I was thinking about the Old Covenant recently. Why were there so
MANY laws and limitations?
I was reflecting that God had
offered an AMAZING covenant relationship, very nearly the New
Covenant way back then.
“‘Now therefore, if you will
indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a
special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
‘And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”
[Exodus 19:5-6]
The people chickened out, rejected that
covenant, and proposed another covenant.
Then they said
to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God
speak with us, lest we die.” [Exodus 20:19]
It was
described more clearly in Deuteronomy:
“Go yourself
[Moses] and listen to what the LORD our God says. Then come and tell
us everything he tells you, and we will listen and obey.”
[Deuteronomy 5:27]
I read that as the establishment of
both the priesthood (“Moses, you go talk to God for us!”) and the
Law (“You tell us what God says, and we'll do that!”).
And
immediately afterwards, there's a mountain of detailed rules and
regulations.
My thought has been, “Why would God do
that?”
And then I realized: the Law was never intended
to be the vehicle for God to relate to people; it was the vehicle for
the people to keep God at a safe distance.
So God spiked
the punch.
God never intended
for the Mosaic Law (“The Old Covenant”) to succeed at forming the
relationship between God and man. God intended it to fail (it wasn’t
his idea anyway), but in failing, to point to the New Covenant, which
now needed to be delayed for a while, until the people were ready for
it.
“The law was
brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin
increased, grace increased all the more.” [Romans 5:20]
“So then, the law
was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be
justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer
under a guardian.” [Galatians 3:24-25]
From that first
moment on the mountain in Exodus, God was already planning to make
his people ready for REAL covenant, for the New Covenant in Christ.
Dang, he’s
amazing.