Who Is the Lord?

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This is the second sermon in a series of messages regarding the subject of sanctification. This message focuses on the character of God as revealed through the Mosaic Covenant. Most of the ideas expressed in this sermon are adapted from the writings of Dr. John N. Oswalt in his book, Called to Be Holy.

Written Excerpts:

Exodus 5:2 (NKJV) And Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, nor will I let Israel go."

Introduction:

I stated last Sunday that we were going to be doing a study on sanctification for several weeks.

Last week we chose the topic, “God’s very own possession” as our emphasis for the first sermon in the series. We tried to present the truth that is emphasized in 1 Peter 2:9, which indicates that God not only chose us before we ever cared anything about Him, but He chose us to be in an exclusive relationship with Him – a relationship that does not tolerate any competition, a relationship that is characterized as a holy relationship.

The next theme we want to explore in this progression of revelation is the question, “What kind of God is this One who chose us and wants an exclusive relationship with us?”

The verse that I read a moment ago, quoting the words of Pharaoh, makes a good beginning point for our discussion today. You might recognize the context of this verse – it was the occasion when Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him that the God of the Hebrews was calling His people to go out into the wilderness to hold a feast to the Lord.

Pharaoh responds to them by asking, “Who is the Lord?” He had no prior knowledge of God, and he wasn’t about to obey just because Moses said so. This question posed by Pharaoh expresses the same question that was present in the minds of the Hebrews themselves, and it is the same question that plagues most people – even until the present day. “Who is God?” “What is He like?”

I mentioned last week that I would be using a good bit of material from OT scholar and author, Dr. John Oswalt. Dr. Oswalt shares that when God chooses to reveal His own character, His intentions for His people, as well as the nature of the people whom He has called, He uses a commonly used mechanism called a covenant.

In the OT and even in the pagan world of the ancient Near East, the covenant was a “solemn agreement between two parties. Each one accepted certain obligations to the other and in return received certain benefits from the other.”

The people who had been chosen by God had been surrounded by and immersed in a pagan religion that was utterly wrong on every important point. (i.e., the nature of God [the gods], the origin and purpose of the world, the origin and purpose of humanity, etc., etc.)

If God was going to succeed in teaching His chosen people the truth about Himself, He would need to go outside of the well-known religious forms and use something that the people would still be familiar with but would be separated from the religious corruption and misconceptions that existed.

The covenant was ideal for this purpose. It was primarily legal rather than religious in nature, but it would serve as a vehicle to teach important truths about this God who had called them to be exclusively His.

For example, the ancient covenants contained several aspects that closely corresponded with the truths the people needed to understand about God.

·     The concept of monotheism over polytheism could be easily explained through the common knowledge that any emperor who entered into covenant demanded that the subjects recognize no other king than himself.

·     A covenant between a great king and the people began with a brief historical prologue that reviewed the historical circumstances that led up to the covenant. This feature aligned with the history of the patriarchs and God’s involvement with them. (I am the God who brought you up out of Egypt…)

·     After the stipulations had been enumerated and other details finished, there commonly were a list of gods called upon to witness the agreement, but in Israel’s case this was substituted by the erection of stone pillars or memorials as a witness and to remind the people of the covenant.

·     In an ancient covenant the bulk of the content had to do with the stipulations the people agreed to follow, but there was also a designated part where the king made promises or commitments to do certain things for the people. This also was parallel to the fact that the Creator God was obligating Himself to His people – something that was totally unheard of in those times.

·     Finally, the additional benefit of a covenant was the part where the king could stipulate absolute ethics, (i.e. require certain kinds of behavior and prohibit other behavior) as long as they were in covenant with him. (This would be totally impossible in a polytheistic “world” because the gods have too many competing desires.) But, since God is the only God, then He can require ethical behavior from his subjects. (Ten Commandments)

We read in the OT that God entered into a covenant with various individuals such as Abraham. We also learn that God entered into a covenant with a nation of people – Israel. Moses is the primary figure in the formation of this covenant, but the nation of Israel is involved.

So with the Lord’s help today I want to share with you some of the truths that God taught His people about Himself through the use of the covenant that was instituted at Sinai and the giving of the commandments.

I.   The covenant teaches us that God is holy.

A.  Holiness means “otherness.”

The term “holy” was used among the pagans and for them it primarily distinguished anything that pertained to the gods from everything else that did not pertain to the gods. In this sense, the word did not imply any moral behavior because the gods had no higher morals and ethics than humans did.

However, in the establishment of the covenant, God begins to show the people that He is the only One that the term may be justly used.

Unlike the pagans who believed that the gods were part of the creation (world order, cosmos), the Hebrews were to understand that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was wholly other than this world; completely separate from this created order and in control of it.

And God demonstrated this fact by completely over-ruling virtually all of the Egyptian gods in the plagues that He sent upon the land. Each and every plague was an affront to a particular god that was worshiped by the Egyptians. While those gods were not holy (other than the created world), the God of the Hebrews was, as demonstrated before their very eyes in Egypt.

This is the point of the 2^nd commandment re: graven/ crafted images. God cannot be represented by anything of this world, because He is completely and wholly separate and above this world order. Cf. the same emphasis in the prophets (Is. & Jer.): a piece of wood that is used to cook your meal and also carved to make an idol cannot rightly be called “holy.”

