EXODUS 22 TO 24
From chapter 21: 14 we have various “judgments” which show that the ways and government of God are retributive, and that there is no evading responsibility [p. 137] which rightly attaches. Then God would have a beautiful spirit of grace and compassion to characterize His people. They are not to vex nor oppress a stranger, nor to afflict any widow or fatherless child (22: 21, 22). No interest is to be charged on money if lent to a poor brother (verse 25). A neighbour’s pledged garment is not to be kept overnight, “for I am gracious” (verses 26, 27). The character of God is to be reproduced in His people.
Then what is due to God must be rendered without delay. “Thou shalt not delay the fulness of thy threshing floor and the outflow of thy winepress”, etc. (verses 29, 30). This is the secret of prosperity and blessing. “Honour Jehovah with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase; so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy vats shall overflow with new wine” (Proverbs 3: 9, 10). “Bring the whole tithe into the treasure-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I open not to you the windows of the heavens, and pour you out a blessing, till there be no place for it” (Malachi 3: 10).
“Thou shalt not accept a false report” (23: 1) is to be noted. It puts on the hearer the responsibility of knowing that a report is true before he accepts it. People often listen to things, and pass them on to others, without making sure that they are true. We are too ready to listen and to become tale-bearers, but we are responsible to make sure that what we hear is true.
There is also to be a readiness to do a kindly action to an enemy (verses 4, 5); such an action in the spirit of grace is very likely to turn him into a friend.
The same spirit of grace comes out in connection [p. 138] with the sabbatical year and the Sabbath. Both are brought in here as expressive of gracious consideration for the poor, and even for the beasts, the ox and the ass, etc. “Six years thou shalt sow thy land, and gather in its produce; but in the seventh thou shalt let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of thy people may eat of it; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat” (23: 10, 11). The rest of the weekly Sabbath was “that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger may be refreshed” (verse 12). God would have in His people the spirit of kindly consideration for the poor, for servants, and even for beasts. We must not lose sight of this. It is an individual exercise preparatory to that which has a collective bearing — the feasts of Jehovah.
The feasts refer to what is collective, for all had to come together. It is a pleasure to God that His people should be together; we cannot be truly festive alone. And all the exercises of our individual pathway are in view of what we are privileged to take up together. There were three occasions on which all the males were to appear in the presence of the Lord Jehovah. The people of God viewed as those marked by strength and intelligence have to keep the feasts. “The feast of unleavened bread” speaks of the setting aside of all that is unholy and untrue, all that would inflate man and be unsuitable to God. Then “the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours which thou hast sown in the field”, is indicative of the new order of things which has sprung up from what was sown in the death of Christ. There was a wonderful sowing in His death, but the One who sowed has come again with rejoicing bearing His sheaves. Then “the feast of ingathering,
[p. 139] at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field”, looks on to the full result, when every divine thought and purpose will be gathered in under the Headship of Christ. We anticipate that, as seeing it all secured in Him; every divine thought harvested and garnered in the risen and glorified Man — the Head.
There is a moral order in the three feasts. The feast of unleavened bread necessarily comes first. It is typical of the setting aside of all that in which God could have no pleasure; whether it be the leaven of the Pharisees — religious leaven, or that of the Sadducees — intellectual leaven, or the old leaven, or the leaven of malice and wickedness. Everything that is of the flesh, and that ministers to the self-importance of man in the flesh, has to be got rid of that Christ may have His place. As the saints have Christ before them, and give place to Him, they are marked by “sincerity and truth”. They have Another Man in view, apart from whom there would be no “harvest”, and without whom they would appear in God’s presence “empty”. But as enriched in Christ there is an abundant “harvest”, and the saints appear in God’s presence filled with thanksgivings and praise.
As we keep the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of harvest, we are prepared to be led into the fulness of all that God has in His heart for His people. So that the feast of ingathering follows, and at the end of the chapter the inheritance in all its extent “from the wilderness unto the river” is set before us. If the hearts of saints are encouraged and united together in love, there is nothing to hinder them from entering into “all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the full knowledge of the mystery of God; in which [p. 140] are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge” (Colossians 2: 2, 3). In company with our brethren, and in taking up our relations with them in joy before God — that is, in festive character — we get great enlargement in relation to His things. Where brethren dwell together in unity the blessing is commanded.
