Redemption and the Tabernacle

 Exodus

Welcome! I am excited to begin a new series called Law and Grace. This series really has two parts. The first part focuses on the Law, also called more specifically the Mosaic Law, based on scriptures in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and the second part focuses on Grace, based on the book of Galatians. You may wonder why these two topics are paired together. It is because Galatians becomes much richer when you better understand what it is talking about when it refers to the Law. Indeed, this is not just true of Galatians but of many New Testament books, but Galatians specifically, I think, has some wonderful truths open up when you really understand the Law.

This month and a little bit into the next, we begin our first part, on the Law. Today we focus on those parts of the Law given in the book of Exodus. What comes to your mind when you think about the Law? For many Christians, I think the whole issue of what we are to do with the Law is kind of fuzzy. Clearly, Christians do not keep the entire Law today. Unless you completely abstain from pork, only eat bread that is unleavened during the Passover, go to Israel annually for the feast of Ingathering, bring animals to Jewish priests to be sacrificed, and so on, you do not keep the Law.

Yet other parts of the law we all agree should be kept, such as not committing murder, or adultery, or theft. How does one decide which parts of the Law are for today and which do not apply to us? We will deal with this question as we get into Galatians. I will say that one mistake people often make is to arbitrarily separate the message of God’s commandments and decrees from the narrative text in which it appears. As we shall see repeatedly this week and in the following few weeks, the Law does not appear in isolation but is blended with the history of God’s dealing with men, specifically, the Israelites, the Hebrews. This is not an accident, not an editing error; it is God’s design. And we should therefore read the Law in its historical context if we really want to understand it.

Let’s look at the historical context of the Law in Exodus, our topic today. Exodus 1 begins as a continuation of the story in Genesis, about Jacob and his sons, including Joseph. Recall that Joseph was sold by his sons to slave traders in Egypt. Joseph was blessed by God, interpreted dreams for Pharaoh, served and led wisely, and eventually came to be the number two leader in Egypt. Jacob and his other sons eventually followed Joseph into Egypt and settled there. Let’s pick up the story in Exodus 1:6.

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them. – Ex. 1:6-7

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” – Ex. 1:8-10

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. – Ex. 1:11-14

Further, to reduce the Israelite population, they moved to kill the sons after they were born. Into this world a baby boy was born, who would later be given the name Moses. In God’s providence, this baby was not killed, but grew up to adulthood. You all know the story. Later, Moses, all grown up, saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian. But word got out, and he fled Egypt to Midian. There he lived with Reuel, marrying his daughter Zipporah and living as a shepherd. This brings us through most of Chapter 2, which ends by saying that God heard the Israelites crying out under their cruel oppressors and was concerned about them, remembering His covenant with Abraham.

 In Exodus 3, Moses encounters the burning bush from which God spoke, and God tells Moses that He will rescue them and bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. He calls on Moses to be the one He works through to make this come about. Moses balks, but God insists, and He both tells and shows Moses how He will work to help him.  Moses goes, and meets Aaron on the way. This brings us to the end of Chapter 4.

 Chapter 5 begins the story of Moses’ and Aaron’s encounters with Pharaoh, the 10 plagues God sent down on the Egyptians, and Pharaoh’s repeated statements that he would let the Israelites go followed by his breaking his word.  This began with the miracle in which the staff became a snake, and went on into the plagues of the Nile’s water turning to blood, the frogs, the gnats, the flies, the death of livestock, the boils, the hailstorm, the locusts, the plague of darkness, and the plague on the firstborn sons.

With that final plague, God instructed each Hebrew family to sacrifice a lamb and at twilight on a certain day, take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of their doorframes, and eat the lambs, and be ready to leave in a hurry. This instruction is given in Exodus 12, and in addition, God gives the additional following commands:

This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do. – Ex. 12:14-16

Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread. – Ex. 12:17-20

If the Mosaic Law is God’s commands to the Israelites at the time of Moses, then this certainly is part of the Mosaic Law. Notice how it is revealed to the Israelites, and to us, in its historical context.  Are we required to do this? No. It is for the “community of Israel,” as long as it lasts.

Moses then explained this to the people, they did what they were instructed to do, the Egyptians lost all their firstborn, and the Israelites quickly left during the night.

