Freedom From and Freedom For
Exodus tells the story of God giving his people freedom from something and freedom for something. Freedom from Egypt is only the first part of the story. Most of the book is about what Israel was set free for, namely, worship and service.
In our cultural moment, it’s easy for us to think about freedom only in terms of what we’re free from. We want to be free from oppression, constraint, or authority. But the Bible emphasizes what we’re free for: for worship and growth in obedience and joy and glory.
God didn’t design us to be free from all constraint, ruling our lives as our own masters. Exodus shows us that God wants his people to be free from so they can be free for, that he rescues them from their old master so they can joyfully serve a new one.
This truth is at the center of what it means to follow Jesus. The first question in the New City Catechism is, “What is our only hope in life and death?” Answer, “That we are not our own but belong to God.” Everyone in Christ belongs to Christ. It’s been said, “The freest people in the world are those who are owned by someone else.”[1]
The Endgame of Exodus
Serving the Lord is the endgame of the exodus. At the burning bush, the Lord said to Moses, “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain” (3:12). The servants of Pharaoh would become the servants of the Lord.
The first of the Ten Commands summarizes the freedom from, freedom for nature of what the Lord is doing with Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (20:2-3).
The Lord Preserves His Word So His People Can Obey
Redemption leads to obedience. The Lord set Israel free before he gave them the law, but he also set them free in order to give them the law. He freed his people so he could lead his people.
The way the Lord leads his people is through his word. So it’s no surprise that, when we come to Exodus 24, we see the Lord ensure that his word is preserved. In this chapter, Moses codifies, or writes down, the law of the Lord. Then he reads it and the people swear to do it. They understand that obedience comes after redemption.
The main point of this chapter is that the Lord preserves his word so that his people can obey. In this chapter, we’ll see Moses go down and the word go out (vv. 1-8) and Moses go up and God come down (vv. 9-18). Then I want us to see how Sinai connects to Pentecost, or that Jesus goes up and the Spirit comes down.
Moses Goes Down and the Word Goes Out
In verses 1-8, we see Moses go down the mountain and the word go out to the people. Verses 1-2 portray Mount Sinai like the tabernacle that will soon be built. There’s the holy of holies at the top where only the covenant mediator, Moses, can go. Then there’s the holy place part way up the mountain where the other leaders must stay. Then there’s the camp around the mountain where the people live.
We should note that Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s sons, are allowed to go up the mountain and experience the presence of the Lord, but it won’t be long before they disobey God’s word and are killed on the spot (Lev. 10:1-7). Even the leaders of Israel are called to obedience or they’ll be judged. Great privileges come with great responsibilities.
Ratification By Blood
In verses 3-8, there’s a pause in the movement of the narrative when Moses goes down the mountain and tells the people all that the Lord has said (v. 3). The people agree to the terms of the covenant, saying, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (v. 3).
Moses wrote down the words of the covenant so that there could be no question about what the Lord was asking from Israel (v. 4). The agreement was now in writing.
Then Moses made an altar like the one described at the end of chapter 20. He set up twelve pillars to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Both parties of the covenant are represented by physical signs, the Lord by the altar and Israel by the pillars.
Since there weren’t official priests yet, Moses sends young men to make sacrifices to the Lord (v. 5). Then he takes half the blood and puts it in basins and throws half against the altar (v. 6).
Blood was an essential element in covenant-making in the Bible. There’s blood when God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, telling him to cut the animals in half and walk in between them. And there’s blood in Genesis 17 when God tells Abraham to circumcise all the males as a sign of the covenant.
The Israelites saw a creature’s blood as it’s life-force, the thing that gave something life. Keeping a covenant sealed in blood would lead to life. Breaking it would lead to death. Covenants in the Bible, says one scholar, are “a bond in blood.”[2] Using blood in a ceremony like this meant that what has happening was a matter of life and death.
After the sacrifices were made, Moses read the Book of the Covenant (chs. 20-23) to the people (v. 7). This was to ensure that there would be no misunderstanding regarding the content of the agreement. No one was being asked to sign up before the terms were fully disclosed.
