Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The LORD is Sovereign

One of my favorite annual periodicals is the Darwin Awards. If you haven’t heard of those, sometime you should look them up. The subtitle for this prestigious set of awards is “Chlorinating the Gene Pool: Commemorating Those Who Improve Our Gene Pool by Removing Themselves from It,” if that gives you any idea of what’s coming. They are morbid (but generally quite amusing) stories from the previous year of people who died, or rather brought about their own deaths, in, shall we say, unintelligent ways. While preparing for this sermon of this post, one story from the 1999 Awards kept coming back to my mind. It’s the story of a lawyer and two of his friends on a fishing trip, and it goes like this:

A lawyer and two of his buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas. A lightning storm hit the lake and most of the fisherman immediately headed for the shore. But not our friend the lawyer. He was alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat and his buddies were in the front. This gentleman stood up, spread his arms wide (crucifixion style) and shouted:  “Here I am Lord! Show yourself to me!” Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike and are reported to have joined the Ministry immediately.

I couldn’t help but keep thinking of that story as I was preparing for this sermon because as silly as that story is, that is essentially what Pharaoh did ch. 5, which we talked about last sermon. Remember, Pharaoh has refused to let God’s people go and impertinently asked, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?” He, like the lawyer in our story, thinks that YHWH is no threat at all to him, so he challenges YHWH, basically declaring war Him. And, the plagues--which we talked about from a historical perspective in the last post--are God’s response. As God says 7:4-5, “I will lay my hand on Egypt… by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,” and Pharaoh will learn this too, though it takes a lot of righteous judgment and a long time because of his stubborn hardness of heart. And, essentially God answers Pharaoh’s question and judges Egypt by manifesting His sovereignty over everything in existence. In fact, His sovereignty is more clearly displayed in this story than almost anywhere else in Scripture.

If you want to find out more of how the plagues display God's sovereignty, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Source of the Plagues

In the sermon of the next post, we will take a look at the first nine plagues that God unleashes on Egypt in order to drive Pharaoh to release His people. One thing that often comes up with the subject of the plagues of Ex. 7-12 is whether the plagues were divine intervention from God or just natural disasters that the Egyptians misinterpreted. Modern minds that want to deny any supernatural intervention in our universe have come up with all sorts of attempts to explain them naturally, but all of those attempts fail. I did not have time to go over that in the sermon that will be in the next post, so here we will look at why such attempts cannot explain the biblical data adequately.

First, we should note that in some of the miraculous events in Scripture God does use natural causes in supernatural ways. In some cases, God does appear to be using the laws of nature, but He uses them in a way that would be highly improbable or next to impossible without His divine intervention. Take, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea in Ex. 14. There the text tells us specifically how God divided the sea: "the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided." (v. 21) Do you see God's use of natural forces there? God used wind that blew all night long to divide the water and dry the ground. Now, technically that is possible given the right environmental factors, but the timing, magnitude, and duration of the wind makes it not logical to believe it happened merely by chance. To say it happened by chance, we would have to say that "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea" (v. 21) at just the right moment (and he knew to do that how?), we would have to say that the wind blew all night long at just the right magnitude and in just the right direction without varying at all (no lulls in the wind at all), and we would have to say that after all the Hebrews had made it through again "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea" (v. 27) at just the right moment when the wind stopped (again, he knew to do that how?) and the water came crashing down on the Egyptians. Such a sequence of perfectly timed events is really not possible with God's invention, even though He did use the forces of nature. Well, the same reasoning can apply to the plagues: even if there is a natural component to some or all of them, the timing, magnitude, and duration of events shows that the divine hand of God must be behind them.

Let's look at one of the most sophisticated attempts to explain the plagues naturally. Greta Hort published the best attempt to give natural explanations to all the plagues in "The Plagues of Egypt" in 1958 (in the German journal Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, pp. 48-59), and it is often still referenced by those who try to attribute the plagues to natural events. Her theory can be summarized as follows:

1. Massive flooding in the Abyssinian plateau upstream from Egypt washed red clay into the Nile, and that clay, combined with two particular types of algae, made the Nile appear "blood red." And, in the fish that died from the pollution of the Nile, anthrax bread, which comes into play in the successive plagues.
2. Frogs left the uninhabitable Nile, invading Egypt, but the frogs were infected with anthrax and so they soon died as well.
3. As floodwaters receded, the pools and dead frogs became a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes (more likely than gnats) and flies, both of which were infected by anthrax as well.
4. The mosquitoes bit humans and animals, and animals consume the flies, so both became infected with anthrax as well--it killed the animals that ingested them and infected the skin of the humans that were bitten.
5. In the seventh plague, the hail was just an extreme weather condition that destroyed crops.
6. In the eighth plague, the locusts bred as a result of the extremely wet ground from the hail and rain.
7. Finally, the darkness was a sandstorm (which, Hort claims, is why Bible says in 10:21 that it could be "felt").

