Word of Encouragement (08/10/2022)

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” (Ex. 20:18-19)

So terrified by the sight of God’s theophany (“appearance of God”) and the voice of the LORD, the people of Israel begged Moses to speak to them for God. This shows why they needed a mediator to stand between God and them to speak forth the word of God. Of course, God did not have to speak in this terrifying way to them. God did not speak to Moses in this way. Nor when He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and spoke to them. Then, why did God speak to the people of Israel in this overpowering manner? Was it because He was speaking to the whole nation of them? Even so, He could have spoken in such a way that everyone could hear Him without feeling terrified, couldn’t He?

Let us observe that God’s theophanies in the Bible were not uniform. Sometimes God would appear in a human form. At other times, He would appear as a smoking fire pot and a burning torch, or a ladder, or a burning bush. He appeared as a pillar of cloud and fire to guide His people through the wilderness journey. At Mount Sinai, He appeared in lightnings and thunders and fire and smoke. Why did God appear in these various forms? The manner of a particular theophany depended on what His particular message was to His people at that time; it served as a visual aid to His message, so to speak.

Why, then, did God appear and speak to Israel in this terrifying manner? It was to elicit the kind of response Israel gave—for them to recognize the terror of God’s holiness and ask Moses to mediate. We occasionally hear of the children of celebrities, who have no idea how hugely popular their parents are. So many people get starry-eyed when they meet these celebrities but not their children! When they grow up and watch the films their parents star in or accompany them to an Oscar do they realize how special their parents are.

Could the Israelites not have known how frightening their God was in holiness and power? They witnessed the ten plagues in Egypt, by which God devastated Egypt, didn’t they? They watched in awe as God parted the Red Sea to make a way for them and, afterward, drowned Pharaoh’s chariots in the sea, didn’t they? They daily saw God raining manna from heaven. Did they need another demonstration of God’s power and holiness? Yes, in this sense: up to this time, all the demonstrations of God’s fearsome power had been for them and against their enemies. But as they were entering a covenant relationship with God in an official way, they had to realize that this special favor they had received was not due to their own goodness or merit. This encounter with God at Mount Sinai showed them that God’s holiness was such that even they did not dare draw near to Him!

The Passover should have made it obvious to them. Why were their firstborns spared from the angel of death on that fateful night? The only difference between them and the Egyptians was that the paschal lambs were sacrificed in the place of their firstborns. What did that show? Their firstborns deserved to die as much as the firstborns of the Egyptians! They were not spared simply because they were Jews; they were spared on account of a substitute, which was slaughtered in their place. And God commanded that all their firstborns (who represented the next generation by the principle of primogeniture) be redeemed throughout all generations (Ex. 13:12-16). This was the principle of grace at work only because they were under God’s covenant of grace. But all their complaints on the way to Mount Sinai had shown that they had forgotten this fundamental fact about their covenant relationship: instead of humility, they had displayed a spirit of entitlement. They had to be reminded that they were no different from the Gentile nations, except for the grace God extended to them on account of their forefathers.

This is true for us in a greater measure, isn’t it? For we were once Gentiles in the flesh. And we have been given a better Mediator than Moses—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As our true Mediator, Jesus had to sacrifice Himself as the ultimate Paschal Lamb to take away our sins for our eternal salvation. The principle of God’s grace is undeniable. Let us be forever humble before God and never take any of His blessings for granted!

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