_THE MEDIATORSHIP OF MOSES_
DEUT. v. 22-33
After the ten commandments, Deuteronomy, like Exodus, next indicates
that for all of legislation, exhortation, and advice that follows,
Moses was to be the mediator between God and the people. He is
represented as Yahweh's prophet or speaker in all that succeeds; the
Decalogue alone is set forth as the direct Divine command. Evidently
a great distinction is here notified, and what it exactly was may
be best explained by reference to the history of Roman law. In the
earliest times that consisted of _Fas_, _Jus_, and _Jus moribus
constitutum_. In Chapter IV. Professor Muirhead's description of fas
has been given at length, so that we need not repeat it here. The
point to remember is that it consisted of universal precepts such
as the Decalogue contains, given direct by God. _Jus_ again was,
according to Breal, the Divine will declared by human agency, and it
occupied much the position which law does in civilised states now.
Finally, _jus moribus constitutum_, or _boni mores_, was customary
law, which had a twofold function. "It was (1) a restraint upon
the law, condemning, though it could not prevent, the ruthless and
unnecessary exercise of legal right. (2) It was a supplement to
law (_jus_), requiring things law did not, _e.g._ dutiful service,
respect and obedience, chastity, fidelity to engagements, etc." Now
it is a striking fact that, though there can be no question of
imitation here, the legislation of Deuteronomy falls naturally into
these very divisions; and that fact of itself gives strong support
to the belief that here in Israel, as there in Rome, we have the
recorded facts of the earliest efforts at the regulation of national
life. The _fas_, then, corresponds to the Decalogue. The _jus_ runs
exactly parallel with the laws in the strict sense of the term,
those which Moses received from Yahweh and afterwards promulgated.
Lastly, the _boni mores_ are represented in Deuteronomy by those
beautiful precepts which limited the exercise of legal right, and,
going far beyond law, demanded of Israel that they should make good
their claim to be Yahweh's people by justice, charity, and purity.
To some it may seem that we do no service to Scripture by insisting
upon such a parallel. They will feel as if thereby the unique
character of the religion of Israel as a revealed religion were
obscured, if not obliterated. But nothing can be imagined which
could confirm us in belief of the substantial accuracy of what we
find narrated of early times in Scripture, more than the discovery
that, without any possibility of collusion, the earliest records
of civilisation elsewhere give us precisely the same account of
the forms in which law first makes its appearance. Surely we
ought now to have learned this lesson at least, that it is no
disparagement to a Divinely given system of law and religion, that
its growth and development run in the same channels as the growth
and development of similar systems which have none of the marks of
a Divine origin. Revelation always seizes upon mind as it is, and
makes that a sufficient and effective channel for itself. However it
is to be explained, it is true that Divine action generally seeks
to hide itself in the ordinary course of human things as quickly
as possible. It is only at the moment of contact, or at the moment
when it has burst forth in some flower of more than earthly grace
and loveliness, or when it has overturned and overturned until that
state of things which has a right to endure has been attained, that
the Divine force reveals itself. For the most part it sinks into the
general sum of forces that are making for the progress of humanity,
and clothes itself gladly in the uniform of other beneficent but
natural influences. Consequently it ought to be a welcome fact that
so close a parallel exists between the origins of Roman law and
the origins of Hebrew law. The one great gain already mentioned,
that it explains the early appearance of the Decalogue, and shows
that some such laws would naturally be among the primary laws of
Israel, would be sufficient to justify that view; while in addition
the distinctions from the early laws of Rome help us to classify in
clear broad masses the somewhat disordered series of Deuteronomic
laws.
On one point only does the parallel seem questionable. If we
followed it alone as our guide, we should have to set down the
mediatorship of Moses, as a mere part of the method, as belonging
to the formal side only of the great revelation. In other words, we
should have to ask whether the statement we have in Deut. v. 22-30
is only an emotional and pictorial way of setting forth the fact
that, following and supplementing the elementary and Divinely given
Hebrew _fas_, there was also a Divinely given but humanly mediated
_jus_. But clearly it means much more than that. By the earlier
prophets, and generally in all earlier delineations of him, Moses
is regarded as a prophet who had more direct and continuous access
to the Divine presence than any other prophet of Israel. Moreover
he had always been represented from the earliest times as standing
between Yahweh and His people, holding on to the one and refusing
to let the other go. In the great scene, taken from the earliest
constituents of the Pentateuch and narrated in Exod. xxxii., we see
him anticipating by centuries the wonderful picture of the Servant
of God in Isa. liii., and by a still more amazing stretch of time,
that Divinest wish of St. Paul, that he himself might be accursed
even from Christ for his brethren's sake. He thus stood between
Yahweh and His people both as the organ of Revelation and as the
self-forgetting intercessor, who suffered for sins not his own, as
well as for sins which his connection with his nation had brought
upon him; who, instead of repining, was willing to be blotted out of
God's book if that could benefit his people.
