What sort of harvest are we carrying over from this year? Lay this to
heart as certain, that we enter on no new year--or new
day--empty-handed, but always 'bearing our sheaves with us.' 'Be not
deceived! God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap.'
But remember, that while this law remains, there is also the law of
forgiveness, 'Go in peace!' and there may be a new beginning, 'Sin no
more!'
'THE LOVE OF THINE ESPOUSALS'
'And He said unto Moses, Come up unto the Lord, thou,
and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders
of Israel; and worship ye afar off. 2. And Moses alone
shall come near the Lord; but they shall not come nigh,
neither shall the people go up with him. 3. And Moses
came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and
all the judgments: and all the people answered with one
voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said
will we do. 4. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,
and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar
under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the
twelve tribes of Israel. 5. And he sent young men of the
children of Israel, which offered burnt-offerings, and
sacrificed peace-offerings of oxen unto the Lord. 6. And
Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons; and
half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 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. 8. And Moses took the blood,
and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the
blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you
concerning all these words. 9. Then went up Moses and
Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
Israel; 10. And they saw the God of Israel: and there
was under His feet as it were a pared work of a sapphire-stone,
and as it were the body of heaven in His clearness.
11. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He laid
not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.
12. And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to Me into the
mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of
stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written;
that thou mayest teach them,'--EXODUS xxiv. 1-12.
An effort is needed to feel what a tremendous and unique fact is
narrated in these words. Next to the incarnation, it is the most
wonderful and far-reaching moment in history. It is the birthday of a
nation, which is God's son. It is the foundation stone of all
subsequent revelation. Its issues oppress that ancient people to-day,
and its promises are not yet exhausted. It is history, not legend, nor
the product of later national vanity. Whatever may come of analysing
'sources' and of discovering 'redactors,' Israel held a relation to God
all its own; and that relation was constituted thus.
I. Note the preliminaries of the covenant. The chapter begins with the
command to Moses to come up to the mount, with Aaron and other
representatives of the people. But he was already there when the
command was given, and a difficulty has been found (or, shall we say,
made) out of this. The explanation seems reasonable and plain enough,
that the long section extending from Exodus xx. 22, and containing the
fundamental laws as spoken by God, is closed by our verses 1 and 2,
which imply, in the very order to Moses to come up with his companions,
that he must first go down to bring them. God dismisses him as a king
might end an audience with his minister, by bidding him return with
attendants. The singular use of the third person in reference to Moses
in the third verse is not explained by supposing another writer; for,
whoever wrote it, it would be equally anomalous.
So he comes down from the stern cloud-encircled peak to that great
plain where the encampment lay, and all eyes watch his descent. The
people gather round him, eager and curious. He recounts 'all the
judgments,' the series of laws, which had been lodged in his mind by
God, and is answered by the many-voiced shout of too swiftly promised
obedience. Glance over the preceding chapters, and you will see how
much was covered by 'all that the Lord hath spoken.' Remember that
every lip which united in that lightly made vow drew its last breath in
the wilderness, because of disobedience, and the burst of homage
becomes a sad witness to human weakness and changefulness. The glory of
God flashed above them on the barren granite, the awful voice had
scarcely died into desert silence, nerves still tingled with
excitement, and wills were bowed before Jehovah, manifestly so near.
For a moment, the people were ennobled, and obedience seemed easy. They
little knew what they were saying in that brief spasm of devotion. It
was high-water then, but the tide soon turned, and all the ooze and
ugliness, covered now, lay bare and rotting. 'Better is it that thou
shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.' We may
take the lesson to ourselves, and see to it that emotion consolidates
into strenuous persistency, and does not die in the very excitement of
the vow.
The pledge of obedience was needed before the Covenant could be made,
and, as we shall find, was reiterated in the very centre of the
ceremonial ratification. For the present, it warranted Moses in
preparing for the morrow's ritual. His first step was to prepare a
written copy of the laws to which the people had sworn. Here we come
across an old, silenced battery from which a heavy fire used to be
directed against the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. Alphabetic
writing was of a later date. There could not have been a written code.