I hope that while simply reading through those, you can already see how they are thoroughly unconvincing unless you are really looking for a reason to deny supernatural involvement by God. Here is an article that shows the many scientific inaccuracies in this theory (like the types of algae, what animals anthrax can infect, etc.). But, as mentioned above, such an attempt to create a purely natural chain of events (that breaks down after plague six, by the way) cannot at all account for the timing, magnitude, and duration of the plagues, so we do not even need to dig deep into the details to show that this does not work (though the article linked above is still worth a read):

1. The Nile turned to blood "in the sight of Pharaoh" (7:20), i.e. not gradually from an upstream flow, and it was not just the Nile but "all the water in Egypt" (7:20) and "even in the vessels of wood and in the vessels of stone" (7:19). Did Moses go upstream, see the red water flowing, run quickly (at 80 years old) down to Pharaoh, grab his attention, and then claim it was a plague from God? How did it get in all the surface water everywhere in Egypt?
2. The frogs came at least a week later (7:25), which is a long time to tolerate an uninhabitable river. Furthermore, the frogs did not come out gradually, but the Nile "swarmed with frogs" (8:3) and those frogs were so numerous "covered the land of Egypt" (8:6) so that they were everywhere, even in kneading bowls and ovens (8:3). So, that many millions of frogs were just sitting on the bottom of the (uninhabitable) Nile ready to march out at Moses' command?
3. The "biting insects" (mosquitoes probably more likely than gnats) of the third plague did not emerge gradually from cesspools but out of the dust of the ground when Aaron smacked it with his staff. And, it was not just a few insects but swarms that covered man and beast (8:17). Here also, even the magicians realized it was the "finger of God" (8:19). So, Moses saw the eggs were about to hatch and quickly commanded Aaron to smack the ground near some to claim a miracle?
4. The flies of the fourth plague were not breeding concurrently with the mosquitoes in the cesspools but a distinct plague that came out of the air. It was also not just a few flies but swarms to the point where "the houses of the Egyptians were filled with swarms of flies" (8:21). And, finally here, Goshen was protected from the flies. How exactly could that many flies in that timing come from cesspools? Furthermore, why would such flies avoid Goshen?
5. Here, it is claimed that anthrax killed the livestock. Perhaps that could be true, but it was all the livestock (9:6) and one would wonder if really every single one would have been infected. Furthermore, again, the Hebrews' livestock were fine (9:4). How could a disease like anthrax be so selective?
6. The boils did not arise slowly and gradually as the result of mosquitoes transferring anthrax but immediately after Moses tossed the soot in the air. (9:8-9). And, again, only the "all the Egyptians" were infected (9:11). How could it have been so abrupt? How could it have been so selective as to avoid the Hebrews?
7. Here, the causality link in Hort's theory breaks down. She just has to say that for some reason the first six things happened and then a storm "such as never has been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now" (9:18) just happened to arise. And, it came when Moses "stretched out his hand toward heaven" (9:22). Did Moses just happen to time it perfectly? Did he just somehow know the storm of the millennium was coming?
8. The locusts did not breed and arise gradually from more cesspools created by the storms, but when Moses stretched out his hand (10:13) they came in one an "east wind" (10:13) and they "covered the face of the whole land, so that the land was darkened" (10:15). When God was done, He sent a strong "west wind" that "drove them into the Red Sea" (10:19). Again, here her theory fails to account for the timing, magnitude, and duration.
9. While a sandstorm that lasts for three days has happened, such a theory cannot account for "pitch darkness" (10:22) again when Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven (10:22). Did he just happen to see the sandstorm coming and run quickly to Pharaoh, throw his hand in the air, and claim it was a plague? How did it plunge the land into "pitch darkness"? And, again, why was Goshen not affected by this darkness/storm (10:23)?
10. And, the tenth plague is not really the subject this week, but Hort says the tenth plague was not the death of the firstborn but the destruction of the last remains of the "first-fruits" of the harvest. And "due to a corruption of the Bible text" the word "firstborn" was misinterpreted. Yet, that completely ignores the context of Ex. 11:1-13:6, which describes in great detail the death of the firstborn. So, was the whole text "corrupted" but somehow created a cogent story line? And, how does Hort know what the original said since she claims we do not have it?

I hope now you can see how this attempt and others that claim natural causes for all the plagues are woefully inadequate. One does not even need to dig into the scientific detail but merely read the text to see that is the case.

