Ex

Ex. 19:1-6; 20:1-2

6/8/2008

“I Am the Lord Your God”

As we learned before, Ex. 20:2 is the Preamble to the Ten Commandments as well as all the statutes and commandments that follow. In the Preamble of the Ancient Near Eastern treaty documents, the great king stated the reasons for His subjects’ absolute obedience and loyalty to him. Typical of these reasons were his royal pedigree (often his claim to his divine sonship), his great and many accomplishments and military victories and the great mercy he has shown to the people. And that is precisely what we see in 20:2. Here in a very succinct way God provided the rationale for Israel’s obedience to His commandments: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” How true these words were! What seemed impossible to the Israelites, God did by His mighty hand and outstretched arm!

Only fifty days ago, the Jews were slaves in Egypt. The stinging wounds and the aching pain from their slavery were still fresh and raw. But oh how radically their lives had changed! They were now standing in front of Mount Sinai as a free people, delivered from the manacles of slavery and all of its miseries and humiliations! Many of them experienced what it was like to be free for the first time, not to have the cruel taskmasters yelling profanities at them, cracking their whips, and driving them to work and work and work some more; not to look over their shoulders all the time with fear; not to wake up in the morning with their bodies still aching and without any hope of things getting better. Now at last they were free from all that! Yes, they had to leave their home and everything that was familiar to them. Yes, they were traveling through the wilderness, living in tents. But they were on their way to the Promised Land! Oh how good it felt to breathe the air of freedom, to straighten out their backs and walk with their heads up! Their journey was not easy but they journeyed on together as one people toward the Promised Land: they knew that every step they took was bringing them that much closer to the land of promise. And how invigorating was that thing called hope! And how delicious was their new found freedom!

And it was God, who delivered them from Egypt and gave them that freedom. But think about what is happening in our passage. God was issuing His commands as a part of ratifying His covenant with Israel. Through this covenant God exerted His kingship over Israel and called for Israel’s absolute obedience to Him. What kind of freedom was this? What kind of deliverer was God? Was He no more than the likes of Napoleon, who stage coup d’etat against the ruling regime only to set themselves over people as the next dictator?

That would be the case if we understood freedom only as an abstract condition or quality, simply as having no constraints or restrictions. I call this an “abstract” definition because it does not and cannot work in our real life. No one can be truly free according to that definition because no one is ever free of any constraint or restriction. The moment we are conceived, we are constrained by our genetic makeup. Then we are born into a web of relationships, each of which comes with its respective roles and responsibilities and expectations, etc. And the family we are born into, which exercises profound and comprehensive influences on us, is quite limited in so many ways: it cannot provide us with all the options and opportunities and benefits and advantages that we wish we had at one time or another.

So then, what is freedom? It may be defined, then, as the ability to do what one chooses to do. Of course, this does not mean that one is able to do whatever he wants to do. There is a difference between choosing to do something and wanting to do something. One may want to be a billionaire. But it doesn’t mean that he is not free if he does not become one, does it? But he is free as long as he is able to choose to pursue that goal, even if he were to fail.

This may be a good definition of freedom socially and legally. But we must not lose sight of the moral dimension of freedom. To see this point, just think back on the times that you did something you knew was wrong. The fact that you were able to do it shows that you were free. But what happened after you did it, or even while you were doing it? Did you not feel that shocking intensity of regret and guilt? And quite possibly the consequence was not limited to the paralyzing sense of guilt and the sinking sense of emptiness. Maybe you got caught. Not only were you disgraced and humiliated but also lost the trust and respect of someone dear and important to you. Maybe you experienced a significant financial loss. Maybe you got into some legal trouble as well. There might have been other consequences that severely shackled you and bound you in so many ways and areas--your vitality and joy, gone; your effectiveness and usefulness, reduced to almost nothing, etc.

Why don’t we feel exhilarated and ecstatic when we exercise our “freedom” and do what we choose to do, especially when we do what we know is wrong? It is because we are moral creatures, made in the image of God. As such, we become truly free, not by doing whatever we want or choose to do, but by doing what is right, what is in accordance with our Creator’s will for us. True freedom, then, is not so much about being able to do anything we want or choose as it is about doing what is right; it is not so much about being our own master as it is about serving the right Master far better and greater than ourselves--our Creator. As so many things in life, true freedom is paradoxical in nature: true freedom is found in true bondage. For to be truly free is to be in bondage to the one and only true God.

We see this principle powerfully demonstrated in God’s giving of the Law at Mount Sinai. In the giving of the Law, God is showing a very important dimension of our redemption: our redemption as a call to the life of righteousness.

Throughout our survey of redemptive history, we saw different aspects of God’s redemption: as God’s victory over chaos, over “formlessness and void” in the creation account; as the destruction of God’s enemies in the Garden of Eden after the Fall as well as in the Great Flood and in the ten plagues that devastated Pharaoh and Egypt; as the deliverance from God’s judgment in the Great Flood as well as in the Passover; as a new creation in the Great Flood and in the crossing of the Red Sea; as God’s sovereign election in the calling of Abraham, etc. Now in the giving of the Law we see a further elaboration of God’s redemption as a call to the life of righteousness.

