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The Blood of the Covenant
The Blood of the Covenant Exodus 24:1-18 Key Verse: 24:8 “Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’” Last week we thought about God’s epilogue for the first part of His Law. God had given this portion of the Law to Moses just after they arrived at Mt. Sinai, otherwise known as Mt. Horeb or the Mountain of the LORD. This was the same place that had promised Moses that He would bring Moses and the Israelites to worship Him after Moses brought them out of Egypt. When I think about this I realize that God always fulfills His promises completely down to the smallest details. In His epilogue, God gave Moses and the Israelites one of, if not the greatest, promise in the entire Bible which Jesus renewed and confirmed for everyone who believes in Him. That promise is to be with us, to protect us and to bring us to the place that He has personally prepared for us. It is a promise that none of us can take hold of on our own because we are all law breakers – none of us have carefully listened to God and done everything that He has told us to do. Jesus, however, has fulfilled the Law completely. He did this not for himself, but for each of us who have believed in Him. Then Jesus shed His precious blood and gave His life for us, paying off the debt we owed for breaking God’s Law. Jesus’ blood is the blood of the New Covenant that God has made with His people. Today we want to think about the blood of the Old Covenant that is a foreshadowing of the New Covenant that God has sealed with Jesus’ precious blood. May God bless our study of this passage and open our spiritual eyes to see how all Bible study leads to Jesus. Look at verse one. Once again God calls Moses up the mountain, but this time He tells Moses to bring several people with him. Moses is to bring Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders with him up the mountain. Why did God want these particular people to come with Moses this time? Who were they? We know that Aaron was Moses brother and he was also Moses helper and co-worker in the effort to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It was apparent that God intended to continue to use Aaron as an important figure in the ongoing work. Nadab and Abihu were Aaron’s two oldest sons. Evidently they were to carry on Aaron’s work after he died, so God also wanted them there. It is interesting to note that these two men met an early death when they decided that that they could worship the Holy God in any manner that they thought best. As we shall see they saw God personally, but they didn’t weren’t able to understand that God is Holy and Sovereign and He makes all the rules; especially the rules about how He is to be worshipped. Now what about these seventy elders. Why did God want seventy elders to come up with Moses? Why not just twelve elders representing the twelve tribes of Israel? When we read the Bible we cannot forget what we read before because the Bible is a history of God’s people. God never forgets and we shouldn’t either. In context, this event is occurring right after God redeemed his people from their bondage in Egypt. If you turn back in your Bible to Genesis 46:27 you will see that when Jacob, that is Israel, and his family first went to Egypt there were seventy members in all. Therefore it seem likely that these seventy elders that God asked Moses to bring up the mountain with him represented the seventy family members who originally went to Egypt. If you look at verse 1b and 2 you will notice something very interesting. The people that were to go up the mountain with Moses were to worship God at a distance and only Moses was to approach the Lord. Why was this? Moses was the mediator of this Old Covenant. In other words, it was Moses job to act as God’s representative to the people. Jesus is the mediator for the New Covenant. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:5 “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.” We need a mediator because God is Holy and we are sinful. If we tried to approach God on our own it would result in our utter destruction. We need a perfect man to go to God on our behalf and the only perfect man is Jesus. Therefor Jesus is our mediator just as Moses was the mediator for the people of Israel at that time. Unlike Jesus, Moses was not perfect. However Moses was chosen by God so he could fulfill this role as mediator. Look at verses 3-8. Before they went up the mountain Moses had to do something. Moses first had to tell the people all the words of the Law that God had given him so far to see if they were willing to live according to God’s Law. Look at verse 3. When Moses had finished telling them all the people all the LORD’s words and laws the people “responded with one voice, ‘Everything the LORD has said we will do.’” The people seemed to like what they heard. They really wanted to live according to God’s Law and in the way that God wanted them to live. They didn’t want to live as a lawless bunch of ex-slaves, they wanted to live as God’s holy people. The problem was that they really didn’t give this a lot of thought or prayer, but as we shall see God accepted their sincere desire to live according to His Law. Once Moses heard their response, he wrote down on the words so that they would not be forgotten. Early the next morning Moses got up, built an alter and erected twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Moses was preparing to seal this covenant between God and the people much the same way that we would seal an agreement between two people today. We seal agreements by signing contracts, but God’s way of sealing an agreement is a little different. Look at verses 5 and 6. The young men of Israel offered burnt offerings and they sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. As I read this I wondered who were these young men and why were they doing the offering and the sacrificing rather than the priests, Aaron and his sons? As I studied this passage I discovered that the priesthood had not been established yet, so it was the firstborn of the Israelites who were still designated as God’s own, or his helpers and representatives to the people, so these young men were most likely the first born sons of the Israelites. As I studied this I realized just how important it is that God has His representatives or helpers among the people. I also realized that today we are those representatives. Without such people God’s covenant with the people would be very difficult to seal. Our role today is somewhat different than the young men of Israel, but it is still just as important. We are to go out among the people of our generation and tell them of the New Covenant God has prepared for them through Jesus. We are to bring the people to Jesus so that they can be sprinkled by His blood. As the young men were sacrificing the bulls Moses was collecting the blood. He was doing two things with this blood. With half of it he was sprinkling the alter while he was collecting the other half in bowls. Why was Moses doing this? In the Bible the life of a creature or an individual is represented by the blood. In Genesis 9 God tells Noah that He is going to hold every man accountable for the blood of others. Blood is called the lifeblood of everything and therefore it is very precious. This