This representation of Moses is not accidental. It is in complete
accord with a characteristic of Israelite literature from beginning
to end. In the earliest historical records we find that the chief
heroes of the nation are mediators, standing for God in the face of
evil men, and pleading with God for men when they are broken and
penitent, or even when they are only terrified and restrained by
the terror of the Lord. At the beginning of the national history
we see the noble figure of Abraham in an agony of supplication and
entreaty before God on behalf of the cities of the plain. At the
end of it, we see the Christ, the supreme "mediator between God and
man," pouring out His soul unto death for men "while they were yet
sinners," dying, the just for the unjust, taking upon Himself the
responsibility for the sin of man, and refusing to let him wander
away into permanent separation from God. And all between is in
accord with this. For it is not Moses only who is regarded as having
a mediatorial office. The very people itself is set, by the promise
given to Abraham, in the same position. As early at least as the
eighth century it was put before Israel, that their calling was not
for their own sakes only, but that in them all nations of the earth
might be blessed. And at their highest moments the prophets and
teachers of Israel always recognised this as their nation's part.
Even when they were being scattered among the heathen, it was that
they might be the means of bringing the knowledge of Yahweh to the
nations. From end to end of Scripture, therefore, this conception
is wrought into the very fibre of its utterances. It is of the
essence of the Biblical conception of God that He should work among
men by mediators. In no other way could the primary Divine message
be set forth than by the prophetic voice; in no other way than by
the intercession and the suffering of those most in harmony with
the Divine will could any effective hold upon God be given to His
people. Only by those who thus proved that they had seen Yahweh
could His character be expressed. Further, it was in this way that
Moses and the prophets, the rulers and the saints of Israel, were
types of Christ. They were not mere puppets set forth in certain
crises of Israel's history to go through a certain career, live a
certain life, and pass into and out of a number of scenes, in order
that they might afford us, upon whom the end of the world has come,
pictorial proofs that all things in this history were pressing
towards and converging upon Christ. That would be a very artificial
way of conceiving the matter. No, each of these types was a real
man, with real tasks of his own to accomplish in the world. Not
only were they all real men, they were the leading men of their
various times. They bore the burden of their day more than others;
they were the special organs of Divine power and grace; and their
lives were spent in giving impulse and direction to the movements of
their people's life towards the strange, unlooked-for consummation
appointed for it. They were types of Christ, they gave promise of
Him, not because of mere arbitrary appointment or selection, but
because they did in their day, in a lower degree and at an earlier
stage, the very same work that He did. Further, the whole nation
was a type of Christ in so far as it was true to its calling at all.
It was the prophet and the priest among nations. It spread abroad
the knowledge of Him, and it died at last as a nation that life
might be given to the world. Both Israel and all the men who truly
represented it were partakers in the labours and in the sufferings
of Christ beforehand, just as Christians are said to fill up the
measure of His sufferings now. The mediatorial character of Moses,
therefore, was essential. It is no merely formal thing, nor an
afterthought. He would have been no fit founder of the mediatorial
nation had he not been a mediator himself, for not otherwise could
he have helped to realise the Abrahamic promise.
But there is another subsidiary reason why a mediator was necessary
to Israel at this stage. Behind all that Moses taught his people lay
necessarily the ancient popular religion of the Hebrews. Now, except
in so far as it may have been changed in Egypt, that was in its
main features the same as the religion of the other nomadic tribes
of Semitic stock, for the Abrahamic faith was, clearly, known but
to few. But the names given to their deities by these people--such
as Baal, Adhonai, Milcom, etc.--"all expressed submission to the
irresistible power revealing itself in nature," just as "Islam,"
which means "submission," indicates that Mohammedanism is a
mere perpetuation of this view.[34] Consequently the Israelite
people were unable to conceive God save as a devouring presence,
before which no man could live. The Mosaic view was, in itself,
immeasurably higher, and, besides that, it opened up the path to
attainments then inconceivable. Moses therefore had to stand alone
in his new relation to God, while the people cowered away in
terror, dominated entirely by the lower conception. They could not
stand where he stood. They were unable to believe that power was not
Yahweh's only attribute; while Moses had had revealed to him, in
germ at least, that God was "merciful and gracious, longsuffering
and slow to anger," and that a life passed in His presence was the
ideal life for man. Both the Yahwistic narrative in Exodus and the
repetition of it in Deuteronomy give the same representation of the
events at Sinai, and indicate quite clearly that, while the old
relation to God was in itself good so far, it was to be superseded
by that higher relation in which Moses stood. That is the meaning of
the words in Deut. v. 28, 29: "And Yahweh said unto me, I have heard
the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken unto
thee; they have well said all that they have spoken. Oh that there
were such a heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My
commandments, always, that it might be well with them and with their
children for ever!" The parallel passage in Exodus is xx. 20: "And
Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you,
and that His fear may be before you, that ye sin not." In both, the
standpoint of fear is approved as relatively good and wholesome.
