Exodus 4

Chapter 4. The Dispensation of the LawExo_19:1-25; Exodus 20:1-21This is introduced about two months after the crossing of the Red Sea. They have now reached the base of the Sinaitic mountains, and God calls Moses apart into Mount Sinai, announces to him that He is now about to lead His people into a solemn covenant, and bids them prepare for the manifestation which God is about to make to them. “You yourselves have seen,” He says, “what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:4-6). “The people all responded together, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said’” (Exodus 19:8). The Preparations They were then commanded to prepare themselves most solemnly, separating their persons from all defilement, and assembling on the third day around the base of the mount, but charged most emphatically to stand apart from it, and not even to touch it, on penalty of death. On the third morning, Jehovah appears enthroned upon the mount in awful majesty and glory. Thick clouds of murky blackness hang around the lofty brow of Sinai, and vivid lightnings cleave asunder the awful darkness, and re-echo themselves in incessant thunderings, while out of the darkness and fire there issues the piercing sound of the trumpet, growing loud and long, until all the people tremble, and even Moses is filled with irresistible awe and fear. At length, God summons Moses into the darkness, and he disappears from the sight of the trembling people into the midst of the mount of fire. Then follows the living voice of God in the ears of all the people, and the proclamation of His mighty law. Sentence after sentence they fall from the mount; every word of those 10 commandments, which become to the ages the summary of righteousness and duty, in its twofold completeness, with respect both to God and all the subordinate relationships of life. As a token of their authority and permanence, these words are afterward written by the finger of God on tables of stone, and preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, and the very shrine of the Hebrew Tabernacle. Many different names have been given to this divine message. They are called the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, the Words of the Covenant, the Tables of the Covenant, the Testimony, the Tables of the Testimony and, also, the Law. Another account of the same events is given in Deuteronomy 5:22-31, slightly modified in some subordinate expressions. Our present purpose simply requires that we shall explain the meaning of this dispensation of law in its relation to their spiritual life and ours.

Section I: The History of the Law

Section I—The History of the Law1. It was given at Mount Sinai in the third month after the departure of Israel from Egypt as a proclamation of God’s covenant with His people. 2. It was given with great majesty and terror (Exodus 20; Hebrews 12:18-21). 3. It was given through the mediatorship of Moses (Galatians 3:19-20), and so is called the Law of Moses (John 1:17). 4. It was given through the ministry of angels (Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19). 5. It was spoken by the voice of God Himself (Hebrews 12:26). 6. It was administered by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Angel of the Covenant (Exodus 23:20-21; Acts 7:38; Malachi 3:1). 7. It was written by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Deuteronomy 5:22; Exodus 31:18). 8. It was broken by the people, and the first tables were broken in the hands of Moses; perhaps as a token of the fact that the contents of the tables had already been broken by their disobedience and the sins of men (Exodus 32:15-19). 9. It was rewritten by God and renewed in the second and more gracious covenant, and then deposited in the Ark of the Covenant to be there preserved, perhaps as a type of the fact that Jesus Christ has brought us into a new covenant with God, and He keeps for us the law under this new covenant, and also keeps it in our hearts, as our indwelling sanctifier (Exodus 34:1-28; Exodus 40:20). 10. It consisted of three parts, namely, the moral, contained in the 10 commandments; the ceremonial, having reference to the ceremonial types; and the judicial, having reference to the social life and the civil government of the people.