Near the end of Ex. 12, there are a few more regulations for the Passover:

No foreigner is to eat of it. Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it. It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones.  The whole community of Israel must celebrate it. – Ex. 12:43-47

Now to an Israelite learning these commands, some of these parts would seem strange. Why the blood on the doorposts and lintels? Can’t the angel of death tell by some means other than visual who the Israelites are? Can’t God just tell him? Why eat it only inside the house? Why not break any of the bones? Why an unblemished lamb?

These questions point to the fact that the Law was to be obeyed even if one was not given reasons for why certain things were to be done. Why were these things done? Why a lamb? Why blood? Why blood smeared on wood posts? Why no bones broken?

We, who have been blessed to see the rest of the story, the story of Christ, have the opportunity to understand things that were mystery back then. These things point to Christ. The Law points to Christ. The Law is fulfilled in Christ, to quote the New Testament.

Jesus, called the Lamb of God in John and Revelation and called our Passover by Paul in I Corinthians 5:7, was the fulfillment of the Passover sacrifice. Just as the original Passover sacrifice redeemed the Israelites from bondage to Egypt, Christ’s sacrifice redeems us from eternal bondage to Satan. Just as the lamb was to be young, so was Jesus the man young, in the prime of life. Just as the lamb was unblemished, Christ was without sin. Just as the Passover lamb was to be slain in public, so was Christ. Just as none of the lamb’s bones were broken, so none of Christ’s were broken. Just as the lamb’s blood was smeared over posts of wood, horizontal and vertical, so was Christ’s blood found on the cross. Just as every household and every person in the household must partake of the Passover lamb and it took faith for them to act by smearing the blood, so must every person partake of Christ’s sacrifice through personal faith in Him and through confessing Him as Lord. Just as the sight of the blood on the doorposts stopped the angel from taking life in the household who had done this, so does the personal appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice satisfy God so that we are redeemed and no longer under judgment. Even more amazingly, during the second temple period when a priest gave a sacrificed lamb back to a family for Passover, its body was slit down the middle and kept open by two pieces of wood at right angles – a cross!

Back to Exodus – note that all this happened before the Ten Commandments were given on Sinai. This is part of the Law – an incredibly important part – it was this that began the Israelites’ journey of faith (and lack of faith) with God through the desert and on into the centuries beyond.

Exodus 13 begins with more regulations also pertaining to the principle of the Passover. It stated that during Passover one was to eat bread without yeast to remember the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Also, it said to consecrate every firstborn male, whether man or animal. Specifically:

After the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as He promised on oath to you and your forefathers, you are to give over to the Lord the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the Lord. Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons. – Ex. 13:11-13

In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.’ And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with His mighty hand. – Ex. 13:14-16

Sometimes we are pictured as sheep, but I think in Verse 13 we are the donkey. Hee haw! I think this is often a good picture of us. Stubborn and stupid! Notice that a donkey cannot be redeemed with a donkey sacrifice. It takes a Lamb. Remind you of anything?

Exodus 13:17 begins the narrative story of the Israelites’ leaving Egypt, being led by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Chapter 14 tells of the miraculous crossing of the sea, of the fall of the Egyptian army to the waters that poured back in around them, and of the panicked, doubting, and complaining Israelites during these events. Exodus 15 gives the songs of Moses and Miriam and tells of the waters made miraculously sweet (and of the doubting and complaining Israelites during these events). Exodus 16 tells of the miraculous delivery of manna, the instructions for when to take it (and of the doubting, complaining, and disobeying Israelites during these events). Exodus 17 tells of the miraculous delivery of water from the rock (and of the doubting and complaining Israelites). It also tells of a battle with miraculous defeat of the Amalekites. Exodus 18 tells of Jethro’s visit of Moses, and of his good advice to set others as judges for routine issues. And then, Exodus 19 tells of how Israel came to camp at the foot of Mount Sinai and consecrated the people in preparation for the terms of God’s covenant.

This covenant was conditional. God said,

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. – Ex. 19:5-6a

And then Exodus 20 records this covenant. It begins with what we call the Ten Commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep my commandments. – Ex. 20:2-6

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. – Ex. 20:7-11

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. – Ex. 20:12-17

Now, I have a question for you – how hard should it be to keep all of the Law we have heard so far? Keep the Passover. Consecrate the first-born. Worship no others but God. Don’t misuse His name. Keep the Sabbath by resting. Honor your parents. Don’t murder or commit adultery or steal or give false testimony. And don’t covet stuff that ain’t yours. Should this be that hard to do?