So, could God have used natural forces in a supernatural way to bring about these plagues? Sure, He could have at least at some points, but the point is that the timing, magnitude, and duration of the plagues make purely natural explanations require more faith on our part than simply taking Scripture at its word. No, the plagues were real, judgment events that came from the hand of God. And, in the sermon of the next post, we will talk about what that means for us.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The Call of the Weak

For the past few weeks, I have been blogging a series of sermons and devotionals on the first twelve chapters of the book of Exodus that I preached and wrote over the summer. These chapters contain the actual story of the exodus, which is a great salvation that points us to God’s ultimate salvation that Jesus accomplished. We’ve seen God setting up that salvation in ch. 1 and the first part of ch. 2, and then we’ve also seen God preparing His savior and the people through suffering from the second half of ch. 2. In today's post, we’re going to see God’s official call of Moses.

The text for this sermon is a selected reading from Ex. 3-4, which recounts to us God's call of Moses and Moses' response. Moses' response is, shall we say, less than flattering for him, and if you know the story, you know what I am talking about. But, let's not be quick to judge Moses. Put yourself in Moses’ position here. He’s about 80 years old at this time. He has settled into the life of a shepherd and has been roaming the wilderness with his sheep for about 40 years. At this point, Egypt is probably a fading memory and any hope he had of being the one who delivers the Hebrew people has probably faded even more. Then, one day, which probably started out like a normal day, he brings his sheep to the base of a mountain. While there, he sees a burning bush, and probably does not think much of it at first, but then, after some amount of time, he notices that it’s burning but not actually burning up, so he goes to check it out. And, then, all of a sudden, the bush starts talking to him, and the bush knows his name. Then, immediately the bush introduces itself as God Himself and calls Moses to go back to Egypt and deliver the Hebrews from Pharaoh. Now, how do you think that would have hit you, if you had been Moses? Perhaps you fancied yourself a deliverer when you were young and well-to-do, but after 40 years of sheep herding, you’ve probably mellowed and maybe even given up on the idea of being a deliverer. Even when you tried to be a deliverer, you weren’t, shall we say, in your prime, and with each passing year in the wilderness, that dream fades, tracking somewhat with the deterioration of your body. So, you’ve become “set in your ways” and are content to live out your life as a shepherd. But, then, seemingly “out of the blue,” God calls to you from a burning bush and says, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” How do you think you’d feel? Probably not really up for it, I would think.

Well, I wonder if stuff like this does happen to us at times in our lives. Perhaps it’s not quite so dramatic, for to be sure we no longer hear God’s voice out of a burning bush, but maybe at some point we had grand ideas about what we can do for God whether it’s in our own personal holiness or in the world around us, until the circumstances of God’s providence blindsided us and we kind of settled down. Yet, then, somewhere in that more settled life, an opportunity comes before us: maybe God brings to mind a particular sin with which we’ve gotten comfortable and we can no longer ignore it, or maybe someone in the church asks us to do something that we’ve never really considered or been trained to do, or maybe a situation at work challenges us to stick out more as a Christian, or something else, and we’re worried that it might be God subtly saying, “Come, I have this for you…” because, like Moses, we’re not really up for it. Well, I think this passage can help because here we see God’s call of the weak, and if we’re honest with ourselves, we should probably be thinking, “Uh… yeah… that’s me.”

If you want to hear more, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- Preparation

About two weeks ago, I began a blog series on the story of the exodus from a summer sermon series, and in last week's sermon, we saw God beginning to set up His great salvation in ch. 1 and first part of ch. 2. One of the things we saw is that God is hardly mentioned at all in the first two chapters, even though things are bad. In fact, even with our passage for today—Ex. 2:11ff—He doesn’t come into the story until the last verse of ch. 2. Things get worse and worse throughout these first two chapters, and if we were reading this for the first time, even knowing that God’s working as we saw last week, we might ask, “What’s going on? What are you doing, God?”

