Josh King

The Pinnacle (Exodus 24:1–2, 9–18)

On one side of Sinai stands Egypt, on the other, the tabernacle. Sinai itself is volcanically exciting, but we’re prone to think less exciting what awaits us east of Sinai than what was west. We’ll read the ten plagues twice before we make it through the instructions for the tabernacle once. The sunrise of the new day is more glorious than the sunset of days past. Sinai is the fullest revelation God has given His people of His glory up to this point, and the aim of the tabernacle is to make Sinai portable. The tabernacle was patterned after heavenly things (Hebrews 9:23–24) and I want to show you that Sinai was a revelation of those heavenly things.

First, Moses receives instructions to go partway up the mountain with some select men, and then to proceed further up alone. This results in a thrice-partitioned mountain corresponding to the thrice-partitioned encampment of Israel around the tabernacle. Around the foot of the mountain are the people, further up are the elders, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and then at the top, Moses. Israel will camp around the tabernacle, the Levites and priest will be immediately around and in the tabernacle, and then only the high priest may enter the most holy place.

Second, Moses is ascending this mountain to receive the tablets, containing the ten commandments; which are representative of the covenant (Deuteronomy 4:12–13). He is up on the mountain forty days and nights. Even if Moses is chiseling and engraving the tablets himself, which he is not, this seems like a long time. What’s the holdup? While Moses is up there, he also receives the pattern for the tabernacle. After naturally receiving instructions concerning building materials, what is the first thing Moses is instructed about? The ark of the covenant, which is to house the tablets of the testimony (Exodus 25:16, 21). Moses receives not only the tablets, but first, he is given the pattern for where they are to be housed. These tablets that come from the mountain heights are to go to the camp core. The Tablets are to go as far in as they were high up.

When Moses ascends with the elders they see God. It seems they look up, and the sky becomes a kind of translucent sapphire pavement, and they see, as it were, God’s feet resting on his footstool (Exodus 24:10; cf. Isaiah 66:1). Soon thereafter a cloud descends on Sinai and Moses, as it were, ascends up closer to God’s throne to receive the pattern of that which is patterned after heavenly things.

SPOILER ALERT: Here is how Exodus closes:

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.

As God dwelt on Sinai (Exodus 24:15–16), so he dwells in the midst of His people in this tent over the ark containing the tablets of the covenant (Exodus 25:8). This is a picture of heavenly things—things that you see and enjoy more clearly in Christ. Do not envy them. The more glorious manifestation of God dwelling with His people in covenant love came not in cloud, but in flesh. God the Son has tabernacled among us in the flesh (John 1:14). If we have seen Jesus we have seen the Father (John 14:8–9). Jesus came down to bring us up to the heights. Jesus went outside the camp to bring us to the most holy place. In Jesus, we are brought further up and further in.

This is the pinnacle of God’s salvation; not what we were saved from, but Who we are saved to. The greatest thrill of God’s redemption isn’t Exodus, but the tabernacle.

The Apologist: What is Still the Watershed of the Evangelical Word

Holding to a strong view of Scripture or not holding to it is the watershed of the evangelical world.

…We must say most lovingly but clearly: evangelicalism is not consistently evangelical unless there is a line drawn between those who take a full view of Scripture and those who do not.

We who bear the name evangelical need to be unitedly those who have the same view of Scripture as William Cowper had when he wrote the hymn, “The Spirit Breathes Upon the Word.” In contrast to any concept of the Bible being borrowed through cultural orientation, the second verse of that hymn reads:

A glory guilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun
It gives a light to ever age;
It gives, but borrows none.

—Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

Blood-Splattered and Blood-Sandwiched Law (Exodus 24:1–8)

I don’t care much for red-letter Bibles. Every word is God’s Word. I don’t care for red-lettered Bibles, but I insist on a blood-sprinkled law. Give me the law blood-sprinkled and blood-sandwiched and give it to me no other way.