My answer would be no, not if you were motivated, not if you really loved God and believed He had the best for you. Why would you want to worship another, or do one of these bad things for selfish gain? But that’s the problem, isn’t it? That is where man has always failed, apart from Christ.

It’s actually brutally hard to keep the 10 commandments! I think this is perfectly clear even without reading Jesus’ exposition on them in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus explained that more than outward obedience was required; inward compliance was demanded too. Hate in your heart breaks the command just like murder does, lusting in your heart breaks the command just like adultery does, and so on. But inward or outward, the problem is our hearts. We don’t love God, not really. We are not willing to die to self – forget dying – we aren’t even willing to inconvenience our self, apart from Christ.

God spoke this to Moses on the mountain where there was thunder and lightning and the sound of a trumpet, and the people were afraid. Moses told the people not to be afraid, and that the reverence of God, His awesome display of power, would help them to keep from sin. (But that did not work out to be the case.) Chapter 20 ends with a few additional instructions about how to make altars for sacrifice.

 Exodus 21 gave rules for keeping Hebrew servants. Unlike modern practices of slavery, this was actually a fair arrangement.  There were many checks and balances that protected the master as well as the servant.

By the way, you could classify laws in two different categories – those in which the punishment for violation is to be carried out by men, and the punishment is given with the law – and those in which the punishment will be carried out by God, whether this punishment is named explicitly or implied. Notice that commandments up to this point are of the latter kind. Why? Because this is a covenant with God, and violating them is an offense, first of all, against Him.

The second half of Exodus 21 has laws of the first kind. It provides a list of punishments for various crimes of personal injury toward another, including killing a man, both intentionally and accidentally, kidnapping, cursing parents, quarreling, beating servants, injuring a pregnant woman or her child, letting your animal hurt a person or another animal, and leaving a hazard behind that injures someone else. Similarly, the first half of Exodus 22 deals with punishments for various crimes involving theft or damage of property. Rather than list all the punishments, what I wish to highlight is the fact that all these things have punishments, and there is a principle of making a right for the wrong you have caused. You could summarize this as “if you mess up, make it right.”  Implicit is the message that you should be careful not to be, well, careless, in the first place. Notice how this served to provide justice to those wronged, to make the injurer take care of the needs of the injured, and to motivate everyone to behave responsibly.

Beginning with Exodus 22:18, we have laws mostly about mistreating or taking advantage of others such as animals, foreigners, widows and orphans, and the poor. Most do not list punishments – they imply that God, who sees all, will punish. Here I want to point out that whereas our culture tends to agree with the most of the principles behind the previous laws, here our culture diverges. How many of you have ever been ripped off? Were you able to do anything about it? Some of the things our culture takes for granted, such as credit cards that charge 20% or more interest and title loans, are forbidden in the Law.

The first part of Exodus 23 warns against giving in to do wrong when confronted with crowd pressure; today we might call this peer pressure. It again warns against taking advantage of others, including aliens, the poor, and those whose property (animals) have wandered off. In fact, it says to return such animals to them. We tend to think of such actions as being super good; here, it is what is expected; to do any less is sin, again, another divergence from our culture.

This is followed by very brief exposition on Sabbath rests and religious holidays, and the chapter concludes with more explanation of the promise that God will prepare a place for them. Exodus 24 returns to exposition, and tells of how God confirmed the covenant with Moses on Sinai.

An important part of this covenant, this two-way agreement, is that God will dwell with the people. He won’t just “stay there” up on the mountain; He will go with them. Exodus 25 through 30 describes, in detail, a portable tabernacle along with what will go in it. Specifically, Exodus 25 describes the ark, table, and lampstand with lamps, Exodus 26 describes the general tabernacle structure and its curtain, Exodus 27 describes the altar, the courtyard, and the oil for the lampstand, and Exodus 28 describes the priestly garments: an ephod (sort of like a skirt or surgeon’s scrubs) a breast piece, a robe, a woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. Exodus 29 describes procedures for consecrating the priests, along with the regular sacrifices they were to perform. And Exodus 30 described the altar for burning incense and how to burn the incense, along with a brief description of how once a year the high priest would make a special sacrifice with the blood of an atoning sin offering, another foreshadowing of Christ. It also described the collection of atonement money, an offering to be used for the service of the Tent of Meeting. And it described a bronze basin for washing, anointing oil to be used to anoint everything already described, and additional incense.

