I still vividly remember, thirty years on, a holiday to Ohakune when a storm rumbled through. The lightning and thunder in an unfamiliar bed was frightening to a five year old. Even as an adult, I am still awestruck by thunder and lightning, and find it unsettling to hear overhead at night.
When Israel gathered at Sinai to hear God’s Law, they came to God’s presence, demonstrated to them by a booming voice, thunder and lightning, trumpets, and smoke. It was too much to bear. Confronted by God’s holiness and their unworthiness, the people sought refuge in a mediator between them and God. Ultimately, only Jesus can truly mediate between us and God, fulfilling the law on our behalf and freeing us to obey them out of thanks to God.
When God spoke the Ten Commandments, Israel were gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai to hear his commands. What they witnessed was not a “still small voice” but something that instilled fear in them. “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off” (Exodus 20:18).
The presence of God brings a terrible din of noise and the dramatic clash of the elements. Hearing God speak was frightening to them, combined with visual demonstration of his power over all things. They were directly and closely interacting with the holy and righteous God.
The holy words spoke fear into their hearts, as they realised the high standard God required. The holy presence of God, searing the earth of Mount Sinai with lightning flashes and smoke as thunder rolled across the sky spoke fear into their hearts of the judgement that would inevitably come from failing to keep those words.
They trembled. They flinched. They drew back from the mountain, away from the great and terrible presence of God.
Israel could not stand in God’s presence; his greatness was too much to bear. They needed somebody to stand in for them. An advocate; a mediator.
“[They] said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die’” (v.19). The Israelites heard God’s voice, and heard their death coming with it. They could not, sinful as they were, hear God’s voice repeatedly or they would perish. Like Isaiah, they were undone in God’s presence (Is. 6).
So God’s people, who so often grumbled against and questioned Moses’ leadership, ask him to fulfill the role that God appointed him to before. They ask Moses to stand before God and intercede for them, hearing God’s words and relaying them back to Israel.
While this may seem at first glance a sinful attitude, it is actually one deeply rooted in reverence and fear of God. In Deuteronomy 5, Moses makes clear that God approved of their response and agreed to it (Deut. 5:23-31).
The Law was visually working in its first and second uses. It acted in their hearing as a deterrent to sin, threatening the judgement of fire and doom. It also acted in the second use, revealing to the Israelites their sinfulness and their need for someone to stand between them and God, for fear of death.
But the Law and God’s presence that day would also serve in its third use: bringing obedience. Immediately, Moses instructed the Israelites that everything they had seen and heard had a purpose: “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin” (v.20).
The testing which God visited on Israel was designed to generate the response of reverential fear. Fear that would not lead to anger and the Dark Side, but to obedience. Moses instructs Israel not to tremble in fear, because God had not come that day to bring judgement, but to save them. Instead they should take the visit to heart, trust in the powerful God who is also mighty to save, and obey.
After speaking these words, the people remained far off while Moses went back to God’s presence to intercede for Israel (v.21).
Yet as great a man as Moses was, he too was a sinner in need of intercession. Only Jesus, the mediator of a better covenant, is able to fulfill that role (Hebrews 12:24) for all. Not only is Jesus a better mediator, but he fulfilled the Law on our behalf, succeeding where we fail, so the terrible judgement threatened in thunder and lightning at Sinai does not fall on us.
Coming into God’s presence and hearing his Law should truly reveal to us the depths of our sin and our need for a mediator. And it should drive us to the one mediator between God and man, Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). By resting in Jesus and his perfect intercession for us, we are freed from fear of judgement and freed to worship God as we ought to – by thankfully obeying his holy commandments.