Have you ever asked that question of God before? Maybe you feel like God has called you to do something—a job, marriage, children, reconciliation, etc.—and you’re almost certain of it, but then roadblock after roadblock keeps getting thrown up in your path? Have you ever cried out to God like Habakkuk does in the second verse of his book: “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” About two and half years ago, I was driving through the city of Atlanta on my way to a presbytery meeting of our denomination south of the city. I lived north of the city and with traffic, it was going to take me a couple of hours, so I had some time to kill. Yet, I was not really interested in listening to music or a podcast. I was feeling really discouraged, and I wasn’t really in the mood to listen to anything. Instead, I was mulling over the past year and a half in my mind. You see, I had been a graduate for seminary for almost year at that point, and I had been searching for a pastoral call for about six months longer than that. As I thought it over in my mind, I realized that only two churches had really shown much interested in me at all and that had been a year earlier. I realized that I had gone to a General Assembly of the PCA and two presbytery meetings as a seminary graduate without a call, and I was on my way to the third in that same state. And, about a week earlier, the last member of my graduating class from RTS to be without a ministry job found one… the last member except for me, that is. When I finally made it to the church at which our presbytery meeting was being held, I sat in my car for a little while, not wanting to go in because I was too embarrassed. Everyone there knew my situation: I was an interim pastor for a small congregation at the time, yes, but that would end soon, and still no one was even remotely interested in me for a permanent position, so I felt like a failure. Add to that the fact that Gabriel was a few months old and Erika was having to work full time because my position didn’t pay much, so I felt like a failure as a father and a husband, and everyone in that meeting knew what was going on. I was trying to pray to get up enough courage to walk in, but all I could think was, “What are You doing, God? Am I not called to be a pastor?”

Well, by the end of our passage, it would not surprise me at all if Moses and the Hebrew people were thinking the same thing: “What are you doing, God?” Up until the last verse of ch. 2, things seem even bleaker than at the end of ch. 1—the savior is exiled and the oppression is getting worse for God’s people. Moses was probably wondering what God was doing, and the people were probably wondering that too. And, just looking at the passage on the surface, we might wonder the same thing: “What is God doing? What doesn’t He just act?”

If you want to hear the rest, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Law

For today’s advent meditation we’ll continue our journey through the covenants of the Old Testament to see how they center on the covenantal refrain—”I will be your God and you will be my people”—and how they point us to Jesus. We’ve looked at God’s covenant with Adam and Eve (after the fall), God’s covenant with Noah, and God’s covenant with Abraham. That brings us to God’s covenant with Moses and the Israelite people given at Mt. Sinai: the “covenant of law.” The specific passages about this covenant, since they lay out the covenant law for God’s people, are numerous. The covenant covers Ex. 19-24 and the entire book of Deuteronomy. That’s obviously far too much to read in a single devotional, so we’ll focus on God’s words to Moses when He first promised to redeem Israel from Egypt and then talk a little about the covenant of law:

² God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. ⁶ Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” (Ex. 6:2-8)

This is not only the story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt but also our story of our redemption from sin. Like God promised to give the Israelites the land of Canaan, so He promised to give us heaven and eventually the new heavens and the new earth in Jesus. Like God heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians held as slaves, so He heard the groaning of His elect whom sin held as slaves. As God said, “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment,” so He brought us out from under the burden of slavery to sin and redeemed us from the power of death through Jesus. And, as God promised to bring them into the land He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to them as their possession, so He will soon send Jesus back to bring us into the land we have been promised—the new heavens and the new earth—and give it to us as our possession. All of this was done for the Israelites and for His Church so He could fulfill His covenantal refrain—the thread weaving through all the covenants (italicized in the above reading): “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God’s physical redemption of Israel is a type—a foreshadowing—of what He would soon do for all His people in Jesus. This is why we have something to celebrate at Christmas and why we can observe the season of Advent. God brought us out of slavery into freedom in Christ; “He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

Now, let’s talk specifically about God’s covenant with the Israelites that He gave to Moses. Why add this covenant under the umbrella of the covenant of grace after the covenant of promise given to Abraham? In Ga. 3:19 Paul asks and answers this very question, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made….” The covenant of law was added to the umbrella of the covenant of grace “because of transgressions.” It provided the covenant law and sacrificial system by which God’s people could fellowship with Him—He as their God and they as His people—until “the offspring should come,” i.e. until Jesus Christ came to fulfill the covenant of grace. The covenant of law mediated the covenant of grace for God’s people until Christ, and it ultimately pointed to Christ who was foreshadowed in its ordinances, laws, and sacrifices and who would one day fulfill and mediate a better, ultimate covenant (cf. He. 7:22). It didn’t replace the covenant of promise but built upon it: again, giving more information about the covenant of grace and greater fellowship with God. This is clear from the beginning when God rescued Israel from Egypt: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” God redeemed them from Egypt to give them the land which He “swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,” and He did so He could “take [them] to be [His] people, and [He] will be [their] God” (the covenantal refrain).

