057. Moses--The Law-Giver
Moses--The Law-Giver
Jos 1:17. According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things, so will we hearken unto thee: only the Lord thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses.
John 1:17. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. In forming estimates of greatness, it is natural for men to consult their senses, not their reason. With the idea of royal majesty we connect those of a chair of state, a numerous and splendid retinue, an ermine robe, a scepter, and a crown. But wisdom and goodness are the qualities which confer real dignity, and command just homage and respect. Our preconceptions of earthly magnificence much exceed the truth, and knowledge speedily levels the fabric which imagination had raised. But the wonders of nature, the mighty works of God, grow upon us as we contemplate them. No intimacy of acquaintance reduces their magnitude or tarnishes their luster. And if the very frame of nature, the vastness, the variety, the harmony and the splendor of the visible creation be calculated to fill us with astonishment and delight, how must the plan of Providence, the work of redemption, the great mystery of godliness, excel in glory! In the discoveries which it has pleased God, at sundry times and in diverse manners to make of himself to mankind, he has at one time addressed himself directly to the understanding: at another, made his way to the heart and conscience through the channel of sense. The law was given in every circumstance of external pomp; it was accompanied with everything that could dazzle the eye, fill the ear, and rouse the imagination. The kingdom of God, in the gospel of his “Son, came not with observation.” The great Author of the dispensation of grace, according as it was predicted concerning him, “did not strive nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets.” He had, in the eyes of an undiscerning world, “no form nor comeliness, no beauty why he should be desired.” And therefore, “he was despised and rejected of men.” But we are taught to think very differently of his second appearance. “He shall come in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory:” “In his Father’s glory, and all his holy angels:” “With the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God.” The manner of delivering the law corresponded with its nature. It was clothed with thunder. It was surrounded with the blackness of darkness. It emitted flaming fire. It denounced death. The spirit of the gospel, in like manner, breathed in the mode of its publication. The doctrine of peace and reconciliation was delivered to men, in the tenderest accents of human friendship. And temporal mercies and deliverances prepared the way for “spiritual and heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus.”
We are now to bring these two dispensations together, and to compare the one with the other, in order that we may discover and admire that uniformity of design which they jointly aim at promoting, the mutual luster which they shed upon, and the mutual aid which they lend to, each other. By “the law” we understand the whole of that scheme of the divine providence which related to the posterity of Abraham; the promises which were made to them, the ordinances prescribed, the character which they bear, the events which befell them, from the day in which that patriarch left his kindred and country, till the day when the whole was swallowed up and lost in the person, doctrines, ordinances, life, sufferings, and death of Him, who was held up from the beginning as the great, leading, commanding object in the eternal eye! the accomplishment of the promises, the substance of the types and shadows, the “end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth.”
Moses and Christ frequently speak of their mutual relation and resemblance. “I will raise them up,” says God by Moses, “a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”[*]Deu 18:18-19 “Search the Scriptures,” says Christ, “for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words.”[*]John 5:39, etc. The persons, characters, and offices of the two legislators, therefore, naturally fall to be first considered, in tracing the resemblance of the two covenants which were established with mankind through their mediation. Of the birth of Moses, and salvation to Israel by him, there seems to have been a general expectation in his own nation, and an apprehension of such an event as general in the minds of the Egyptians. Hence the bloody decree of Pharaoh, to destroy from the womb all the male children of the Hebrews; and hence, on the other hand, that eagerness to save a child, who, from the moment of its birth, exhibited unequivocal signs of his future greatness and usefulness. When Christ came into the world, multitudes were looking for the “Consolation of Israel.” The prophecies concerning the promises of the Messiah, were evidently hastening to fulfill themselves. The Jews expected their king: Herod dreaded a rival. The person of the promised Savior was pointed out by signs in heaven, and signs on earth, which it was impossible to misunderstand. An extraordinary star describes an unknown path through the air to the place of his birth. A multitude of the heavenly host proclaim the joyful event to the shepherds. It was revealed unto Simeon by the Holy Ghost, “that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”[*]Luk 2:26 Conducted of the Spirit he came into the temple at the moment when Christ was presented there, according to the law. He recognizes the promised of the Lord, and closes his eyes in peace. Anna, the prophetess, instructed by the same Spirit, gives a similar testimony, and speaks of “the holy child to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.”