In chapter 24 we get the ratification of the covenant. God had laid down the terms on which He proposed to go on with His people, and according to which His people could go on with Him. Now those terms were to be ratified in the most solemn way. Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders go up to Jehovah. But they worship “afar off”. Moses, the mediator, is alone allowed to come near.
“And Moses came and told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that Jehovah has said will we do”. They undertook to keep the covenant, and Moses wrote all the words of Jehovah, so that there was a “book of the covenant” — what Hebrews 9 calls “the book itself”. It contained the definite terms in writing according to which covenant relations would be established.
But the Mediator was in the intelligence of God’s mind. We have seen that after uttering the ten commandments in chapter 20 Jehovah immediately turned to speak of the altar and the burnt-offering. His thought was to be with His people, not on the ground of the obedience of man in the flesh, but on the ground of Christ and of the fact that He had been glorified in the death of that Blessed One. And here we find that the first thing the Mediator does after writing the words is to build “an altar under the [p. 141] mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel”. He identified the whole of the people of God with the altar which spoke of sacrifice.
It is remarkable that before ever the covenant was signed, if we may so say, Israel was thus put typically on wholly different ground by the Mediator. God would be glorified in death as to all the breakdown under the first covenant, and His people identified with the Person and work that glorified Him. In the public ways of God the people were being sanctified to their own obedience under law, but the whole action of Moses was clearly typical of another sanctification of an entirely different character.
In the mind of God the blessing of His people would be secured in the value and savour of the burnt-offering, and by the introduction on their side, by His own gracious work, of an entirely new race, totally different morally from man in the flesh. This is intimated in the fact that “the youths of the children of Israel ... offered up burnt-offerings and sacrificed sacrifices of peace-offering of bullocks to Jehovah”. This is in contrast to “the elders of Israel” in verse 1, and it suggests a new generation. It is a thought frequently presented in Scripture. “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy sons” (Psalm 45: 16); instead of fathers that utterly failed under the law, being in the flesh, there will be children who will know God in forgiving grace, and will come under divine teaching, and have the law written in their hearts. They will be engaged before God with Christ in burnt-offering and peace-offering character. This will be the new generation of Psalm 22: 31. “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”. Another remarkable scripture says,
“[p. 142] From the womb of the morning shall come to thee the dew of thy youth” (margin, i.e., young men) (Psalm 110: 3). A wonderful morning is going to dawn, and that morning will give birth to a new generation for the pleasure of God. They will come in on the ground, not of obedience rendered by a people in the flesh, but of the death of One who thus set aside the man of failure, and brought things in according to God’s pleasure. The death of Christ maintains every holy requirement of God, for He died to make manifest that there could be no discharge from the penalty of a broken law save by that penalty being borne to the full. The new generation will learn “that he hath done it”, and they will rejoice in what He has done, and bring the sweet savour of it to God in their offerings.
But Peter tells us of a morning that has already dawned — the morning of resurrection — and how it has brought forth a new generation. He tells us that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ “has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead”. And he speaks of those who are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1: 3, 23). And it is of such that he says that they are “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (verse 2). This is a direct allusion to the very scripture that is before us in Exodus 24. A generation born of incorruptible seed are “children of obedience”, and are set apart to obey as Christ obeyed, and to be with God in all the value of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Their sins and iniquities are remembered no more.
[p. 143] The witness of death is everywhere in this chapter. It is on the altar, and on the people, and, the New Testament tells us, on the book also. It spoke typically to God on the altar of His Name glorified and His will established. It spoke to the consciences of the people as sprinkled on them of “death having taken place for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9: 15). And as sprinkled on the book it intimates typically that every claim of the first covenant has been ratified and vindicated by its full penalty being borne. There has been a removal in death of the man who would not and could not keep the law.
The veil of self-sufficiency was on the heart of the people when they said, “All the words that Jehovah has said will we do”. Hence they did not see Christ as the end of all this typical teaching, but we can see plainly that Christ was in the mind of God all the time. It will be a wonderful day for Israel when they read such a scripture as this with the veil taken away from their hearts. Then they will see in it something of what we see, through infinite grace, now.