Section II: The Design of the Law

Section II—The Design of the LawThe Holiness of God

1. It was intended to reveal the holiness of God. They had just come out of the darkness of Egypt, and had no true conception of God. Again and again had they shown in their short pilgrimage their disregard of His authority and law. They must learn His absolute righteousness and infinite holiness. Without this His very mercy would be abused. So in our life God must reveal Himself in His majesty and purity, as well as His love. So He came to Job, until he abhorred himself in the light of God. So He came to Isaiah, until he fell at His feet as unclean and cried out for purity. So He comes to every soul before it can rightly understand sin or holiness. The simplest faith will ever be the most reverent. The more we know His purity, the more will we prize His love. And so even under all the grace of the gospel, we are taught that we must have grace “and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’” (Hebrews 12:28-29). The Standard of Conduct
2. The next design of the law was to reveal to man the perfect standard of duty and righteousness, under that period of divine revelation. It was a marvelous embodiment of all the essential principles of righteousness and virtue. Beginning with God Himself, it first presents Him as the supreme object of worship. Next it teaches the method of worship; then the spirit of worship; and then the time of worship. Coming, secondly, to man’s relative duties, it begins first with the family, the root of society; next it touches our obligation to human life; then to social purity; then the rights of property; and then of reputation; closing in the 10th commandment with the very spring of action and character, our desires and motives, and demanding for them absolute righteousness and purity. It has well been called, even by eminent jurists, “A miracle of ethics,” transcendently in advance of the very highest productions of human thought in any age or land. To Reveal Sin and Lead to Christ
3. It was designed to reveal man’s sin and lead us to Christ for salvation and sanctification. This was perhaps its chief design: “I would not have known what sin was except through the law” (Romans 7:7); “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20). God Himself declares: “God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning” (Exodus 20:20). God knew His people would break the law, and never expected them to be saved by their own obedience to it; but rather to see through its demands their helpless and lost condition, and thus be driven to accept the atonement and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. “So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). So it must come to every soul, to reveal self, to convict of sin, to prostrate at the feet of mercy, “that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God” (Romans 3:19). And then, when He has included all under sin, He has mercy upon all who believe. A poor slave lay dying. His master came to see him and took him gently by the hand. The slave kissed the hand and said: “Blessings on this hand.” “Why, Sam,” said the master, “how can you say that? That hand never did you anything but harm; it has beaten and bruised you a hundred times; how can you bless it?” “Yes, blessings on that hand,” replied the poor slave. “It was that which drove me for comfort to my precious Jesus; He soothed my sorrows, and made my heart so glad that I can only say blessings on the hand of hard old master, for driving me to Thee.” So the law is a hard old master; it can only condemn and smite, but drives us to the cross and the Savior, and we should only bless it, too. Not only does the law show us our guilt, and thus drive us to Christ for our salvation, but at a later stage in our experience it reveals to us ourselves and our utter sinfulness, and also drives us to Him for sanctification. The first operation of the law in convicting a sinner and leading him to Christ for pardon is set forth in Romans 3:9-31. But there must come a second working. The soul must see its inherent wickedness and discover that “nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18), but it will receive Christ in His fullness, for its inner purity and life. This operation of the law is evidently described in Romans 6 and Romans 7. For a while, like Israel in the earlier part of their journey, the soul has gone on in joy and confidence; but suddenly the sky is overcast. It comes to Sinai; it hears the voice of the law; it finds that within which is neither able nor willing to obey; it readily cries, “We will do everything the Lord has said” (Exodus 19:8), and then it fails, sins and despairs and falls under condemnation. What is there in all this to sanctify? Why, it is the very root of sanctification. It is finding out our helplessness. It is coming to the end of self. And when, discouraged and defeated with its vain endeavors and its broken vows and purposes, it cries in despair, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Then it finds the same blessed Friend who set it free from guilt, standing again by its side, and offering to save it from self and sin by His indwelling life and power; and it cries in joyful deliverance, “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25). Again the law has been its schoolmaster to lead it to Christ—this time for sanctification. And now it learns that even for this evil heart, as well as for its wretched past, He has paid the full penalty; that it may look on its old self as no longer a real self, but dead with Christ, through His cross, and know that the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus does set it free from the law of sin and death, and that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in it, as it walks in the new resurrection life, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Section III: The Place of the Law Under the Gospel

Section III—The Place of the Law Under the GospelRedeemed From Its Curse

1. Christ has redeemed us from the curse and penalty of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13), so that the believer is now in the position of one who has been already executed for his own sin in the person of his Substitute, and the law has no more demands against him. Christ has Kept It for Us
2. Christ has earned for us its promises by keeping its precepts, and thus puts the believer in the position of one who has obeyed the commandments and deserves their recompense. This is the meaning of His righteousness (Romans 10:4). Christ has Reenacted It
3. Christ has reenacted the law in His own precepts and commandments, and in His own example and life where we find the true and perfect rule of our Christian life. It is not that the law is abolished, but uplifted and reenacted with greater fullness, sweetness and spirituality. It is very much the same as the issuing of the second edition of a book, containing important additions and corrections, and taking the place of the former edition. Therefore, Christ’s commandments, “these words of mine” (Matthew 7:24), as He calls them, are the Christian’s final law. And Christ’s own beautiful life is the exposition and object lesson of that law: A life in which the law appears Drawn out in living characters. The law of Christ is therefore more complete, more comprehensive, more searching and reaches a higher standard than the law of Moses. Its first word is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). And its second, “Love each other,” not as yourselves, but “as I have loved you” (John 15:12). The Law in the Heart
4. The Holy Spirit writes this new law upon our hearts and disposes and enables us to keep it. He does this by revealing in us and uniting to us the very person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who becomes our indwelling righteousness, and so lives in us His own pure and perfect life of love and obedience, as we receive Him and yield to His voice and will. Hence the Holy Spirit came on the anniversary of the giving of the law, the day of Pentecost, thus suggesting to us that He would henceforth be to every believer the very substance of the law, and the power to perform it. This was the ancient covenant: “after that time… I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). This is how the Spirit sanctifies us; and how “because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). When He enters the life and controls it, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, as we “do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:4). This also is a reason why Jesus Christ is represented as our righteousness, “who has become for us… holiness” (1 Corinthians 1:30). He Himself enters and occupies our heart, and becomes in it the spirit of righteousness. All this was beautifully expressed and set forth in Exodus, by the second covenant of the law, accompanied by the gracious words of Moses: “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6); and still more vividly by the fact that this law thus renewed was not left in the hands of the people, but enshrined in the ark and thus kept and carried in their midst. Now we know that the ark was a type of Christ. So the figure speaks to us of Jesus keeping for us the divine law, and then entering and abiding in us, and keeping it also in us, as our life and righteousness.