Moses’ reading the Book of the Covenant and the people’s responding “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient (Exodus 24:7),” is sandwiched between the blood being thrown against the altar and sprinkled on the people. The law is blood-sandwiched. Further, Hebrews 9:19–20 informs us that the Book was also sprinkled with the blood. This has been Israel’s experience. Before Sinai, the Passover Lamb’s blood was applied. Take away the blood, and the the law condemns and crushes. Take away the sacrificial blood, and the law demands our blood. But sandwich it and sprinkle it with blood, and it comes as grace on top of grace.

Dispensationalism, popularized by the Scofield and Ryrie Study Bibles, basically says that the law was for them and the gospel is for us; that God has two plans, one for Israel and one for the church. Raspberry. All is of Christ, it’s only that they had the shadow, and we have the light. Yet, it is the shadows that help us to know and understand the redemption of the One who dwells in unapproachable light. We know what it means when John says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” because of the Old Testament. The shadows help us understand the light as the light helps us understand the shadows.

We are redeemed by the blood to be ruled by the Book. We are saved by the Word to be ruled by His word. Christ rules to save and He saves to rule. Covenant with God means that the blood is applied and the book is affirmed.

The Puritan Samuel Bolt helps us to understand how we relate to the law after redemption, “The law sends us to the Gospel for our justification; the Gospel sends us to the law to frame our way of [life]. Our obedience to the law is nothing else but the expression of our thankfulness to God who has freely justified us.” To hearts brimful with joy for the salvation of God, longing to express praise and thanksgiving, the law comes as a gift to which we exclaim, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” We are sure that we will fail, but we are also sure of the blood of the covenant. We exclaim this because we are sure of the blood of the Shepherd and of all His promises to His sheep that are irrevocably secured by that blood.

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20).”

The Apologist: Evolution a Theory with Many Unroofs

[E]ven if I were still and agnostic, as once I was, I would not accept the concept of evolution from the molecule to man in unbroken line. My rejection of this does not turn upon my being Christian, but comes rather because I think this concept is weak and certainly has not been proven (in any sense of the word proven). It is a theory with may unproofs. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

Why is Moses More Popular than Joshua? (Exodus 23:20–33)

Why is Moses more popular than Joshua? While the exodus remains marketable, the conquest is an embarrassment to many. Sure, “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,” but let’s do a exodus to conquest film count. Whole theologies, false ones mind you, have been built up around the exodus, what of the conquest? Perhaps some fundies and charismatics might make much of it, but they’re made little of, which proves the point.

I believe one reason is that in the exodus Israel is seen as the oppressed, while in the conquest as the oppressor. Egypt put Israel to hard slavery and killed their male newborns. What did the Canaanites do to Israel? We root for the underdog. We like the overthrow of tyrants. We hate genocide.

The problem with all of this is it puts the events in terms of Israel, not God. The questions to ask are, “What did the Egyptians do against God? What did the Canaanites do against God?” That we frame the events in terms of man, and not God, shows that we’re not far from the same wicked idolatry that evoked such wrath and judgment. Liberation theology says God has a heart for the oppressed and delivers them. Surely, God hates oppression, but many oppressed peoples perish. The ten wonders were not first an expression of God’s hatred of Egypt’s sin as it was against Israel, but as it was against Him. The deal with Israel is that God has linked Himself to her in covenant. Mess with her and you mess with Him.

If you think little of sin you think little of God. Sin is heinous to the degree God is glorious. If sin is trite, if God should pass easily over it, it means He is not that big of a deal, and if God is not that big of a deal, nothing is. The death of sin is the death of significance. But this death can only happen theoretically, because God is, and He is glorious and holy without measure, and therefore sin is infinitely evil.

Now, back to the conquest. The irony of conquest shame is that the exodus was for the conquest. You cannot celebrate the exodus and debase the conquest. Further, the iniquity of the Canaanites appears to have been worse. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur from heaven for their great wickedness, and the rest of Canaan was only a few centuries behind. God told Abraham that one reason why Israel would not enjoy the land for sometime was because, “the iniquity of the Amorites [was] not yet complete (Genesis 15:16).” For five hundred years God patiently waits, and when their depravity knows no bounds, then His wrath comes.

Read the conquest language carefully. Yes, unlike the Exodus, Israel takes up the sword, but this is Yahweh’s fight. Yahweh is a warrior and Israel is His sword. Salvation always comes by judgment. At the time of conquest, as on that last day when we prepare to enter the eternal land of rest, Jesus’ war is against idolatry and for worship. We simply bow the knee to Him as the rightful, glorious, and worthy King of kings.