Then in verse 8 Moses sprinkles some of the blood on the people. By splashing blood on the altar and the people, Moses is binding both parties of the covenant to each other, the Lord to Israel and Israel to the Lord.[3]
You may recognize the language from verse 8, “the blood of the covenant.” Someone else uses the same language at the inauguration of another covenant. The night before he died, Jesus took a cup of wine and passed it around to his disciples, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt. 26:27-28).
Moses Goes Up and God Comes Down
In verses 1-8, Moses goes down the mountain so the word can go out to God’s people. The Lord preserves his word through Moses so his people can obey. Their freedom from Egypt is freedom for obedience to the Lord.
Then in verses 9-18, we see Moses go up the mountain and God come down onto the mountain. Verse 10 says, “they saw the God of Israel.” How does this fit with passages like 1 Timothy 6:16 that says that God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see,” or Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live”?
Old Testament scholar Jim Hamilton says we should understand these texts that say no one can see God as God using hyperbolic figures of speech to communicate his transcendence and separateness. In Numbers 12, the Lord says that he speaks with Moses “mouth to mouth…and he beholds the form of the Lord” (v. 8). This indicates a “face to face” kind of relationship, so these other passages can’t mean, “no one ever sees God.”
In Exodus 33, the Lord allows Moses to see the back side of his glory, but not his face (vv. 21-23). Hamilton summarizes all this data like this, “There are aspects of God that are too much for us, and only a privileged few can even begin to experience him.”[4]
We should also note that here in Exodus 24, the Lord invites Moses and these leaders into his presence, not to destroy them, but to commune with them. The Lord told Moses that if anyone came up the mountain uninvited, they’d die (19:21). But here it says, “And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel” (v. 11).
If sinful people enter the holy presence of God, they’re in danger. But the fact that God doesn’t lay a hand on them means that he was making a way for sinful men to be in his holy presence. By grace he allowed them to be there and enjoy his glory.
It even says in verse 11 that they “ate and drank.” There’s a pattern here: a sacrifice of an animal that ratifies a covenant and the people of God feasting in communion with the Lord. This is the covenant meal that depicts peace and joy between the covenant parties. This points us forward to the Lord’s Supper where Christians celebrate the covenant we have with Jesus. The Supper, one commentator says, is like the wedding reception after the covenant of marriage has been ratified: “The holy hour and the happy hour flow together.”[5]
A Portable Sinai
After the covenant meal, Moses is summoned up to the top of the mountain where he’ll receive the stone tablets (v. 12), or written copies of the covenant, and the instructions for building the tabernacle.
Even in this glorious moment, verse 14 says that Moses is concerned with the welfare of the people, so he leaves Aaron and Hur in charge. This reminded me of Ephesians 4, where Paul says that, when Jesus ascended to heaven, he gave gifts to the church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (vv. 7-11). Jesus, the new Moses, goes up to God but has his people’s welfare in mind. He goes away but not without providing them with leaders “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (v. 12).
Verses 15-16 say that when Moses went up, God’s presence came down. This anticipates the very end of Exodus (40:34). The tabernacle, as we’ll see in coming weeks, will become a portable Sinai for the people of Israel.
Jesus Goes Up, the Spirit Comes Down
Moses went up the mountain and the Lord came down. Now I want us to consider some connections between Moses and Jesus, to see how Sinai connects to Pentecost. Just as Moses went up and God’s presence came down, so also Jesus went up and the Spirit came down.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus went up to Jerusalem, up to Golgotha, up onto a cross, up from death to life, up to the Mount of Olives, and up into heaven.
After his ascension, Jesus continued his work on the earth by sending his Spirit down to fill his church (Acts 2). Jesus went up so his Spirit could come down.