[*]Luk 2:38 The circumstances of extreme danger which attended the birth of Moses and of Christ, and the wonderful means of their preservation and deliverance, constitute a striking mark of resemblance between them. Behold the long-looked-for deliverer of the Jewish church and nation, ready to perish by the hand of Pharaoh: and the great King and Head of the Christian world, threatened by the murdering dagger of the tetrarch of Galilee; while the earth was watered with the blood of their infant brethren. Moses is saved from destruction by the daughter of the tyrant who sought his life; he finds an asylum and a school in the house which he was destined to plague and to humble. And Jesus of Nazareth finds shelter in Egypt from the fury and jealousy of Herod. The personal beauty and accomplishments of the Israelitish lawgiver were probably intended to typify, in an inferior degree, the personal glory and excellency of Him, concerning whom the prophet thus writes--“Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee forever.”[*]Psa 45:2 The wretched state of Israel when Moses was born, and of the world when Christ came to save it, are a melancholy and affecting counterpart to each other. The former, subjected to the arbitrary authority of a sanguinary tyrant; the latter in dreadful captivity to the prince of the power of the air, that “murderer from the beginning;” “that spirit which ruleth in the children of disobedience.” Their mental qualities present a lovely and an instructive similitude. “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.”[*]Num 12:3 “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”[*]Mat 11:29 Compassion for his afflicted brethren, early discovered the temper, and marked the character of Moses, the man of God. Sympathy with the miserable, and that sympathy effecting seasonable relief for them, marked the paths of the Son of God through a world of wretchedness. “I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue now with me three days, and have nothing to eat: And I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint by the way.”[*]Mat 15:32 “When he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.”[*]Mat 9:36 Over the grave of Lazarus “Jesus wept.” “When he was come near, he beheld the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, A things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”[*]Luk 19:41-42 The offices which Moses and Christ were called of Providence to execute, present us with points of likeness which it is impossible not to see, and equally impossible to mistake. “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face; in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants, and to all his land: and in all that mighty hand, and in all that great terror, which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.”[*]Deu 34:10, etc. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”[*]John 1:18 Moses was king in Jeshurun, and conducted the thousands of Israel through many difficulties and dangers to their destined habitation; Jesus, God’s “anointed King over his holy hill of Zion,” brings his “many” spiritual “sons unto glory.” To constitute one deliverer for Israel, Moses and Aaron must unite their talents, must combine their force, must conjoin their offices: the prophet must co-operate with the priest; two distinct persons carry on one design; but, in the Savior of the world, all talents, all virtues, all offices meet and center: the prophetic inspiration of Moses, Aaron’s pleasantness and grace of speech; the regal dignity of the one, the sacerdotal purity of the other. In order to put Israel in possession of the promised land, Joshua must succeed to Moses, and happily finish what his master has so successfully begun. But the great Captain of salvation needs no coadjutor, can have no successor: “He gives grace and glory;” He leads his redeemed through the wilderness, introduces them into Canaan, maintains them in quiet and everlasting possession.
Other lines of resemblance will appear as we prosecute the history, and shall not therefore be anticipated. But we must not dismiss the subject without pointing out wherein the likeness fails, and how much the type falls short of the object which it represents. The wonders performed by Moses in Egypt were wrought by a power delegated to, and conferred upon him for the purpose. The miracles of Christ were produced by a power original and inherent. Moses, though the meekest of all men, was betrayed into rashness, lost temper, and “spake unadvisedly with his lips.” But in Jesus behold a spirit which was never ruffled, a tongue in which guile was never found; lips that never offended; a mind which no insult could disturb, no unkindness provoke; nor even the horrid pangs of an unmerited death rouse to resentment. “Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honor than the house. For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of hope firm unto the end.”[*]Heb 3:1, etc.
Moses died and was buried. Jesus died and “was buried, and rose again.” Moses received the law; Christ gave it. Moses and Elias attend the Savior on mount Tabor, as his ministering servants; Jesus receives their attendance and homage, as their Lord.
