Day 37: Exodus 22-24

Welcome to five -minute Bible your daily guide for your daily reading today's February the 6th, and we'll be looking at Exodus 22 through 24

Now today's reading brings the covenant into sharp focus Exodus 22 through 24 shows us what

God's holiness looks like When it moves from thunder at the top of the mountain into the fabric of everyday life at the ground and how that covenant is

Informally sealed now redemption has already happened. The law has been spoken

Now God is binding himself to his people in a covenant. That is as gracious as it is

Weighty and the question hanging over the entire section is not whether Israel understands

God's commands but whether God understands Israel's hearts

Exodus 22 continues the case law that we saw in Exodus 21 Pressing God's holiness down into the everyday bits of life and these laws govern all kinds of areas whether it be restitution or personal responsibility or protection of the vulnerable and the absolute rejection of false worship

God is shaping a redeemed society not merely by issuing spiritual rules but he's showing them that covenant faith touches everything your money your property your justice your sexuality your hospitality and power

Holiness is not Abstract in the Bible it is lived out on the ground and that leads to Exodus 23 where it gathers these laws into promises and warnings

God assures Israel that obedience is gonna bring them blessings and protections while Compromise is gonna invite death and danger

He promises to send his angel before them driving out their enemies, but not all at once because victory

Usually comes gradually through trust and through patience and through obedience and through learning over time

God rarely rushes and almost never brings Israel into a quick triumph

He's using the slowness of his redemption to form them Now Exodus 24 then begins to bring everything to a dramatic climax

Moses reads the words of the law allowed the people respond with this great amount of confidence all that the

Lord has said and spoken we will do and then critically the

Covenant is sealed with blood Sacrifices are offered blood is sprinkled and God himself binds himself to this people

Even as Moses ascends the mountain of God to dwell in the presence of God for 40 days and 40 nights

There the Covenant is ratified not with Optimism but with sacrifice and that leads us to our governing question that I want you to be asking yourself today why does

God bind himself to a people that he knows is going to fail and Exodus 23 through 24

Forces us to wrestle with this with a God whose covenant faithfulness is not

Grounded in his foreknowledge of our sin or even in our pitiful attempts at human reliability

But in his own divine mercy You see the central pattern in exodus 22 through 24 is covenant grace, especially in the face of known weaknesses

God gives laws that are good and just and life -giving and holy and the people hear them and sincerely commit themselves to obeying them and yet God immediately seals the

Covenant with blood because he knows their disobedience is coming. He is

Precovering them before their disobedience occurs and that is the tension because God's not naive

He doesn't enter into covenant with illusions about human ability or strength He binds himself to Israel fully aware of their fragility their fear and their future rebellion

The blood does not celebrate their obedience or even their willful motivation it anticipates their failure and covers them before it happens and this

Brings us directly into our own life as well Because we often think that God stays committed to us because we stay faithful but Exodus says the opposite God's covenant faithfulness is what carries his people through their unfaithfulness and Obedience.

Yes, of course it matters, but it always is downstream of grace It is always downstream of the blood of the

Lamb Not our ability and in that way Exodus 22 through 24 points clearly and powerfully to Jesus Because the covenant that Jesus brings is sealed with his blood before we're ever

Commanded to obey in the Old Covenant animals die to maintain the relationship and in the

New Covenant Christ himself becomes the Everlasting sacrifice that will not fail and will ever hold this relationship between us and God intact

Moses ascends the mountain as a mediator But he's only foreshadowing Jesus who enters the true presence of God on behalf of his people forever where Israel Promises obedience that it can't sustain

Christ offers obedience that will never fail where the Covenant is sealed with borrowed blood

The New Covenant is going to be sealed with the blood of the Lamb with the blood of the Son with the blood of God's chosen

King God himself Binds himself to a failing people because in the space of time he is going to provide a faithful Representative the

Covenant does not rest on Israel's resolve But it rests on the future obedience of Jesus Christ And as you read

Exodus 22 through 24 I want you to pay careful attention to the moment that the people say all that the

Lord has spoken we will do They're saying it sincerely. They're saying it hopefully and yet it's fragile

Tomorrow we're gonna see how quickly all of their human confidence collapses and why

God's Covenant faithfulness must Be stronger than our human intentions. And with that I want you to read your

Bible carefully Devotionally and joyfully and may the Lord use his word to sanctify you completely and we will continue our journey tomorrow.