It was well that the people should have this awestruck fear of the
Divine, for it would act as a deterrent from sin. But it was not
sufficient. It was only the starting-point for the attainments which
Yahweh by Moses, and in Moses, was about to call and incite them to.
Moses therefore had to stand between Israel and Yahweh in this too,
that he had entered into and lived in relations with his God which
they were as yet unable either to conceive or to endure.
[34] Cf. Schultz, _Alttestamentliche Theologie_, p. 92.
It is well to add, also, that in giving approval of this kind to
fear as a religious motive these early teachers were entirely in
accord with the final development of Israelite religion in the
New Testament. The modern view that any appeal to fear in religion
or morality is degrading would have been simply unintelligible to
the Biblical writers. Even now, the whole fabric of society, the
state with its officials and the law with its penalties, are a
continual protest against it in the realm of practical morality.
In truth the conflict raised about this matter in modern times is
simply a conflict between superfine theories and facts. Now the Old
Testament is throughout supremely true to the facts of human nature
and human experience. It is practically a transcript of them as seen
in the light of revelation. In a time, therefore, when in morals
and religion physical fact is being allowed to override or pervert
psychical fact, the Old Testament view is peculiarly wholesome. It
helps to restore the balance and to keep man's thoughts sane.
Another point on which this narrative of Deuteronomy corrects and
restores that which the tendency of modern thought has perverted
is an even more important one. We have seen that the Old Testament
view, as stated here, and as it is interwoven with the central
fibres of the Old Testament conception, is that all men who are
called to the task of permanently raising the level of human life
and thought must give not only their light to, but their life
for, those whom they seek to win for God. They must ask nothing
from mankind but ever widening opportunities for service and
self-sacrifice. But in our modern day this has been precisely
reversed, and men like Goethe and Schopenhauer, and even Carlyle,
have demanded that mankind should yield service to them, and then,
by the furtherance and development they thereby attain, they
promise to work out the deliverance of men from superstition and
unreality and the bondage of ignorance. Goethe in this matter is
typical. He preached and practised in the most uncompromising manner
the doctrine of self-development. He thought that he could serve
humanity in no way so well as by making every one he met, and all
the experiences he encountered, minister to his own intellectual
growth. Instead of saying with Moses, "Blot me out of Thy book," but
spare these dim idolatrous masses, he would have said, "Let them all
perish, and let me become the origin of a wiser, more intellectual,
more self-restrained race than they." He consequently pursued his
own ends relentlessly from his early years, and attained results
so immense that almost every domain of thought, speculation, and
science is now under some debt to him. But for all purposes of
inspiring moral and spiritual enthusiasm he is practically useless.
His selfishness, however high its kind, accomplished its work and
left him cold, unapproachable, isolated. This want of love for
men made him the accurate critic of human nature, but left him
blind in great degree and hopeless altogether in regard to those
possibilities of better things which are never wholly wanting to it.
The result is that, notwithstanding his heroic powers, his influence
is to-day rather a minus quantity in the spiritual and moral life.
No one who has not warmth from other sources pouring in upon him
can have much communion with Goethe without losing vitality, and in
his presence the Divine passion of self-sacrificing love looks out
of place, or even slightly absurd. His power is fascinating, but
it freezes all the sources of the nobler spiritual emotions, and
ultimately must tend to the impoverishing of human nature and the
lowering of the level of human life. No; men are not to be reached
so if it is wished to raise them to their highest powers, and all
experience proves that the New Testament was right in summing up the
teaching of the Old by the words, "He that saveth his life shall
lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it."
"That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you;
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!"[35]
[35] Browning, "James Lee's Wife," VII.