As I mentioned last week, there are several parallels between Pentecost and Sinai. In their book Echoes of Exodus, Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson draw out several connections between Pentecost and Sinai:
“The law was given to Israel about seven weeks after the Passover; the Spirit is given to the church about seven weeks after the cross. The anointed leader has gone up, and the divine presence comes down. There are tangible physical signs: a great noise from heaven, whether thunder and trumpets or a mighty rushing wind, and the descent of God in fire. The gift that defines God’s people – first the law and then the Spirit – is given. The people are commissioned as kings and priests, and the tabernacle/temple is established. A sermon is preached, calling for obedience. A new covenant has started.”[6]
They also point out that, just as Israel faced opposition as they followed the Lord, so did the early church. Both Israel and the church faced enemies from the outside, whether Amalekites and Canaanites or beatings and prison sentences.
But these external enemies weren’t the real problem. The bigger problem came from within. It comes from hearts full of pride, sexual immorality, idol worship, and injustice. Roberts and Wilson point out how, “just as the victories of Israel were marred by the greed of Achan, so the progress of the church was marred by the greed of Ananias and Sapphira (Josh. 7:1-26; Acts 5:1-10).”[7] Joshua and Peter are both amazed that God’s people could act in such a way given all the Lord had done for them. Both families are singled out by the Lord, publicly rebuked, and killed.
Roberts and Wilson draw this conclusion: “As hard as we may find these stories to read, they point to the reality that, as Jesus explained, it is the inside rather than the outside of the cup that makes it unclean. More people die of infectious diseases than in warfare. More churches are undone by sin than by persecution. If God sees fit to use the ultimate sanction in response…it simply shows us the terrible severity of unrepentant sin.”[8]
Invisible Chains
This brings us back to where we started. The pattern of Exodus, and the Christian life, is freedom from and freedom for. The Lord sets his people free so that they can serve and obey him. Obedience is the result of redemption.
Neil Postman, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death (written in 1986!), compares the scenario of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984.[9] Orwell, he says, imagines a future where our freedom is destroyed by external forces like governments and prisons. But Huxley imagined a world where our freedom was destroyed from within, by internal forces like ego and selfish desires and leisure. Postman says, for modern America, Huxley was right, not Orwell.
Think about a contemporary parallel. In The Hunger Games, it’s the celebrity-obsessed crowds in the Capitol who’re in many ways more captive than the hungry and poor laborers in District 12. The people in the Capitol are no less enslaved than the people in the Districts. Their chains are just invisible.
True freedom means being rescued from both Huxley’s and Orwell’s picture of tyranny: tyranny of the other and tyranny of the self. Egyptian enslavement was no more deadly than Israel’s cravings. Bondage can be external and internal.
Many today are like the people in the Capitol, or like the Jews in John 8, and think they have no need for freedom because they’ve never been enslaved to anyone. But Jesus says our problem is that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn. 8:34). Yet the solution is simple: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v. 36).
Freedom Isn’t Free
How does Jesus set us free? As it’s often said, “Freedom isn’t free.” Our freedom cost Jesus everything. The new covenant was ratified by his blood. On the cross, God took the blood of his Son and sprinkled it on his people. The blood of the obedient Son for his disobedient people.
Those who’re washed by Jesus’ blood also have a hope that, when he returns, they’ll get to go up, like Moses, into the presence of God and eat and drink with him.
In Exodus 24, the summit of Sinai becomes the floor of heaven. But we’re anticipating the day when these realms merge completely, when heaven comes down to earth. The day when all God’s people are invited into the holy of holies, when no one will be at the bottom of the mountain, when all God’s people will be at God’s table.
Are you ready for that day? Are you a slave to sin? Are you free from internal masters? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? If so, you’re free from sin and free to obey.
[1]Alastair J. Roberts and Andrew Wilson, Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 48.
[2]Oscar Robertson, quoted in John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus: Volume 2, Chapters 19-40 (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 2001), 137.
[3]Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 441.
[4]Exodus 24–25: On the Floor of Heaven and the Feet of God (Bible Talk, Ep. 31) – 9Marks : 9Marks
[5]Hamilton, 443.
[6]Roberts and Wilson, 138.
[7]Ibid., 139.
[8]Ibid.
[9]This analysis is from Roberts and Wilson, 51-2.