Having spoken of the resemblance between the authors of the two dispensations, we proceed, as was proposed, to speak in the same view of the two dispensations themselves. And first, They rest on one and the same authority, are dictated by the same unerring wisdom, and are directed to the same great and glorious end. Indeed, one of the great proofs that both are of God is the conformity of both to the nature and condition of man. The precepts of the law are not novel constitutions, which had no existence till the days of Moses: neither are the consolations of the gospel new discoveries of grace, unheard of till the four thousandth year of the world. Sinai thundered and lightened in Adam’s conscience the moment he tasted the forbidden tree, and drove him to seek refuge “from the presence of the Lord God amidst the trees of the garden.” The terrors of the law raged in Cain’s guilty breast, long before there was any record written on brass or stone. And the promises of pardon and salvation are coeval with the conviction of the first offender, and the denunciation of his punishment. The tongue which pronounced on man the doom of death, proclaims the glad tidings of life and recovery.
I know that the law is of God, for I have that within me which acknowledges and approves its rectitude and excellency; and even when it condemns me, I am constrained to call it “holy, just, and good.” I know that the gospel is of God for I feel that within me which welcomes its approach, discerns its suitableness, rejoices in its fulness, rests upon its truth. It is of God, for it descends to the level of my guilt and misery, corresponds with my hopes, suits my necessities. Our blessed Lord took an early opportunity of explaining himself on this subject. An absurd idea prevailed, that the kingdom of the Messiah was to be a total subversion of the Mosaic dispensation. An absurdity into which some Christians have inadvertently, given, for want of making a plain and necessary distinction, between those particulars of the law which are in their own nature eternal and unchangeable, like the nature of that God who is its author; and those, which being typical and prophetical, ceased of course when the predicted event arrived, and the type, having fulfilled its design, was lost in the thing typified; and those which, being temporary and transitory, ceased with the occasion of them. Of the first sort are the precepts of the Decalogue, or the ten commandments; which, under every constitution that affects such a being as man must be immutable and everlasting. Of them it is that Christ said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”[*]Mat 5:17-18 Of the second class are the laws of the daily sacrifice, the great annual feasts, the Levitical priesthood, and the like. They pointed out Christ the Lord, they led to him, they were lost in him. And in the third rank we place the law of circumcision, the political economy of the Jewish nation, all that related to the possession of Canaan, and which ceased of course with the dissolution of their government, and the loss of their national importance. These observations being attended to and kept in mind, will prevent the confusion arising from the ambiguous acceptation of the word “law,” as expressing the Old Testament dispensation. The law, then, and the gospel, the two tables of stone delivered to Moses, and the “grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ,” coincide, secondly, in this, that they both point out with equal clearness and force the necessity of a Savior. Every word pronounced by the voice of God from Sinai, is in truth a sentence of condemnation. While it enjoins future obedience, it fixes past guilt. While it says, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath,” it accuses of idolatry. While it recommends the observance of the Sabbath, it charges home the violation of it; and so of the rest of the precepts of the Decalogue. The law, therefore, carried the gospel in its bosom, as the new changed moon exhibits a great body of obscurity, embraced by a small semicircle of light; but which is to be irradiated by degrees, till the whole becomes one great globe of light and glory; and Moses performs the part of “a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” To hear of a constitution by which I might have lived, after my life is forfeited, is only to embitter my misery. It is like hearing of a cordial after a man has swallowed poison. Now it could never be the design of the gracious Lawgiver to insult human misery, by holding out a system which could avail the guilty nothing. While, then, the divine justice lays down the law in all its strictness, purity, and extent, saying, “I am the Lord who will by no means clear the guilty;” “Cursed is everyone who continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;”[*]Gal 3:10 the goodness which condescends to give a law at all, the wisdom which explains it, the patience that forbears to punish its transgression, all plainly and distinctly proclaim the necessity and the existence of an atonement, and lead to “the bringing in of a better hope.”