The tragedy of the golden calf incident was the people created an idol out of “this world” material and claimed it represented the God that is totally and completely apart from this world.

B.  Holiness means ethical righteousness.

God’s ethical character is revealed in the parts of the covenant that are contained from Exodus 19-Numbers 10, and Dr. Oswalt summarizes the content as pertaining to “Exodus, Covenant, Tabernacle, Sacrifices and Priesthood.

After defining the divisions, Dr. Oswalt asks, “What is the significance of this organization?” [i.e. record of Exodus followed by, covenant, then sacrifices and priesthood.] “First of all, it tells us that the reason God gave the people the covenant was so that he might live in their midst.”

By His grace and grace alone he delivered them from slavery in Egypt, but now there must be some way for God to live among the people he has delivered. The author argues that the sacrificial system is not designed for those who want to enter into a relationship with God or those who intentionally sin and then later repent. Instead, it is for those who are already in a relationship with God and are committed to living a life like his.

But this relationship is not possible without a continuous atonement. “Without it, the purity of his perfection would melt us as the noonday sun melts butter.” The covenant was not the “way to God; it was the means of walking with God.” “Holy living is the intended consequence of gracious salvation.”

By living according to the stipulations of the covenant the people will learn that their God is not at all like the gods of the pagans. They must treat one another with love and honesty and faithfulness because that is what He is like. Those who belong to God must act in these ways because that is the kind of God he is.

To live in defiance of these stipulations while insisting that one is forgiven is to do the very thing which the Hebrews did and it eventually brought destruction.

II.  The covenant teaches us that God is gracious.

The covenant further reveals the holiness of God by showing the grace of God. As I stated earlier, God entered into covenants with specific individuals before He entered into covenant with Israel. Noah was chosen; Abraham was chosen; Isaac was chosen; & Jacob (Israel) was chosen.

None of these did anything to merit or earn the favor of God. He chose them and bound Himself to them without any initiation on their part.

At the burning bush incident God reveals Himself to Moses by saying three things about His character.

A. He identifies Himself as One who made gracious promises and undeserved blessings to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

B. He reveals that He is sensitive to the suffering of His people.

C. He announces that He intends to deliver His people through Moses in spite of their fear and unbelief in order to fulfill the promises He made to the patriarchs.

III.  The covenant teaches us that God is faithful.

The covenant emphasizes over and over that God is choosing them because of His promises to their fathers. God makes promises to them of His ongoing faithfulness to them even in times of apostasy and departure from His covenant.

The covenant was sealed with serious oaths where both parties “called down death upon themselves” if they should ever break it. (This was typical language used in any covenant between two parties.) Then a short time later the people of Israel violated the covenant.

God was entirely just in threatening to destroy them, but Moses, “reminds” God of his own nature and unfailing promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses knows that God is not that sort of God. Moses knows that God is the kind of God that shows love to a thousand generations who love him and keep his commandments.

The word for “love” is the Hebrew word “hesed” for which there is no one English word that captures the full meaning. The word connotes the earnest, undeserved, and unexpected generosity of one who does not have to give it. (loving kindness)

Oswalt – “When we ask the Israelite people what their God is like, they do not, as some Christians would expect, speak of him as a God of wrath. Instead they tell us of a God of incredible patience, who extends undeserved generosity to thousands of those who love him and keep his commandments. It is as though they say to us, “It is not surprising that God got angry at us. We broke our covenant, the one in which we called down death on ourselves a thousand times. What is surprising is that God would not give up on us. He continued to hold us, to believe in us, to hope for us, it invite us to start over again. He kept his side of the covenant when there was no earthly reason whatsoever to do so.”

“So the covenant, which revealed the holy character of God, revealed that his otherness was not merely in grace, nor in ethical uprightness, but also in undeserved and unexpected faithfulness."

Conclusion:

There is at least one more truth that was revealed to the Israelites through the use of the covenant, and we will get into that in our next sermon.

I just would like to summarize our emphasis today by saying that God graciously chose specific individuals, and eventually an entire nation, with whom He would enter into a binding covenant.

The use of the covenant answers the question posed by Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord?”

We have learned that He is wholly and completely separate from the world that He created and He stands apart from any other being.

We have learned that He is sovereign and has the rightful authority to stipulate how humans who want to live in covenant with Him should conduct their lives in order to exhibit His own character.

We have learned that the covenant exhibits His grace and His faithfulness. The Israelites did not deserve His offer or His choosing of them. He rescued them and delivered them purely by His grace and His faithfulness to the promises made to their forefathers.

We learned that the covenant was not a mechanism for entering into a relationship with God, but it was for those who were already in a relationship by the grace of God and needed to know how to demonstrate that they belonged to the Lord.

This same God still desires to have relationships with whosoever will today. He will save us and deliver us from sin, then give us the presence of His Spirit to enable us to live up to His character.

Let us close the service by singing:

# 552 – I Am Thine, O Lord

Do you know that you belong to the Lord?

Have you been forgiven of your sins and transgressions, and have you been living in covenant with Him in a way that exhibits God’s character to the world around you?

If not, you certainly can. God is constantly inviting everyone to know Him and bind themselves to Him in a commitment of love and service.