Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

Prepare for the Lawgiving

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Prepare for the Lawgiving

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 059

Dictation Name: RR171AF59

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, we come into thy presence joyful in all thy work, grateful for thy mercies, confident in thy promises. Make us therefore joyful in all thy ways, that we might know that in all things, thou art working for our good in thee. We thank thee, our Father, that the government is upon thy shoulders. We thank thee that we have so great and marvelous promises in thy word concerning our future in Christ. Give us the victory over the powers of evil, confound the workers of iniquity, the humanistic statists, those who, the world over, take counsel together against thee and thy kingdom. Make us joyful in battle and confident in victory. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 19:10-25. Preparation for the Lawgiving is our subject. Exodus 19:10-25. “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish. And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them. And Moses said unto the LORD, The people cannot come up to mount Sinai: for thou chargedst us, saying, Set bounds about the mount, and sanctify it. And the LORD said unto him, Away, get thee down, and thou shalt come up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the LORD, lest he break forth upon them. So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.”

We have here the incidents immediately preceding the giving of the Ten Commandments. The law is delivered to Moses to give to the people, and the people are commanded to prepare themselves to receive God’s covenant law. They are told, first of all, through Moses, to sanctify themselves. The Hebrew word means to “make morally or ceremonially clean.” In this instance, the stress is on physical cleanliness. It meant bathing, washing the garments, and that sort of thing, to become ceremonially fit for worship. This was a public function. It was the receiving of God’s covenant law, and all the outward forms and signs of respect were therefore commanded.

To depreciate the physical mark of respect and conformity is a cheap mark of small minds. And, of course, one of the things that the hippies immediately did was to do precisely that, to cultivate dirt, disorder as a mark of disrespect, not only for authority, but for a culture because they were at war with the entire culture.

So, three days were allowed for this thorough physical preparation. It was emphatically important. Then second, the people were to stand, verse 17 tells us, at the foot of the mountain. No man nor any animal was to pass the marked boundary and cross over into the mountain proper. There was no mistaking the meaning of this rule. To come before a king, any king when royalty meant something, meant coming into presence by invitation only. Anyone crossing a given boundary without permission was subject to death. If one dared to go into the presence of a king, as Esther the queen did with her own husband, King Ahasuares, unless the scepter were pointed at that person, the penalty was death. The Lord, as king over all kings, makes known that He cannot be regarded lighting nor approached casually. Neither men nor animals could thus enter the mountain unless they were summoned.

Then third, only those summoned, as we have already pointed out, could cross the boundary, and this was normally a privilege given to Moses alone, although Aaron is included to a degree. In Exodus 21:1, we are told that, on one occasion, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel were permitted by God to go part way up the mountain. God was thus declaring that He was king, king over all kings. He was setting forth His power, and He was insisting upon reverence and humility.

We were told in verse 22 that the priests were to sanctify themselves with a special care, because they were the people of access to the throne. Therefore their duties required a special respect on their part towards God.

Then fourth, during this period beginning with the three days, all Israel was to abstain from sexual relations. Now this was important in the fertility cults. A variety of sexual acts, including very perverted and abnormal ones, were obligatory to worship because it was believed that sexuality meant man’s participation in the ultimate fertility of creation. As we saw last time, God chose a barren area. Not as barren then as it is now, but still, in its time, it was a barren area. He wanted to separate them from all those signs of fertility and power in nature that men so highly regarded at that time. He wanted a thorough separation from the humanistic doctrines of man’s power and potential, and the universe’s, nature’s power and potential.

What God was requiring as necessary for the reception of His covenant, man saw as irreligious and profane. As a result, it was exactly the reverse of the kind of situation that men in Antiquity would say is a holy place.

Of course, in our time we have seen the rise of Freudianism which is a modern revival of the premises of the fertility cults and their practices. It’s not surprising that Freud was also a man who was very, very superstitious, who believed in all kinds of esoteric things, much as he tried to conceal it. He believed in numerology. He felt that if he had it to do over again, he would go into fields of ESP. He believed in a naturalistic realm, comparable to the fertility cults, a naturalistic realm of power.

Then fifth, God required the people to recognize that for a time, the mountain itself was sanctified. It was set apart temporarily as God’s throne. We are no longer concerned about sanctifying buildings, or furnishings, or utensils in worships, or homes or places of work as was once commonplace. Both Catholics and Protestants, and orthodox churches at one time would have a priest or a pastor in to bless a new home or a new place of business. That has virtually disappeared, although among some European Catholics it still survives, and among their migrants in this country. However, this does have deep biblical roots. When our Lord sent out the seventy early in His ministry, He said, according to Matthew 10:12-13, “And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.”

Now, the word “house” used in these two verses is “Oikos,” and it refers to a dwelling, a building. It’s the same word used also in Matthew 12:4 with reference to the temple, the house of God. The modern usage restricts reality to the state and to individuals, but the Bible speaks of blessing a house or cursing it, and it sees blessings or curses as abiding on a building, as in Matthew 10:14-15. The family gives a house its character, and the family asks God to confirm and bless that character when it is godly. In Proverbs 25:24 we are told, “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman and in a wide house.” The same proverb appears in Proverbs 21:9. In the New Testament, the word appears twice in the Greek. In 1 Timothy 3:3, where we are told that a bishop or elder must not be a brawler. It is used again in Titus 3:2, and the meaning is “not peaceable,” a brawler. The meaning is that there is no peaceful or relaxing atmosphere in a house ruled by a brawling woman, nor in a church in which a brawler is an officer.