It was not enough, then, that Israel should be delivered from the bondage of Egypt. God’s vision of redemption for His people was much greater. God was not going to be satisfied with just forgiven sinners. God would have a righteous people for Himself as He is righteous. And He would have a righteous people for Himself through His redemption.

There is a good reason that God’s redemption includes this call to righteousness. As many of you know, Israel’s Egyptian bondage was a picture of our bondage to sin. And sin affects us in two ways: it makes us guilty of disobeying God; and it rules over us as our master once we surrender to its enticements. It makes us guilty and it places us under its reign. So our redemption from sin requires a double cure--from its guilt as well as from its power. We need God’s forgiveness to set us free from the guilt of our sin. But that is not enough. We also need to be set free from the power of sin, which makes us attracted to sin, delight in sin and commit sin against our better judgment (just like when we watch TV through the late hours of the night, all the while thinking how dumb the show is!); we need the power of God to live a righteous life!

So you see, it is only in our bondage to the true God that we can be free from all our miserable bondage to all the false gods and idols of life. God, therefore, is the true Deliverer, not just when He delivers us from our bondage to false idols but also when He binds us to Himself as His people. So then, we should not complain about this free bondage, into which God has so graciously brought us. Should a train complain that it is confined to its narrow rail tracks? Should the fish complain that its life and movements are confined to the vast ocean? If not, how about us? Should we complain that we live, move and have our being in the infinite and everlasting God?

And do you see how the Preamble to the Law shows this--how everything that Israel was called to do as a free people flowed out of who God is and what He had done for them? Why Israel was to keep the Law was embodied in these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Here, if we were to translate the Hebrew literally, we would have “I am YHWH [or Jehovah] your God….” Most of you know what YHWH means. When Moses asked God what His name was, God replied, “I am that I am.” The name YHWH (or “Jehovah”) stems from that reply (Ex. 3:13-15).

God is YHWH--“I am that I am.” He is eternal, self-existent and self-sufficient. He is immutable and sovereign: He cannot be changed or affected by anything outside of Himself. But Herman Bavinck does a wonderful job of showing the redemptive historical significance of that name:

“… by it [that is, “I am that I am”] the Lords says that he who now calls Moses and wants to save his people is the same [God] as he who appeared to their fathers. He is who he is, the same yesterday, today, and forever. This meaning is further explained in verse 15 [of Ex. 3]: YHWH--the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--sends Moses, and that is his name forever. God does not simply call himself ‘the One who is’ and offer no explanation of his aseity [God’s self-existence], but states expressly what and how he is. Then how and what will he be…? He will be what he was for the patriarchs, what he is now and will remain: he will be everything to and for his people. It is not a new and strange God who comes to them by Moses, but the God of the fathers, the Unchangeable One, the Faithful One, the eternally Self-consistent One, who never leaves or forsakes his people but always again seeks out and saves his own. He is unchangeable in his grace, in his love, in his assistance, who will be what he is because he is always himself…” (Reformed Dogmatics, II, p. 143).

Isn’t that great that He is that He is--as He was to the forefathers, He is to the people of Israel and He will continue to be forever!

So you see why in the Preamble to the Law “YHWH” and “your God” go hand in hand: “I am YHWH your God”. YHWH was particularly Israel’s God, the God of His elect people. As the Creator of heaven and earth, YHWH, of course, is the God of all peoples and nations. When God declared Himself to be Israel’s God, then, He was expressing a special relationship He entered into with Israel through His covenant at Mount Sinai. So we read in Ex. 19:5, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine….” Do you see? All the earth is Gods and all peoples belong to Him. But Israel will be His treasured possession, His in a special way.

Let us take a few moments to meditate on what an awesome thing it is that God should tell someone, “I am your God.” Our mind being so small, we can do it only by way of analogy and comparison. Let us say you have a major dental problem. The ache is unbearable--you cannot eat, you cannot sleep, you cannot think about anything else but the constantly nagging, throbbing pain of your teeth. But you have no money. Then somehow you run into a dentist. He has the skills and resources to cure you and he is known to do it for free for people in need. And he comes to you and says, “I am all yours for the next eight hours until I cure all your dental problems. Tell me all about your problems.” Can you imagine how you would feel--how relieved, how grateful, how hopeful? And he is only a man! And your problem is only your teeth (as unbearable the pain may seem)! And he is only giving you eight hours of life! But in this covenant with His elect people, the almighty God and the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, who has all things at His disposal, declares, “I am your God, forever!” What wondrous love is this!

Take a look at the very First Commandment, which follows these words: “You shall have no other gods before me.” Consider this commandment in light of what Israel saw in Egypt. Egypt had hundreds and thousands of gods. The Egyptians had a god for every season and occasion. That meant that they had to go to different gods for different needs and occasions of their lives. But YHWH says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” For He is the sovereign Lord of all things. He holds in His hands light and darkness, sunshine and rain, harvest and famine, health and sickness, weal and woe, life and death. What other gods do we need beside YHWH our God? What greater blessing can there be than to have this one and only true God as our God?

