“In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.” Up to this point all the dealings of God have been the simple application and outflow of His own grace. This is all the more striking too, because even after the redemption of the people from Egypt there are grievous faults, unbelief, complaints, and murmurs; nevertheless, not a blow, not a single answer on God’s part except in tender mercy towards a poor and failing people. All changes now.
The reason is manifest. They left the ground of the grace of God, which they had in no way appreciated. Their conduct proved that His grace had not at all entered into their hearts. It was a perfectly righteous thing therefore that God should propose terms of law. Had He not done so, we should not have had duly raised the solemn question of man’s competence to take the ground of his own fidelity before God.
Not a soul that has been since brought to the knowledge of God but what at least ought to have profited – in point of fact, must have profited by this grave lesson. It is true that God had taken every care to show His own mind about it. From the time that man fell, He presented grace as the only hope for a sinner. But man was insensible, and therefore, inasmuch as his heart was continually taking the place of self-righteousness, God’s law put him thoroughly to the test. This accordingly was proposed. Had there been any true understanding of their own state in the sight of God they had confessed that, however righteous the obligation to render obedience to the law, they being unrighteous could only be proved guilty under such a proof. The test must have brought inevitable ruin. But they had no such thoughts of themselves, more than real knowledge of God.
Hence therefore, no sooner does God propose to them that they should obey His law as the condition of their blessing at His hands, than they at once accept the terms: “Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine”
The result soon appears in their ruin; but Jehovah shows that He knew from the first, before any result appeared, their inability to stand before Him: “Lo,” says He to Moses, “I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee forever.” But in this chapter, and indeed in the next still more, the people entreat that God’s voice should not speak to them anymore.