Now we have already talked about how hard it was to really obey the 10 Commandments, what about all this? There were hundreds, if not thousands of details in these descriptions. Well, Exodus 31 describes how various people were appointed to make everything, along with an additional description and reminder of the Sabbath. All this revelation from God occurred on the mountain, and the people waited at the bottom.

Unfortunately, the Israelites, despite knowing what was going on up on the mountain, despite seeing God deliver them from Egypt and through the sea, despite seeing God provide food and water miraculously for them, despite seeing the cloud and the fire and the thunder and lightning and hearing the trumpet, decided to make a golden calf and worship it. This painful story, along with the tragic outcome, including the destroying of the stone tablets, is described in Exodus 32-33. Note that they are breaking the First Commandment in about as brazen a way as is possible. It ends with Moses asking God to show him His glory, and God does, although God does not allow Moses to see His face, because no one could do this and live.

Exodus 34 describes the making of the new tablets and the return of Moses to the people, who, this time, do not repeat their terrible sins that happened the first time. Now, at this point we have really two sets of Laws – those involving how to live, including the celebration of the Passover, the 10 Commandments, and the commands that followed them, and those involving the setup of the Tabernacle and the institution of the worship practices that were to take place there. We have already talked about how hard it was (and is) to keep the first set of commands; what about the second? Well, making stuff and doing outward religious-looking stuff is a lot easier than doing things that require that in your heart you really love God. So it should be no real surprise that the people were able to do the second set of Laws, making the Tabernacle and its items and setting things up for worship sacrifices. These procedures are described in Exodus 35-39. At the end of Exodus 39, Moses inspected everything, and found that it all had been done just as the Lord had commanded. Again, it’s much easier to do and build stuff than it is to love the Lord and die to self.

Exodus 40, the final chapter, describes how everything was set up as God had specified, and then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. When the cloud left the tabernacle, they knew that the Lord was leading them to move, and they followed the cloud.

If I didn’t know how this story would continue, how would I feel based on what we have gone through today? Well, I don’t feel like this is going to work out with an “and they all lived happily ever after.” Why? Because although the Israelites get an A in building stuff and doing religious ceremonies, they get an F in loving God, trusting God, and in that love and trust, following God’s other commandments that require dying to self and living for God.

And I would suggest to you that history repeats itself, even for those who are Christian believers. What does “building stuff and doing religious stuff” look like for us? Going to church, helping with things that need to be done, making meals, and so on. These are all good things, but they are the easy things! We can do all these things reasonably well in our own strength.

These Israelites knew that they were redeemed, delivered by God; this wasn’t ancient history for them; the events we have gone over today took months, not years. And yet their hearts were cold to God. We, as believers, know that we are redeemed, and we know that our redemption is infinitely greater than theirs. They were saved for the rest of their lives; we are saved for eternity. They escaped slavery of one lifetime; we have escaped, because of the blood of Christ, eternal slavery. And yet, if we do not continually cultivate our relationship with the living God, we can become just as cold to God as them, getting “F”s just like them.

What do we need to do? More “building stuff and doing religious stuff” isn’t the answer! Again, we shouldn’t stop doing these things, but that is not our problem. The problem is our hearts. We need to seek the Person of God, hunger for Him, pray to Him, seek Him in His Word.

Understand that our goal isn’t to be able to follow the Mosaic Covenant; that is not at all what I am saying. For one thing, the Mosaic Covenant is no longer a functional covenant. Read Hebrews 8-9. One verse from this:

By calling this covenant “new,” He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. – Hebrews 8:13

We will see more verses that speak to this in Galatians. But although the Mosaic Covenant is no longer valid as law over us, it does reveal the condition of our hearts. With regards to the 10 commandments, you can find reiterations of every command within the New Testament for Christians except the command regarding the specifics of keeping the Sabbath. Moreover, if we are reasonably schooled in the Word, we don’t have much of a problem knowing what we ought to do versus what we ought not do; our problem, as Paul describes in Romans, is that we do what we ought not to do, and we don’t do what we ought to do. Today, and in the coming few weeks, allow the Law of Moses to point out the state of your heart towards God, and if it isn’t as it should be, take steps, beginning with the prayer of confession to God, to make it right.