The statement was a mere attempt of a later age to claim antiquity for
comparatively modern legislation. It was no more historical than
similar traditions in other countries, Sibylline books, etc. All that
is out of court now. Perhaps some other guns will be spiked in due
time, that make a great noise just at present. Then comes the erection
of a rude altar, surrounded by twelve standing stones, just as on the
east of Jordan we may yet see dolmens and menhirs. The altar represents
the divine presence; and the encircling stones, Israel gathered around
its God. The group is a memorial and a witness to the people,--and a
witness against them, if disobedient. Thus two permanent records were
prepared, the book and the monument. The one which seemed the more
lasting has perished; the more fragile has endured, and will last to
the world's end.
II. Note the rite of ratification of the covenant. The ceremonial is
complex and significant. We need not stay on the mere picture,
impressive and, to our eyes, strange as it is, but rather seek to bring
out the meaning of these smoking offerings, and that blood flung on the
altar and on the crowd. First came two sorts of sacrifices, offered not
by priests, but by selected young men, probably one for each tribe,
whose employment in sacrificial functions shows the priestly character
of the whole nation, according to the great words of Exodus xix. 6.
Burnt-offerings and peace-offerings differed mainly in the use made of
the sacrifice, which was wholly consumed by fire in the former, while
it was in part eaten by the offerer in the latter. The one symbolised
entire consecration; the other, communion with God on the basis of
sacrifice. The sin-offering does not appear here, as being of later
origin, and the product of the law, which deepened the consciousness of
transgression. But these sacrifices, at the threshold of the covenant,
receive an expiatory character by the use made of the blood, and
witness to the separation between God and man, which renders amity and
covenant friendship impossible, without a sacrifice.
They must have yielded much blood. It is divided into two parts,
corresponding to the two parties to the covenant, like the cloven
animals in Abraham's covenant. One half is 'sprinkled' on the altar,
or, as the word means, 'swung,'--which suggests a larger quantity and a
more vehement action than 'sprinkling' does. That drenching of the
altar with gore is either a piece of barbarism or a solemn symbol of
the central fact of Christianity no less than of Judaism, and a token
that the only footing on which man can be received into fellowship with
God is through the offering of a pure life, instead of the sinner,
which, accepted by God, covers or expiates sin. There can be no
question that the idea of expiation is at the very foundation of the
Old Testament ritual. It is fashionable to regard the expiatory element
of Christianity as 'Hebrew old clothes,' but the fact is the other way
about. It is not that Christianity has not been able to rid itself of a
rude and false conception, but that 'Judaism' had its sacrifices
appointed by God, in order to prepare the way for the true offering,
which takes away sin.
The expiation by blood having been thus made, the hindrances to the
nation's entering into covenant are removed. Therefore follows in
logical order the next step, their formal (alas! how purely formal it
proved to be) taking on themselves its obligations. The freshly written
'book' is produced, and read there, to the silent people, before the
bloody altar, beneath the peak of Sinai. Again the chorus of assent
from a thousand throats echoes among the rocks. They accept the
conditions. They had done so last night; but this is the actual
contract on their part, and its place in the whole order of the
ceremony is significant. It follows expiation, without which man cannot
enter into friendship with God, without the acceptance of which man
will not yield himself in obedience. The vows which God approves are
those of men whose sins are covered.
The final step was the sprinkling of the people with the blood. The
division of the blood into two portions signifies that it had an office
in regard to each party to the covenant. If it had been possible to
pour it all on the altar, and then all on the people, that would have
been done. The separation into two portions was inevitable; but in
reality it is the same blood which, sprinkled on the altar, expiates,
and on the worshipper, consecrates, cleanses, unites to God, and brings
into covenant with Him. Hence Moses accompanies the sprinkling of the
people with the explanation, 'This is the blood of the covenant, which
the Lord hath made with you, upon all these conditions' (Rev. Ver.
