, so that Israel was told they were to be the guardians of the law, both in their personal living and socially. It’s the word used in Genesis 2:15 when Adam is commanded to keep the Garden of Eden. It means to be entrusted with, to have charge of, a trust or treasure. In this case, the trust or treasure is God’s law. Justice must thus be guarded and prized. We cannot underestimate the importance of this. God’s grace is to give His law to men and nations, and His chosen people, then Israel now the church and all believers who are to be the guardians of the law, of God’s justice.

Psalm 2 tells us that the ungodly nations take counsel, or very literally in English, conspire together against God and against His bonds, or laws, because they see God’s laws as bonds, and they rage at God’s restraint upon them. The penalty for custodians of God’s law who fail in their calling, is death. Their failure is the frustration and perversion of God’s justice, and this is no small offense. Because of this calling, to keep the covenant, to uphold and advance God’s law and justice, Israel is called a kingdom of priests, an holy nation.

As we saw the last couple of weeks, justice is a religious concern. It deals with moral ultimacy. Hence a chosen people must be a priestly people and nation. The meaning of being a chosen people should now be obvious. It means the people who set forth God’s grace and justice to the world. Many nations, Christian and non-Christian, have seen themselves as chosen people, as for example ancient Persia, Rome, Greece, Byzantium, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and others. They see it as a position of privilege, whereas in the Bible it means responsibility. Responsibility to uphold God’s justice. This is what it means to be a holy nation. This, in God’s sight, is what it means to be a peculiar or unique treasure. “All the earth is mine,” says God in verse 5, and He says it as He summons one nation, Israel, to erect the banner of salvation and justice for all men and all nations.

Solomon had this in mind in the prayer of dedication in the temple when, mindful of Israel’s world mission, he prayer that foreigners coming to the temple might especially be heard by God and their prayers granted so they might return to their countries as witnesses to the Lord. Psalm 87 celebrates this fact that foreigners were coming, and the Psalmist describes them as coming into the temple area and says, this, that and that foreigner were born in Zion the city of our God.

The phrase “a kingdom of priests” is referred to in Isaiah 61:6, but no where else in the Old Testament. It is, however, cited several times in the New Testament as coming to its fulfillment in the church, and the term “a holy nation,” while referred to only once in the Old Testament apart from Exodus and Deuteronomy, is also cited in the New Testament as applying to the church. By making Israel His unique treasure, God adopted the people as His children. This is the status that we, as Christians, now have. Adoption into a family means adoption into both privilege and duty, and this emphatically applies here. We have forgotten, in the modern usage of the word “adoption,” that it was an adoption into duty, and in Rome, for example, as many other countries of Antiquity, a person who was adopted by a family without children was adopted to assume responsibilities, ongoing responsibilities in the name of the family. He could be a child or an adult, but he was adopted into responsibilities. Now we only see privileges.

Well, a holy nation is an obedient nation, which has been given covenantal responsibilities to witness to God’s grace and justice. It is then truly God’s unique or peculiar treasure or possession. According to one scholar, Cole, the expression means a special treasure belonging privately to a king, and this implies special value as well as special relationship, so it has a royal reference as well. God tells Israel, through Moses, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bear you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto Myself.” Moses refers to this same fact, and this same image is used in Deuteronomy 29:2. It is a beautiful image of God’s supernatural deliverance and care. It is a reminder that their history and indeed, all history is not natural. It is God’s work.

There is a pattern and purpose to all history and it comes from God. Men seek to determine history independently of God. Their plan, not God’s, must prevail they say. Men conspire together against God, trying to impose their plan or history upon time, and the results are devastating for all. It is interesting that, as historians go backward, they can see a purpose and a plan, a direction, but men in the process to not see it if they do not look beyond man himself.

One word more about Mount Sinai. Which of the peaks in the Sinai desert is Mount Sinai, the Mount Sinai of Exodus, we do not know. Although we know, as late as Elijah’s time, it was known, because Elijah went there. When, in recent years, this area was the subject of controversy between Israel and Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula was handed back to Egypt after the Camp David meetings, neither country ever mentioned the Sinai as the place where the law was given, although both Islam and Judaism, Israel and Egypt say they revere Moses and God’s law, but possession of the Peninsula was sought on other grounds.

The world has passed from many, respect today for law, God’s law, the only true law, to a belief in regulations, like the 41,000 regulations on a hamburger from the time it leaves the range to the time you buy it at a fast food place. They prefer man and his tyranny to God’s law and its liberty, and this is why we are having problems and our world is falling in around us. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee for thy word. We thank thee that, because thou art on the throne, thy word, thy law shall prevail, and the kingdoms of this world shall indeed become thine. Give us grace to walk in this faith and in thy patience so that indeed, we may not lose heart, that we may be more than conquerors, that in all things we may see thy sovereign hand. Grant us this, we beseech thee in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] If Sinai is not mentioned in Israel today, do they teach the Old Testament? I understand that they teach Judaism in all the schools of Israel, do they teach from the Old Testament?

[Rushdoony] To a degree, they do. Orthodox Jews will, up to a point, although their interpretation will be heavily influenced by the Talmudic legal decisions. And the same is true in the churches. The law is largely not taught. So, the law is absent today, in Judaism and Christianity. There is some revival of the law in Islam, ironically, in that the entrepreneurs within the world of Islam do not trust their own civil governments. And, as a result, as they are seeking to create some kind of economic order in which they can survive, they are not only doing everything to put their funds into other places, Malta and elsewhere, but they are also trying to go back to Moses, something they never did before to any appreciable extent, simply because Mohammed said he was the true fulfillment of Moses’ prediction of a greater prophet, and therefore, Mohammed had to revere Moses for that reason, although he didn’t use him. So, this is the present situation and of course, with reform and conservative Judaism, there is not attention given to it. It is humanism as is Catholic and Protestant modernism. Any other questions of comments?

Well if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, it is good for us to be here and to give ourselves to thy word and spirit, to commit all our ways unto thee, for thou alone knowest us, our needs, and all our tomorrows. We come to cast our every care unto thee who carest for us. We come mindful of our loved ones, mindful of our country, mindful of our world and our time, and the great needs for judgment, for repentance, for cleansing and regeneration. Work in us that which is well pleasing in thy sight, and use us for thy kingdom. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.