The Covenant Made at Sinai

We’re bound to misunderstand the law that God delivered to His people at Mount Sinai if we forget His deliverance of Israel from slavery. Today, Sinclair Ferguson reminds us that God’s law is given in a context of grace.

Welcome to another edition of Things Unseen. It’s amazing, really, if you think about it, that our Christian Scriptures contain the Old Testament or covenant and the New Testament or covenant of our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet the idea that the Bible is a covenant book about a covenant God who makes and keeps His covenant of grace is often a new idea to many Christians. And that’s why on Things Unseen, we’ve been reflecting on how important God’s covenant is—His covenant of grace inaugurated in Genesis 3:15 and, as we’ve seen already, developed in the covenant with Noah and later on in the covenant with Abraham. But it’s the next big covenant God makes that people sometimes struggle to understand. I mean the covenant with Moses, the covenant made at Sinai.

Why the misunderstanding? I suspect it’s because this is the covenant that has the Ten Commandments and then all the laws that govern the life of God’s people—so many detailed regulations. And I think the biggest misunderstanding amounts to this—and you’re almost bound to have encountered it at some time—it’s thinking that the Old Testament or covenant, and especially the covenant that we find with Moses, that that covenant teaches us that we are saved by what we do, by obeying the law. Whereas by contrast, the New Testament or covenant teaches that we are saved by grace, not by what we do but by what God has done for us in Christ.

I hope I’m not the first person you’ve heard saying that that’s a disastrous misunderstanding. It turns the teaching of the Bible upside down, and it couldn’t really be further from the truth. Now, how can we be sure of that? Well, let me explain.

First, if you read the book of Exodus that contains the law—I’m thinking of the law in chapter 20—if you read Exodus from the beginning, you’ll see that the giving of the law is set within the context of the covenant of grace that God had made, and then that covenant is more fully expressed in the covenant that God was now making with Moses.

Remember what God said to Moses when He met him at the burning bush and gave him his commission? He told Moses He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He actually says to Moses: “I’ve remembered My covenant, and I’m going to bring you out. I’m going to take you as My people, and I’ll be your God. And you will know that I am the Lord, your God, who has brought you out. I will bring you into the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I am Yahweh, the Lord.” It’s the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God of grace that inaugurates the exodus. It is a work entirely of God’s sovereign grace, and it’s in that context that He gives the law.

So, the covenant with Moses is hardly teaching salvation by works, is it? It’s all about God’s promise, about covenant grace and mercy and our response to it. And if that were not sufficient to make the point, it’s made with crystal clarity when God actually gives Moses the Ten Commandments because the very first words He says amount to this: “Moses, I’ve been keeping My covenant, haven’t I? I’ve done what I promised. I’ve remembered My promises. I’ve brought you out. I’m taking you as My people.” That’s how Exodus 20 begins. God spoke all these words to Moses saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exod. 20:1–2). Those are the first words of Exodus 20, and only after they’ve been given does God say, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and then follow the rest of the Ten Commandments.

The pattern is unvarying: God saves His people and then calls His people to live in a way that pleases Him. He makes His covenant with us and binds Himself to us, and then He summons us to live in a way that conforms to His wonderful grace, and as we do so, we enter into His promised blessings.

Well, what’s the point? It’s that the covenant with Noah and Abraham and with Moses, each of them with its distinctive elements, all belong together as the unfolding elements in the covenant of grace that’s ultimately embedded in Genesis 3:15. And perhaps the big lesson to learn about the Mosaic covenant is that the law of God is set within the context of the saving grace of God and it therefore provides us with the map that leads to blessing and to life.

Now, we’ll need to say more about that tomorrow, but here’s what I think we can learn today. It’s this: we need to taste more of the grace of God’s law, don’t you think?