margin). It ratifies the compact on both sides. God 'hath made' it, in
accepting the sprinkled blood; they have made it, in being sprinkled
therewith. But while the rite sets forth the great gospel truth of
expiation, the Covenant moves within the region of law. It is made 'on
the basis of all these words,' and is voidable by disobedience. It is
the _Magna Charta_ of the nation, and its summing up is 'this do, and
thou shalt live.' Its promises are mainly of outward guardianship and
national blessings. And these are suspended by it, as they were in fact
contingent, on the national observance of the national vow. The general
idea of a covenant is that of a compact between two parties, each of
whom comes under obligations contingent on the other's discharge of
his. Theologians have raised the question whether God's covenant is of
this kind. Surely it is. His promises to Israel had an 'if,' and the
fulfilment of the conditions necessarily secured the accomplishment of
the promises. The ritual of the first covenant transcends the strictly
retributive compact which it ratified, and shadows a gospel beyond law,
even the new covenant which brings better gifts, and does not turn on
'do,' but simply on the sprinkling with the blood of Jesus. The words
of Moses were widened to carry a blessing beyond his thoughts, which
was disclosed when, in an upper chamber, a dying man said to the twelve
representatives of the true Israel, 'This is the new covenant in My
blood, drink ye all of it.' The blood which Moses sprinkled gave ritual
cleansing, but it remained outside the man. The blood of Jesus gives
true purification, and passes into our veins to become our life. The
covenant by Moses was 'do and live'; that in Christ is 'believe and
live.' Moses brought commandments, and on them his covenant was built;
Christ brings gifts, and His covenant is all promises, which are ours
on the simple condition of taking them.
III. Note the vision and feast on the basis of the covenant. The little
company that climbed the mountain, venturing within the fence,
represented the whole people. Aaron and his sons were the destined
priests. The elders were probably seventy, because that number is the
product of the two perfect numbers, and perhaps with allusion to the
seventy souls who went down into Egypt with Jacob. It is emphatically
said that they saw 'the God of Israel,' for that day's covenant had
made him so in a new closeness of relationship. In token of that new
access to and possession in Him, which was henceforth to be the
prerogative of the obedient people, some manifestation of His immediate
presence was poured on their astonished eyes. It is needless to inquire
its nature, or to ask how such a statement is consistent with the
spirituality of the divine nature, or with what this same book of
Exodus says, 'There shall no man see Me, and live.' The plain intention
is to assert that there was a visible manifestation of the divine
presence, but no attempt is made to describe it. Our eyes are stayed at
the pavement beneath His feet, which was blue as sapphire, and bright
as the cloudless sky gleaming above Sinai. It is enough to learn that
'the secret of the Lord is with them' to whom He shows 'His covenant';
that, by the power of sacrifice, a true vision of God may be ours,
which is 'in a mirror, darkly,' indeed, but yet is real and all
sufficing. Before the covenant was made, Israel had been warned to keep
afar lest He should break through on them, but now 'He laid not His
hand' upon them; for only blessing can stream from His presence now,
and His hand does not crush, but uphold.
Nor is this all which we learn of the intercourse with God which is
possible on the ground of His covenant. They 'did eat and drink.' That
may suggest that the common enjoyments of the natural life are in no
way inconsistent with the vision of God; but more probably it is meant
to teach a deeper lesson. We have remarked that the ritual of the
peace-offering included a feast on the sacrifice 'before the Lord,' by
which was signified communion with Him, as at His table, and this meal
has the same meaning. They who stand in covenant relations with God,
feed and feast on a sacrifice, and thereby hold fellowship with Him,
since He too has accepted the sacrifice which nourishes them. So that
strange banquet on Sinai taught a fact which is ever true, prophesied
the deepest joys of Christian experience, which are realised in the
soul that eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ, the Mediator
of the new covenant, and dimly shadowed the yet future festival, when,
cleansed and consecrated by His blood, they who have made a covenant
with Him by His sacrifice, shall be gathered unto Him in the heavenly
mount, where He makes a 'feast of fat things and wines on the lees well
refined,' and there shall sit, for ever beholding His glory, and
satisfied with the provisions of His house.