Ex. 19 Here was an immense change taking place in the state of Israel: until then the promise to them had been unconditional. If you cast your eyes over the chapters from 15 to 19, you will find that God had given them all things gratuitously, and even in spite of their murmurings; as the manna, water to drink, the sabbath, &c; and that He had sustained them in their combat with Amalek at Rephidim. He recalls all this to their memory: “Ye have seen,” says He to them, “how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if.....” This is the first time, in the relationship between God and Israel, that the little word if is introduced. “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me: for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.”
But the moment a condition comes in, our ruin is certain, for we fail the first day; and this was the foolishness of Israel. In vain God gives His law, which is “holy, and just, and good.” To a sinner, His law is death, because he is a sinner; and from the moment that God gives His law conditionally—namely, that something is to come to us by keeping it, He gives it, not because we can obey it, but to make us more clearly comprehend that we are lost because we have violated it.
The Israelites should have said, It is true, most gracious God, we ought to obey Thee; but we have failed so often, that we dare not receive the promises under such a condition. Instead of this, what was their language? “All the words that the Lord hath said, will we do.” They bind themselves to fulfill all that Jehovah had spoken; they take the promises under the condition of perfect obedience. What is the consequence of such rashness? The golden calf was made before Moses had come down from the mount. When we sinners engage ourselves to obey God without any failure (although obedience is always a duty), and to forfeit the blessing if we do not, we are sure to fail. Our answer should always be, “We are lost;” for grace supposes our ruin. It is this entire instability of man under any condition, that the apostle wishes to show (Gal. 3:17-2117And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. 18For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. 19Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. 20Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. 21Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. (Galatians 3:17‑21)) when he says, “A mediator is not a mediator of one.” That is, from the instant there is a mediator, there are two parties. But God is not two; “God is one.” And what is the other party? It is man. Hence the first covenant depends on the stability of man, as well as of God; and all comes to nothing.
There being nothing stable in man, he has of course sunk under the weight of his engagements; and this is what must always happen. But the law cannot annul the promises made to Abraham; the law, which was 430 years after, cannot abolish the promise. Now the promise was made to Abraham, not only of blessing to the nations, but also of the land and of earthly blessings to Israel. The reasoning of the apostle, as to spiritual promises, applies equally to temporal promises made to the Jews. We see that Israel could not enjoy them under the law. In fact, all was lost as soon as the golden calf was made. Yet the covenant at Sinai was founded on the principle of obedience. Ex. 24:77And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. (Exodus 24:7): “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood” Here is a covenant ratified by blood—and upon this foundation, “We will do all that the Lord hath said.” You know that the people made the golden calf, and that Moses in consequence destroyed the tables of the law.
In Ex. 32 we see how the promises made before the law were the resource of faith. It was this which sustained the people by the intercession of Moses, even in ruin itself: and by means of a mediator God returned to man after his failure (ver. 9-14). “It is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation.” Then Moses besought the Lord: “Turn from Thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people.”
Thus, after the fall of Israel, Moses beseeches God, for His own glory, to remember the promises made to Abraham; and God repents of the evil which He had thought to do.
Turn to Lev. 26 This chapter threatens us with all the chastisements which were to follow the unfaithfulness of Israel. Verse 42: “Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with.... Abraham;.... and I will remember the land."
God returns to His promises made unconditionally long before the law; and this is applicable to the last times, as we shall presently see.
There are two more covenants made with Israel during their wanderings in the wilderness. That under the law having been broken, the intercession of Moses made way for another (Ex. 33:14, 1914And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. (Exodus 33:14)
19And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. (Exodus 33:19)), of which we have the basis in Ex. 34:2727And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (Exodus 34:27): “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these wordy I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” Observe, with thee; for there is a remarkable change in the language of God. In Egypt, God had always said, “My people, My people.” But when the golden calf was made, He uses the word which they had used— “thy people, which thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt;” for Israel had said, “This Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 32:11And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. (Exodus 32:1)). God takes them up in their own words. What happened? Moses intercedes, and, so to speak, he would not permit God to say “Thy people,” as of him; but he insisted upon Thy people, as of God's people.
Now, then, it is a covenant made with Moses, as mediator. Here comes in the sovereignty of grace, introduced indeed when all was lost (the condition of the law having been violated). If God had not been sovereign, what would have been the consequence of this infraction The destruction of all the people. That is, though the sovereignty of God is eternal, it is revealed when it becomes the only resource of a people lost by their own ways; and this sovereignty manifests itself through the means of a mediator.
There is still another covenant in Deut. 29:11These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. (Deuteronomy 29:1): “These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in The land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.” And the subject of this third covenant with the Israelites is this—God makes it with them, in order that under it they, being obedient, might be able to continue to enjoy the land.
They did not keep it, and so they were expelled the territory. They were installed in it at the epoch of this third covenant, and by the keeping of it they would have been maintained there (see ver. 9, 12, 19).
Thus we see the principle on which they entered at all into the land of Canaan. But we have seen also that before the law God had promised them the land for a perpetual possession, by covenants and promises made without condition; and it is owing to these promises, by the mediation of Moses, that Israel was spared, and at last enjoyed the land. Yet enjoyed it, on the terms of the third covenant made in the plains of Moab.
After the fall of the Israelites in the promised land, there remain still to be applied to them, for their re-establishment, all the promises made to Abraham. After the people had failed in every possible way towards God, the prophets show us clearly, that God has promised again to restore them and to establish them in their land, under the Lord Jesus Christ as their King, to receive in Him the full accomplishment of every temporal promise.
Let us recollect, dear friends, that all we have been going through is the revelation of the character of Jehovah; and that, though truly these things have happened to Israel, they have happened to them on the part of God; and that they are, as a consequence, the manifestation of the character of God in Israel for us. It is not only of the failure of Israel that we are to think, but of the goodness of God—our God. Israel is the theater upon which God has displayed all His character; but not alone is Israel to be considered: the glory of God and the honor of His perfections are concerned. If God could fail in His gifts towards Israel, He could fail in His gifts towards us.
We shall have yet, on another occasion, to continue our account of this people.
(Concluded from p 351)