Throughout our survey of different aspects of redemption, the foundation has remained the same: our redemption in essence is found in a holy alliance (or covenant) with God, the Redeemer. Not in the sense of partnership between two equals but in the sense of branches being grafted into the vine. God is the Redeemer, not we. That means, God is the One, who redeems us, who cannot redeem ourselves. It is because our redemption is found in our union with a righteous God that righteousness is required of us. And it is because our redemption is found in union with a righteous Redeemer that we receive a grace that is not only gracious but is also righteous, a grace that gives us the righteousness of God and makes us righteous in His likeness. Let us see how this is demonstrated in redemptive history as we conclude.

In Ex. 19:5 we see why God gives the Law in our passage: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples….” Do you see the conditional nature of this promise--“if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant”, then “you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.” They were already God’s chosen people on account of His covenant with Abraham and his descendants. And yet, a condition is given here for them to be God’s treasured possession. We will talk more in depth about this dynamic at a later time. All I am concerned with here is the not-yet aspect of the promise given: they shall be God’s treasured possession (particularly a kingdom of priests and a holy nation) if they keep God’s covenant with them.

Now, let us read Tit. 2:13-15. There Paul speaks of the “the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Do you see the similarity of the language between this passage and the Ex. 19 passage--“a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works” and “you shall be My treasured possession…; you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”? But do you also see a pronounced difference between “if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant” (Ex. 19:5) and “Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession (Tit. 2:13-14)? And this difference is the difference between our redemption and our damnation. If our redemption were dependent on our performance, we would fail as Israel failed and was cast out of the Promised Land. But our redemption is found in Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify us as a people for His own possession. Because our redemption is found in the performance of Christ, we can be secure in our salvation!

And secure indeed is our redemption because Christ gave Himself for us! Who is He that gave Himself for us? Is He not the One who said, “Before Abraham was, I AM”? He who gave Himself for us is none other than the One that is “I am that I am”! This great I AM gave Himself for us, fully, entirely and completely. That He had to give Himself for us so completely shows us how great our sin is. No animal, no human being, no angel of heaven would do, no matter how many in number. Only the sacrifice of the precious life of the great I AM can take away our sin. And He gladly gave His precious life as our ransom, to deliver us from the bondage of sin. In His infinite being as the great I AM, and in His suffering on this earth, He absorbed into His infinite being all of our misery and pain and humiliation and guilt and punishment of our sin as slaves of sin, even our eternal condemnation in hell.

But that was not all. In giving Himself for us, He also lived a life of perfect righteousness on our behalf. He did so to redeem us also from the power of sin. As He bound Himself to us through the blood of the eternal covenant, we not only receive His pardon for sin but also His righteousness. And by this righteousness not only are we declared righteous before God (in justification) but we are also enabled to live a righteous life in union with Christ (in sanctification)! Did you see that in Titus? “Christ… gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”

Jesus Christ not only lived and died but He also rose again from the dead and sits at the right hand of God as our King, subduing us and binding us to Himself and making us righteous in His likeness. God called us to be more than forgiven sinners; God called to be a righteous people, zealous for good works. That means we do not barely and begrudgingly do good works, just enough not to feel terribly guilty and lose face in front of others. No, we are zealous for good works--eager, motivated, determined and committed to do good works! God has done something in us and now we become zealous for good works that expand God’s kingdom and build up the church of Christ. Christ as the risen Lord reigns over us to accomplish all His purposes in and through us, to make us righteous and zealous for good works.

If the great I AM was willing to give Himself for us while we were yet sinners, how much will He give us now that He reconciled us to God and made us His beloved, treasured possession! Therein lies our hope and confidence.

Brothers and sisters, our life is to be lived out for the glory of God. You have been set free, you have obtained true liberty in Jesus Christ. This freedom is real and true, not because you don’t have any constraints, but because you have been set free from sin and death and Satan and now you are bound to YHWH, your God and Redeemer. So then, your life is to be lived out in the free bondage to Jesus Christ your Lord. As it is in losing our life for Christ we gain true life, it is also in being bound to Christ that we gain true freedom. So then, let us not use the freedom that Christ purchased for us for a careless and licentious living. Let us rather lay aside any sin or anything that clings so closely to us to bind us and weigh us down. When we serve our Lord and our God with clear conscience, “not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind” (WCF, 20:1), we realize what it is like to be truly free, to enjoy that freedom to the fullest with great joy, undefiled. Let us not waste this precious gift by dragging ourselves into the dungeon of sin and regret and shame. Let us straighten out our back, keep our heads high toward heaven and breathe the refreshing and invigorating air of our heavenly freedom until we shall stand together in heaven in our glorified bodies, having been set free from this body of weakness, and enjoy our freedom in perfect submission to God forever and ever to the praise and glory of our God and Lord!