The covenantal dealings Israel had with God before He made the covenant of law with them at Mt. Sinai were founded upon His covenant with Abraham, and this didn’t change with the introduction of the covenant of law. Indeed, the covenant of promise was the foundation for redeeming the Israelite people from Egypt and giving the covenant of law. Even after the covenant was made at Mt. Sinai, God often repeated His covenantal refrain that He made to Abraham, and in the covenant of law God’s mercy and grace to the Jews were traced back to His covenant with Abraham (cf. Lv. 11:45; Dt. 4:20; 29:13). Finally, the fellowship promised in the covenantal refrain, and partially fulfilled in the covenant of promise, found even greater fulfillment with His presence in the Tabernacle among the people of Israel (cf. Ex. 40:34ff; Lv. 26:11-12). It was only upon the foundation of God’s covenant with Abraham (and with Adam and Eve) that the covenant of law could be built, and it was in the covenant of law that God’s covenant with Abraham found a basic fulfillment. More was to come in His later covenants and ultimately in Jesus Himself, who would bring final fulfillment. Thus, far from abrogating God’s covenant with Abraham, the covenant of law built upon it, further revealed God’s covenant of grace, increased His fellowship with His people, and foreshadowed Jesus in its ordinances and sacrifices.

Even though the covenant of law may seem like a lot of rules and regulations, remember that it is founded upon the promises of redemption and grace given in the covenant of promise. Remember that all the laws, ordinances, and sacrifices were not ends in themselves but pointed to Jesus who would fulfill them all forever. Christ’s advent didn’t replace the covenant with Moses; it fulfilled the promises, shadows, and types in it that had pointed to Him all along.

On this day of Advent remember that the covenant of law revealed more about God’s covenant of grace and increased His fellowship with His people. Also remember that we are even more blessed than the Israelites were because we know the Savior to which their laws pointed and He lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We’re even more blessed because they could only hope for the coming of the Messiah but we can look back on it and celebrate it in Christmas. Praise God for the amazing history of redemption that we have recorded for us in our Bibles. Remember how the redemption of the Israelite people from Egypt is a type and foreshadowing of your redemption, which Christ came in His first advent to accomplish. Ask Him to give you a new, fresh appreciation for the covenant of law and to reveal to you how that law points to Jesus. Ask Him to show you the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in it and to use that grace to conform you daily into the likeness of Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Prophet

God’s promise of redemption through the Messiah took many different forms in the Old Testament. Most often this promise took the form of prophecies about the Messiah to come. These prophecies are throughout the Old Testament, and today we will look at one given by Moses in Dt. 18:15-19:

¹⁵ “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— ¹⁶ just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

Jesus is the prophet of whom Moses spoke, and those who saw His earthly ministry knew it. Nearly fifteen hundred years after Moses foretold about a prophet like him, Jesus called Philip to be an apostle. When He did, Philip went to get his brother Nathanael and exclaimed, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” The people who followed Jesus, listened to His teaching, and saw His miracles knew it as well for they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” When Peter addressed the Jews in Solomon’s Portico, he reminded them that Jesus is the prophet who was to follow Moses (cf. Ac. 3:22). And, finally, when Stephen (the first recorded martyr) was before the Sanhedrin charged with preaching the gospel, he too told his accusers that Jesus is the prophet Moses promised (cf. Ac. 7:37-38).

The office of prophet is one of the offices that Jesus executes for His people as our Redeemer. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks in question #23, “What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?” and it answers, “Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.” Then, to further explain what this means, in #24 it asks, “How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?” and it answers, “Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by His word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.” A prophet was God’s spokesman who revealed to the people the will of God for their salvation and bore witness to the Messiah. In the Old Testament, there were many prophets, but now that Christ has come and God’s Word is complete, there is only one and it is Jesus Himself. Through His Word He informs us of all we need to know about God and His will, and through His Holy Spirit He gives us wisdom and understanding of it.

Did you notice why the Israelite people knew they needed a prophet? They had said to Moses, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” They knew that if they had to face God themselves, they would be consumed. So it is with us. We can’t bear to be in the presence of God without a mediator—one who stands between us and God. Jesus as the incarnate God-man is that Mediator, and as our Mediator He reveals to us God’s will. Without Him, we would've been left without “hope and without God in the world.” Thank God for the prophet like Moses, indeed greater than Moses (cf. He. 3-4)!

On this day of Advent remember that you would not know anything about salvation, Jesus, Advent, or God, if it were not for Jesus being your prophet. He is necessary for us to know God and He is also sufficient for us to know God—we need no other prophets in our lives. When you read His Word (one of the means by which He reveals God’s will to us), ask Him to make it clear to you by the Holy Spirit. Don’t be satisfied with your own mental abilities; ask for the Spirit’s illumination. He will give it to you!