Thirdly, The spirit of both dispensations is a spirit of love. God enforces upon Israel obedience to the law from Sinai, by the consideration of his being the Lord, which “brought them up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage:” “who has borne them on eagle’s wings, and brought them to himself.” And “love” on the part of man “is the fulfilling of the law.” “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”[*]Mat 22:37, etc. The gospel, in like manner, has its source in love, the love of God: and its great aim and end is to produce love to God. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”[*]John 3:16 “And we love him because he first loved us.” “The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”[*]2Co 5:14-15 And, “By this shall all men know that ye are in disciples, if ye have love one to another.”[*]John 13:35 “He that says he loves God, and hateth his brother, is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”[*]1Jn 4:20 And, when both shall have produced their full effect, “perfect love shall cast out fear,” the voice of God shall be unaccompanied with thunder and lightning, cloud and tempest. The storm is in the mind of the guilty creature. The wrath of fire is not in God, but in fallen man; in “the carnal mind, which is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” When that is extinguished, all is at peace. The aim and labor of the gospel is not to reconcile God to man: but to reconcile men to God: for “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God and God in him.”[*]1Jn 4:16
Fourthly, Both the legal and evangelical dispensations equally discover to us our distance from God. The one, by enumerating and declaring our offences; the other, by enumerating and declaring the tender mercies of our God. The law treats us as alienated friends, whom it is needful to convince, to reprove, and humble. The gospel considers us as friends restored, no “longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God;” “once darkness, but now light in the Lord: once afar off, but made nigh by the blood of Christ.” The law shows us how far we have deviated from the path of duty and happiness; the gospel conducts us back through our wanderings, unravels the intricacies and errors of our dark steps, and replaces us in our father’s house. Moses informs us that we are wrong, “like sheep going astray:” Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and takes us under the care of “the shepherd and bishop of souls.” Moses points out the dreadful depth into which we have fallen, the dreadful distance from heaven to hell; Christ reveals the glorious height to which we are raised, the glorious distance from hell to heaven. Moses tells me what I ought to be and to do; Christ makes me such as he would have me to be. “And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by grace ye are saved) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”[*]Eph 2:1, etc. But the law was delivered to the world in a very different manner from the publication of the gospel; in fire that burned, in tempest that roared, in a cloud that darkened, in words that threatened. It awed men into distance; it inspired terror. But the gospel comes in light that consumes not, in glory that dazzles not, in language that threatens not. The law says, “Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever touches the mount shall surely be put to death. There shall not a 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 the Lord said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they, break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish.”[*]Exo 19:12 The gospel says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”[*]Mat 11:28 “He that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”[*]John 6:37 But to the impenitent and unbelieving, the gospel speaks the same terror which the law did from Sinai; nay, it wears a still more frowning aspect. “Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.”[*]Rom 2:8-9 “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him.”[*]Heb 2:3 “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace.”[*]Heb 10:28-29 And on the other hand, to them that believe, the law speaks in the mildest, gentlest language of the gospel; for “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.”[*]Rom 8:1 “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin.”[*]Exo 34:6-7 “And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”[*]Exo 20:6 I know not whether the whole Bible contains an expression of goodness more singular and striking than these words which issued from the mountain that burned with fire. Our fears are alarmed at the mention of the great and dreadful name--“The Lord God, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the father’s upon the children.” But justice has its limits. It may be stretched out to the third or fourth generation of offenders. Yet the “Lord will not strive continually, neither will he keep his anger forever.” But grace knows no bounds. When mercy is to be extended, it looks forward and forward, from a third and a fourth, to thousands of generations of them that love God. In what promise of the New Testament is the love of God preached more sweetly than in this precept of the Old?
Both dispensations then ‘have their mildness, and both their terror. Their mildness from the grace of the Creator; their terror from the guilt of the creature. And if the proclamation of the law were thus dreadful; if the alarm of judgment to come, shake the foundation of the everlasting hills; if Sinai tremble, and the rocks melt before the Lord, coming as a Protector and a Friend, what must the sessions be, the great day of doom, the awful hour of execution when the judge shall come “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[*]2Th 1:8 “When the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.”[*]2Pe 3:12 “Consider this, ye that forget God, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.”[*]Psa 50:22
“Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum: We have such an High Priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord had pitched and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this Man have somewhat to offer. But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry; by how much also he is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith the Lord; I will put my laws in their minds, and write them in their hearts; I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins, and their iniquities I will remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”[*]Heb 8:1, etc. And all “this is of God, who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.”[*]2Co 3:6, etc.
We are assembled this night, my brethren, the subjects of the law; the students of the gospel; the expectants of Christ’s second appearance. “See then that ye resist not him that speaketh from heaven.” Ye are happily set free from the law of ceremonies; happily subjected to the law of morality; and “not without law unto Christ.” “Stand fast therefore in that liberty wherewith Christ bath made you free.” Enjoy and improve what you have; affect not more than a wise providence permits. look forward to that day when you shall join an innumerable company of angels, yourselves like the angels of God in heaven; when you shall associate with the spirits of just men made perfect, yourselves perfect as they are; when you shall add your voices to the celestial choir, in singing “the Song of Moses and the Lamb;” when you shall see the face of God without dying, and hear his voice without quaking for fear. “Now unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”