covenant between God and man was not just a contract for buying a new house or for a promise to make a few items. It was a lifelong commitment between the people and God. The people were offering their life to follow God’s law and God’s way. Therefore, in order to seal this covenant, lifeblood was required. Half of this blood was sprinkled against the alter and this represented God’s agreement to this deal. In essence it represents God’s forgiveness. God was accepting this sinful people to be His own, that means that God was forgiving their sins. Then what was Moses going to do with the half of the blood he was collecting in bowls. Look at verse 7. Before he used this blood Moses had to do one more thing. He read the entire Book of the Covenant. This was the book that Moses had written the day before. It was the exact same words that Moses had spoken to the people, but now Moses was repeating it because if they agreed again to live according to these words, Moses was going to ‘sign the contract’ with the other half of the blood. When Moses had finished reading the Law the people all agreed to do everything the LORD had said. To it perfectly clear they added “We will obey.” When Moses heard their response he sprinkled the second half of the blood on the people. As I have said, this was God’s way of having the people sign the contract. In effect they were signing over their lives to God. They were agreeing to live their life the way that God wanted them to live; according to His laws and His ways. They were no longer free to live any way they chose. They were now God’s people and were to live his way. It is the same for us today. In order to be sprinkled with Jesus blood we have to make a confession. We have to say, “Ok God, I agree to live according to the way Jesus has shown me. I agree to give up my life to live it your way instead of my way.” Once we have made this confession God is willing to sprinkle us with the precious blood of his son. Once God has sprinkled us with this blood He has forgiven us and accepted us as His children. He has brought us into and sealed a New Covenant with us. This covenant is not to be taken lightly. It is a very costly covenant. Jesus had to shed His blood to seal it from God’s side and it requires us to give up our lives to accept it from our side. Don’t get me wrong. This does not mean that we are working for our salvation. We cannot do anything to pay off the debt of our sins by ourselves. God did this by His one-sided grace through His son Jesus. In order to accept this New Covenant sealed with Jesus blood we have to be willing to agree to God’s terms just as the Israelites were. We have to accept Jesus. This means we have to agree to live our lives according to the model that Jesus gave us. If you think about this for a moment you will realize that this means that we have to be willing to give up our old way of life, where we lived any way we chose, and agree to live God’s way. To some this may not sound like a good deal, but those are people who haven’t given it much thought. Living our lives our way is only going to get us to the grave. We didn’t create our life and we cannot sustain our life on our own. God created our life and only God has the power to sustain it. Moreover, since God created our life He must know what the best way is to live it. Of course we think all think that we know what is best, but do we? Think about it, if you don’t know what life really is, where it came from or how to sustain it, how can you possibly know the best way to live it? God knows this, so when we agree to be sealed with the blood of Jesus, we shouldn’t think about what we are giving up. Rather we should be thinking about everything that we are gaining. It is true that being sealed with the blood of Jesus is very costly, but it also the very greatest reward that we can ever get. Look at verses 9-11. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the seventy elders all go up onto the mountain. When they get there, they see something awesome. They see God himself. What CI really find amazing about this is Moses description of God. Look at verse 10. Moses only describes something that was under the feet of God. He doesn’t even attempt to describe God’s feet. This gives me a feeling of just how awesome this sight must have been. God is Holy and people are not, therefore unholy people cannot stand in the presence of a Holy God. If they do they should be destroyed, yet these people were spared. God did not lift His hand and destroy them, rather he let them enjoy a good meal right there in His presence. He let them live and enjoy a time of fellowship with Him. This is truly remarkable and yet I think the same thing can be said of us. We should all know that we are not holy. We are all sinners, and yet God invites us to stand in His presence. He doesn’t do this just on Sundays. He does this every day. In fac, He wants us to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus every day and renew our Covenant to live our life according to the way Jesus taught us. God invites us to share fellowship with him every day and I think many of us take that for granted. This is perhaps the greatest of all sins. We should take time every day to thank God for the privilege to share in his fellowship. As I mentioned last week, we need to take time every day to listen carefully to God so that we can do what He says and this is the perfect time to thank Him for the privilege of sharing in His fellowship. In verses 12-18, God calls Moses up the mountain yet again. Moses brings along his aide, Joshua. It is unclear how far Joshua goes with Moses, but I think it is very revealing that Joshua goes with Moses. Joshua is going to be the next leader of this people and he is the one who is going to actually lead the people into the place that God has prepared for them. God is preparing Joshua to do that by letting him go along with Moses. When God’s spirit descends on the mountain it looks like a consuming fire to the Israelite people, yet Moses go right into that fire. He was going to stay there for forty days. Apparently Moses knew that he was going to be gone awhile so he put Aaron and Hur in charge. Moses basically put these two men in his place while he was gone. When we get to chapter thirty two we will see that the people begin to think that Moses must have been consumed by that fire that he walked into and so they ask Aaron to cast gods for them out of gold. I think that it is very interesting to note that Hur, although he was in charge just like Aaron, is completely left out of that account. Apparently the people knew that Hur would not give into their desire to make gods of gold. In this passage we thought about what the blood of a covenant means. We also thought about the blood that Jesus shed for us to seal a New Covenant between God and man. We need to be sprinkled with this blood and in order to do that we need to make a decision to give up our old way of life and live our life according to the way Jesus showed us. To be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus is very costly – it means we have to give up our life – but at the same time it is the greatest reward we can ever get. May God help all of us to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus everyday.s |
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