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Covenant of Law

For today’s advent meditation we’ll continue our journey through the covenants of the Old Testament to see how they center on the covenantal refrain—”I will be your God and you will be my people”—and how they point us to Jesus. We’ve looked at God’s covenant with Adam and Eve (after the fall), God’s covenant with Noah, and God’s covenant with Abraham. That brings us to God’s covenant with Moses and the Israelite people given at Mt. Sinai: the “covenant of law.” The specific passages about this covenant, since they lay out the covenant law for God’s people, are numerous. The covenant covers Ex. 19-24 and the entire book of Deuteronomy. That’s obviously far too much to read in a single devotional, so we’ll focus on God’s words to Moses when He first promised to redeem Israel from Egypt and then talk a little about the covenant of law:

² God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. ⁶ Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’” (Ex. 6:2-8)

This is not only the story of Israel’s redemption from Egypt but also our story of our redemption from sin. Like God promised to give the Israelites the land of Canaan, so He promised to give us heaven and eventually the new heavens and the new earth in Jesus. Like God heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians held as slaves, so He heard the groaning of His elect whom sin held as slaves. As God said, “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment,” so He brought us out from under the burden of slavery to sin and redeemed us from the power of death through Jesus. And, as God promised to bring them into the land He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to them as their possession, so He will soon send Jesus back to bring us into the land we have been promised—the new heavens and the new earth—and give it to us as our possession. All of this was done for the Israelites and for His Church so He could fulfill His covenantal refrain—the thread weaving through all the covenants (italicized in the above reading): “I will be your God and you will be my people.” God’s physical redemption of Israel is a type—a foreshadowing—of what He would soon do for all His people in Jesus. This is why we have something to celebrate at Christmas and why we can observe the season of Advent. God brought us out of slavery into freedom in Christ; “He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”

Now, let’s talk specifically about God’s covenant with the Israelites that He gave to Moses. Why add this covenant under the umbrella of the covenant of grace after the covenant of promise given to Abraham? In Ga. 3:19 Paul asks and answers this very question, “Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made….” The covenant of law was added to the umbrella of the covenant of grace “because of transgressions.” It provided the covenant law and sacrificial system by which God’s people could fellowship with Him—He as their God and they as His people—until “the offspring should come,” i.e. until Jesus Christ came to fulfill the covenant of grace. The covenant of law mediated the covenant of grace for God’s people until Christ, and it ultimately pointed to Christ who was foreshadowed in its ordinances, laws, and sacrifices and who would one day fulfill and mediate a better, ultimate covenant (cf. He. 7:22). It didn’t replace the covenant of promise but built upon it: again, giving more information about the covenant of grace and greater fellowship with God. This is clear from the beginning when God rescued Israel from Egypt: “And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” God redeemed them from Egypt to give them the land which He “swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob,” and He did so He could “take [them] to be [His] people, and [He] will be [their] God” (the covenantal refrain).

The covenantal dealings Israel had with God before He made the covenant of law with them at Mt. Sinai were founded upon His covenant with Abraham, and this didn’t change with the introduction of the covenant of law. Indeed, the covenant of promise was the foundation for redeeming the Israelite people from Egypt and giving the covenant of law. Even after the covenant was made at Mt. Sinai, God often repeated His covenantal refrain that He made to Abraham, and in the covenant of law God’s mercy and grace to the Jews were traced back to His covenant with Abraham (cf. Lv. 11:45; Dt. 4:20; 29:13). Finally, the fellowship promised in the covenantal refrain, and partially fulfilled in the covenant of promise, found even greater fulfillment with His presence in the Tabernacle among the people of Israel (cf. Ex. 40:34ff; Lv. 26:11-12). It was only upon the foundation of God’s covenant with Abraham (and with Adam and Eve) that the covenant of law could be built, and it was in the covenant of law that God’s covenant with Abraham found a basic fulfillment. More was to come in His later covenants and ultimately in Jesus Himself, who would bring final fulfillment. Thus, far from abrogating God’s covenant with Abraham, the covenant of law built upon it, further revealed God’s covenant of grace, increased His fellowship with His people, and foreshadowed Jesus in its ordinances and sacrifices.

Even though the covenant of law may seem like a lot of rules and regulations, remember that it is founded upon the promises of redemption and grace given in the covenant of promise. Remember that all the laws, ordinances, and sacrifices were not ends in themselves but pointed to Jesus who would fulfill them all forever. Christ’s advent didn’t replace the covenant with Moses; it fulfilled the promises, shadows, and types in it that had pointed to Him all along.