The Apologist: Little Left but the -ism

It is my conviction that the crucial area of discussion for evangelicalism in the next years will be Scripture. At stake is whether evangelicalism will remain evangelical. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

Don’t Use Pencil, but Indelible Ink (Exodus 23:10–19)

God’s calendar certainly seems to intrude on their time doesn’t it? There’s the rub. “Their time” is a myth. Time is one of God’s biggest blessings, for any time that we’re given means that we’re not suffering the eternal hell we deserve. Time is grace. Time is His. By these Sabbaths and feasts, God isn’t imposing on their time, He is giving them time—sacred time.

Time, as given to all humanity, is a common grace, a grace that saints and sinners alike share. These Sabbaths and feasts were grace saturated time. They were times of special grace. When Israel followed God’s calendar, the poor were fed, the livestock flourished, the land was fruitful, all enjoyed rest, and celebration was mandatory. When God puts you on His calendar, you don’t want to miss it.

God doesn’t intrude on our time, we’ve intruded on His. Grace resets our calendars around God. For those who have eyes of faith, these celebrations were a command to rejoice and rest. By these feasts God was inviting them to taste the future when all time would be all holy; a day when sins’ curse would no longer blight the harvest and death would not eat at time. The church now assembles on the Lord’s day to feast over the Word and Sacraments as a foretaste of that same future. For those with eyes of faith, there is resting and rejoicing. If you feel God intrudes on your time, beware your soul. If God isn’t lord of your time, He isn’t your Lord and you know neither real rest or joy.

The Apologist: Better a Few Evangelicals than Many -icals

We must say that if evangelicals are to be evangelicals, we must not compromise our view of Scripture. There is no use in evangelicalism seeming to get larger and larger, if at the same time appreciable parts of evangelicalism are getting soft at that which is the central core—namely the Scriptures. —Francis Schaeffer, No Final Conflict

Patriarchy means Protection and Provision (Exodus 22:16–23:9)

When it comes to laws concerning widows and orphans (Exodus 22:22-24), God breaks protocol. The ten words from the fire came directly from God to the people and were written by Him in stone (Deuteronomy 10:12–13). The Book of the Covenant runs from 20:22–23:33 and came to the people through the mediation of Moses and were written by him on parchment (Exodus 24:4, 7). This means most of the Book of the Covenant is in the second person, but when it comes the fatherless and husbandless, the first person is resumed.

“If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless (Exodus 22:23–24).”

The cry of the oppressed orphans and widows would rise to God the same way Israel’s cries came to God under their Egyptian oppressors. God is telling them there could be an Israel within Israel and they might find themselves to be Egyptians. In the prophets a frequent reason given for the exile is their treatment of orphans and widows.

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever (Jeremiah 7:5–7).”

When father’s are absent, God is a father to the fatherless in a special sense. This is patriarchy, which is to say this is fatherhood. We style ourselves complementarian contra egalitarians, and that’s all well and good, but there is an older term, a more descriptive term, though a more offensive one: patriarchalism. Patriarchalism doesn’t men that women are used and abused but protected and provided for. It means that there are fathers.

The reason why widows and orphans were so vulnerable is because they were fatherless (also meaning hudsband-less).Why do so many women and children tremble behind locked doors? Because there are too few men inside as protectors and too many men outside as predators. The problem isn’t patriarchy. The problem isn’t fatherhood. That’s the solution. The problem is the absence of patriarchy. A father-ful society is the best one for widows and orphans. Father famine abounds, but to the hungry we say there is a Father feast above. The only hope of impacting father famine on the ground is for men to be transformed by the Father in the Son through the Spirit so that they show forth His image in the world.

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this (Deuteronomy 24:19-22).”

The Apologist: Bow Etiquette

Prior to the Fall, Adam in coming to God only had to bow once—as a creature before the Creator. But now, after the Fall of Adam, we must bow twice—as a creature before the Creator and as a sinner coming to a holy God through Jesus’ work. —Francis Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time