The New Testament adds some details of deep interest; that there was also “water and scarlet wool and hyssop” (Hebrews 9: 19). The water speaks of Christ’s death in its power to cleanse morally; it speaks of moral purification. Israel will yet learn the import of the water as well as the blood; “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols will I cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you” (Ezekiel 36: 25, 26). The scarlet wool was a witness of what the people really were in spite of all their professions of [p. 144] obedience; they were deeply dyed in sin. There may be also a figure in it of their pride and vainglory, all of which had to come under death. And the hyssop speaks of that lowly self-judgment — that humility and contrition of heart — to which God could draw near in blessing. The whole scene looks on to the establishment of new covenant conditions. Those were the conditions ever present to the mind of God, and cherished in His heart, even while formally and publicly inaugurating a dispensation of law which tested man in the flesh, and proved him to be what he was — an utter moral ruin.
It was on the ground of these striking typical representations of Christ and His death that “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up; and they saw the God of Israel”. It seems to speak of that blessed day when “they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31: 34).
The “feet” of the God of Israel are spoken of, and “his hand”. His feet would, I think, clearly suggest His movements in grace — His coming out to men to make Himself known. Under His feet is seen “as it were work of transparent sapphire, and as it were the form (or body) of heaven for clearness”. Scripture seems to connect sapphire with divine glory shining out in a Man. “The likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it” (Ezekiel 1: 26). The work of transparent sapphire under the feet of the God of Israel would speak, I think, of a path in which divine glory was revealed in a Man. We see this work of transparent sapphire in the Gospels. It is there we see the feet of [p. 145] the God of Israel — every one of His steps speaking of infinite grace as He moved on in a path where all brought to view the divine glory in a Man. As we look at Him we see the very “body of heaven” — the very substance of heaven was there. He came down from heaven, He was ever in heaven, and He brought the light of all that was heavenly here. The vision of Exodus 24 was anticipative of what would be seen of men when God became manifest in flesh! How wonderful to see it, and yet to remain in human life here! “They saw God, and ate and drank”. The anticipation falls short of what we see in the Gospels, for there we see the God of Israel, not only allowing men to eat and drink in His presence, but eating and drinking with them! He ate and drank with disciples, with publicans, with Pharisees, with sinners! Yes, it was Jehovah — the God of Israel — who did so! And not only was this so in the days of His flesh, but Peter could speak of “us, who have eaten and drunk with him after he arose from among the dead” (Acts 10: 41).
“On the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand”. Men were near to Him, and He laid not His hand in judgment on them! Blessed grace, indeed, but we have seen surpassing grace! We have seen Him lay His hand on a leper and cleanse him, on a fevered woman and heal her, on a long-bound woman and loose her from her infirmity, on a dead maiden and bring her to life, on the bier of the widow’s son and raise him, and how many others! That is the God of Israel. How blessed to be in new covenant conditions, and to be able to see His glory without a veil! He says of Israel, “They shall all know me”. They will know their God when they see Him in Jesus, and see the wondrous movements of His feet and His hands [p. 146] as they are portrayed in the Gospels. He will one day show them His hands and His feet, and they will recognize adoringly that those hands and feet not only moved in the unwearied ministry of grace through a world of need and woe, but that they were nailed to the cross when He was wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities. They will then see the God of Israel. In the meantime we see Him, and can sing of
“Our God whom we have known,
Well known in Jesus’ love”. (72:1)
We see here a beautiful and touching anticipation of the revelation of God, and of the fact that He would have men to be peacefully at rest in His presence. Indeed He
“Rests in the blessing of His own,
Before Himself above”. (72:1)
God has come out to make Himself known in the glory of grace, and a reconciled universe is the answer to that revelation, and of this the tabernacle is a type. We see there a figurative representation of things in the heavens, and a wondrous picture of the vast scene of God’s accomplished glory in Christ. The way that God has revealed Himself, and the perfect answer to the glory of God as revealed in Jesus, is seen figuratively in the tabernacle.