On this day of Advent remember that the covenant of law revealed more about God’s covenant of grace and increased His fellowship with His people. Also remember that we are even more blessed than the Israelites were because we know the Savior to which their laws pointed and He lives in us through the Holy Spirit. We’re even more blessed because they could only hope for the coming of the Messiah but we can look back on it and celebrate it in Christmas. Praise God for the amazing history of redemption that we have recorded for us in our Bibles. Remember how the redemption of the Israelite people from Egypt is a type and foreshadowing of your redemption, which Christ came in His first advent to accomplish. Ask Him to give you a new, fresh appreciation for the covenant of law and to reveal to you how that law points to Jesus. Ask Him to show you the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in it and to use that grace to conform you daily into the likeness of Christ.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Solus Christus: The Prophet

God’s promise of redemption through the Messiah took many different forms in the Old Testament. Most often this promise took the form of prophecies about the Messiah to come. These prophecies are throughout the Old Testament, and today we will look at one given by Moses in Dt. 18:15-19:

¹⁵ “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— ¹⁶ just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

Jesus is the prophet of whom Moses spoke, and those who saw His earthly ministry knew it. Nearly fifteen hundred years after Moses foretold about a prophet like him, Jesus called Philip to be an apostle. When He did, Philip went to get his brother Nathanael and exclaimed, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” The people who followed Jesus, listened to His teaching, and saw His miracles knew it as well for they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” When Peter addressed the Jews in Solomon’s Portico, he reminded them that Jesus is the prophet who was to follow Moses (cf. Ac. 3:22). And, finally, when Stephen (the first recorded martyr) was before the Sanhedrin charged with preaching the gospel, he too told his accusers that Jesus is the prophet Moses promised (cf. Ac. 7:37-38).

The office of prophet is one of the offices that Jesus executes for His people as our Redeemer. The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks in question #23, “What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?” and it answers, “Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.” Then, to further explain what this means, in #24 it asks, “How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?” and it answers, “Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by His word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.” A prophet was God’s spokesman who revealed to the people the will of God for their salvation and bore witness to the Messiah. In the Old Testament, there were many prophets, but now that Christ has come and God’s Word is complete, there is only one and it is Jesus Himself. Through His Word He informs us of all we need to know about God and His will, and through His Holy Spirit He gives us wisdom and understanding of it.

Did you notice why the Israelite people knew they needed a prophet? They had said to Moses, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.” They knew that if they had to face God themselves, they would be consumed. So it is with us. We can’t bear to be in the presence of God without a mediator—one who stands between us and God. Jesus as the incarnate God-man is that Mediator, and as our Mediator He reveals to us God’s will. Without Him, we would've been left without “hope and without God in the world.” Thank God for the prophet like Moses, indeed greater than Moses (cf. He. 3-4)!

On this day of Advent remember that you would not know anything about salvation, Jesus, Advent, or God, if it were not for Jesus being your prophet. He is necessary for us to know God and He is also sufficient for us to know God—we need no other prophets in our lives. When you read His Word (one of the means by which He reveals God’s will to us), ask Him to make it clear to you by the Holy Spirit. Don’t be satisfied with your own mental abilities; ask for the Spirit’s illumination. He will give it to you!

By His Grace,
Taylor

Advent: Day 19

Today we continue our journey through the covenants of the Old Testament to see how they center around the covenantal refrain—"I will be your God and you will be my people"—and how they point us to Jesus. We have looked at God's covenant with Adam and Eve (after the fall), God's covenant with Noah, and God's covenant with Abraham. That brings us to God's covenant with Moses and the Israelite people. The specific passage about this covenant, since it lays out the covenant law for God's people, are numerous. It covers Ex. 19-24 and the entire book of Deuteronomy. It is far to much to read in a single blog post, so we will focus on God's words to Moses when He first promised to redeem Israel from Egypt and then talk a little about the Mosaic Covenant:

² God spoke to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. ⁶ Say therefore to the people of Israel, 'I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸ I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.'" (Ex. 6:2-8, emphasis added)

This is not only the story of Israel's redemption from Egypt but also our story of our redemption from sin. Like God covenanted with the Israelites to give them the land of Canaan, so He covenanted with us to give us heaven and eventually the new heavens and the new earth, in Jesus. Like God heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians held as slaves, so He heard the groaning of His elect whom sin held as slaves. As God said, "I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment," so He brought us out of the burden of slavery to sin and redeemed us from the power of death, through Jesus. And, as God promised to bring them into the land He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and give it to them as a possession, so He will soon send Jesus back to bring us into the land we have been promised—the new heavens and the new earth—and give it to us as a possession. All of this was done for the Israelites and for His Church so He could fulfill His covenantal refrain, the thread weaving through all the covenants (italicized above): "I will be your God and you will be my people." God's physical redemption of Israel is a type, a foreshadowing of what He would soon do for all His elect in Jesus. This is why we have something celebrate at Advent. God brought us out of slavery into freedom in Christ, and "He delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Col. 1:13).