The point is that despite our modern desacralization of everything, there can be holy places as well as holy people, and also evil places and evil peoples, and God says where there are holy people, His blessing will be upon that place and we should pronounce that blessing.

Then sixth, when the trumpet, or some say it was a ram’s horn, blew, the people were required to come up to the barrier point at the foot of the mountain. In the same verse, verse 13, the death penalty for going beyond the designated point is cited, but there is a requirement to come and stand or sit at that point. There would be thunder, lightening, and smoke, but no direct communication to them. Incidentally, Sinai is not a volcanic mountain. This, from a modern perspective, was senseless and meaningless, because now everything must have a directly personal value or meaning or it has no worth. Here God simply says, “You will stand and wait because I say so, not because it has a meaning for you. And you are coming to a mountain which, in terms of your humanistic thinking, has no value in a desert place, but I am the ultimate point of reference.” So the point of reference is not what suits man, but what God requires. Here Moses is told to warn the people against violating God’s fiat word, verse 21.

Seventh, these verses they stress on the outward conformity and sanctification, the physical aspect of it. Some see the spiritual and inner sanctification as uppermost in verse 6, which we dealt with last week. “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” Calvin, however, saw the essential meaning of this statement and he said, and I quote, “The nation is here called holy, not with respect to their piety or personal holiness, but as set apart from others by God’s special privilege.” Now, this did not absolve Israel by any means from any duty to be holy, but it does make clear that man’s primary holiness is in God’s calling and election.

Eighth then, in verse 24, we have a reference to priests. Some scholars who love to look for problems see a problem here because, supposedly, there could be no priests yet, since the Levites had not yet been designated as a priestly tribe. However, in Exodus 24:5, we see young men, probably the firstborn, taking part in sacrifices. Now, because of the myth of evolution, many scholars assume that a priestly development in class came late in human history, but no research has turned up evidence for such a view. Priests go way back in the history of Israel, before Sinai.

Ninth, thunder, lightening, smoke, and earthquakes marked the presence of God at Sinai. Matthew Poole, a seventeenth century commentator said, and I quote, “The thunders and lightenings were sent partly as evidences and tokens both of God’s glorious presence, and of the anger of God, and the dreadful punishment due to the transgressors of the law now to be delivered, and partly as means to humble, and awaken, and convince and terrify proud and secure sinners that they might more reverently attend to the words and commands of God. More willingly yield obedience to them, and be more afraid of the violation of them. A thick cloud was both a fit means for the production and reception of the thunders and lightenings, and a signification as well of the invisible and unconceivable nature of God. As of the obscurity of the legal dispensation and regard of its types and shadows, the trumpet was a fit instrument both for the promulgation of God’s law and for the signification of that war that is between God and sinners.”

Then tenth, verse 13, as scholars have repeatedly pointed out, should read, “There shall not an hand touch Him,” not it. It refers to the transgressor. More than a century ago, George Rollinson commented, and I quote, “To stop him and seize him, the transgressor who went across the line. Another person must have transgressed the bounds, and so have repeated the act which was forbidden. This course was to be avoided, and punishment was to be inflicted n the transgressor by stoning him or transfixing him with arrows from within the barrier.”

This very severe penalty must be seen in the context of verse 6, the calling of Israel to be a kingdom of priests. Despite this fact, authority had to prevail, and God here makes clear that a kingdom of priests is not a democracy. No man can be, or presume to be, more than he is. Because Israel had been a slave people, they had to learn now that freedom did not mean a radical equality of all men. Freedom does not mean the destruction of authority and differences, but rather responsibility. In time, this equalitarianism would lead to the rebellion of two important men of Israel, Nadab and Abihu. The fact of law however, is an important one, because God’s law begins by denying that there is any equality between good and evil, between a law-keeper and a law-breaker.

We have thus here, the preparation for the giving of the law. We see the stress on sanctifying oneself, outwardly as well as inwardly, and by God’s election. There are holy places as well as holy people, and our Lord stressed that fact when He says, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” There you have a holy place. One of the consequences of forgetting that there can be holy places, as well as holy people, is that we have forsaken the calling to make all the earth holy unto God, and that’s what reconstruction is about. Not only are churches and people to be holy, but all the world must be made holy unto the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou hast called us unto holiness, and the whole earth to be holy, and we thank thee, our Father, that thy will shall be done, and thy holiness and peace shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Make us servants of this, thy will, that thy will indeed may be done in earth as it is in heaven. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] There’s an old adage that says cleanliness is close to godliness. It seems to have some basis in this passage.

[Rushdoony] Yes, very, very good. Because the adage which is ascribed to the Puritans, and probably correctly so, was a recognition that sanctification does require the outward as well as the inward purification. Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude in prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto thee that the desert places shall be made to blossom like a rose, and all the earth, according to thy word, shall again be a garden. That thou hast ordained, oh Lord, that thy kingdom shall be the whole earth and the whole creation, that all things shall be made new. We thank thee that thou hast begun, and that we are a part of thy new creation made new in Christ. Grant, oh Lord, that we may survey the work before us with confidence, having done so great a work in changing our regenerate hearts to conform to thee. There is nothing too great nor too small for thee. 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.