Now, let's talk specifically about God's covenant with the Israelites that He gave to Moses. God covenants with His people at Mt. Sinai, and this covenant is often called the "Mosaic Covenant" or sometimes the "covenant of law." Why add this covenant under the umbrella of the covenant of grace after the Abrahamic Covenant (AC)? In Ga. 3:19 Paul says, "Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made…." The Mosaic Covenant (MC) was added to the umbrella of the covenant of grace "because of transgressions." It provided the covenant law and sacrificial system by which God's people could fellowship with Him—He as their God and they as His people—until "the offspring should come," i.e. until Jesus Christ came to fulfill the covenant of grace. The MC mediated the covenant of grace for God's people until Christ, and it ultimately pointed to Christ who was foreshadowed in its ordinances, laws, and sacrifices and who would one day fulfill and mediate a better, ultimate covenant (He. 7:22). It did not replace the AC but built upon it (again, giving more information about the covenant of grace and greater fellowship with God). This is clear from the beginning when God rescued Israel from Egypt: "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." (Ex. 2:24, emphasis added) So, God redeemed them from Egypt to give them the land which He "swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (Ex. 6:8, emphasis added) and so He could "take [them] to be [His] people, and [He] will be [their] God" (Ex. 6:7), again repeating His covenantal refrain. The covenantal dealings with God before He made the MC with the Israelites at Sinai were founded upon His covenant with Abraham, and this did not change with the introduction of the MC. Even after the covenant was made at Sinai, God often repeated His covenantal refrain that He made to Abraham (Lv. 11:45; Dt. 4:20; 29:13). Also, in the MC God's mercy and grace were traced to His covenant with Abraham (Ex. 32:12-14; 33:1; Lv. 26:42; Dt. 1:8; 4:31; 7:8; 9:27; 29:12-13). And, the fellowship promised in the covenantal refrain found even greater fulfillment with His presence in the Tabernacle among the people (Ex. 40:34ff; Lv. 26:11-12). It was only upon the foundation of God’s covenant with Abraham that the MC could be built, and it was in the MC that God’s covenant with Abraham found a basic fulfillment. More was to come in His later covenants and ultimate Jesus Himself, who would bring final fulfillment. Thus, far from abrogating God's covenant with Abraham, the MC built upon it, further revealed God's covenant of grace, increased His fellowship with His people, and pointed to Jesus.

So, even though the MC may seem like a lot of rules and regulations, remember that it is founded upon the promises of redemption and grace given in the AC, and remember that all these laws, ordinances, and sacrifices were not an end in themselves but pointed to Jesus who would fulfill them all forever. Christ's advent did not replace the covenant with Moses; it fulfilled the promises, shadows, and types in it that pointed to Him all along. 

By His Grace,

Taylor

Advent: Day 5

God's promise of redemption took many different forms in the Old Testament (OT). Most often, they took the form of prophecies about the Messiah to come. These prophecies are throughout the OT. Today we will look at one given by Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15-19:

¹⁵ "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— ¹⁶ just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' ¹⁷ And the Lord said to me, 'They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. ¹⁹ And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.'"

Nearly fifteen hundred years later, when Jesus called Philip and he went to get his brother Nathanael, Philip exclaimed to his brother, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." (Jn. 1:45) The people who followed Jesus, listened to His teaching, and saw His miracles knew it as well (Jn. 6:14). When Peter addressed the Jews in Solomon's Portico, he too reminded them that Jesus is the prophet who was to follow Moses (Ac. 3:22). And, when Stephen (the first martyr) was before the Sanhedrin charged with preaching Jesus, he told them that Jesus is the prophet Moses promised (Ac. 7:37-38).

The office of prophet is one of the offices that Jesus executes for us as our Redeemer. The Westminster Short Catechism asks in question #23, "What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?" and it answers, "Christ, as our Redeemer, executeth the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation." Then, to further explain what this means, in #24 it asks, "How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?" and it answers, "Christ executeth the office of a prophet, in revealing to us, by His word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation." A prophet told people the will of God. He was God's spokesman. In the OT, there were many prophets, but now that Christ has come there is only one and it is Jesus Himself. Through His Word He informs us of all we need to know about God and His will (2 Ti. 3:16-17), and through His Holy Spirit He gives us wisdom and understanding of it (1 Co. 2:9-12).

This Advent season, remember that you would not know anything about salvation, Jesus, Advent, or God, if it were not for Jesus being your prophet. He is necessary for us to know God and He is also sufficient for us to know God (we need no other prophets in our lives).

By His Grace,
Taylor