The Commandments: The law shows we need Jesus
The Israelites are free from Egypt and they are on their way to the promised land. God has done miracle after miracle to lead, protect, and provide for His people. But just days into the journey, the Israelites are full of complaints towards Moses and ingratitude towards the Lord.
Moses has to be frustrated, but God loves, cares for, and provides for Moses too. Moses is able to do something incredible. Over and over again, Moses is permitted to be in God’s presence and to speak to Him directly! When Moses gives directions to the Israelites, he gives them the directions that God gave to him and God makes sure the Israelites know this–
Exodus 19:9a | Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, Moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak with you. Then they will always trust you.”
Exodus 19:17-21 | Moses led them [the Israelites] out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply. The Lord came down on the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses climbed the mountain. Then the Lord told Moses, “Go back down and warn the people not to break through the boundaries to see the Lord, or they will die.”
Moses carries the weight of leading God’s people and delivering God’s correction, but He also gets the incredible privilege of knowing God personally and deeply!
God knows that the Israelites need some guidelines to help them during their time in the wilderness. They had already had many disagreements and had asked many questions about how God wanted them to live (Exodus 18:13-16). Guidelines would provide protection for the people as they would know what was right and wrong. They would also serve as an agreement between God and the Israelites that set them apart from the pagan nations around them and marked them as belonging to the Lord (Exodus 19:5-6).
We know God’s guidelines as the 10 commandments and they say:
Exodus 20:2-12 | “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. (#1) “You must not have any other god but me. (#2) “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. (#3) “You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lordwill not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. (#4) “Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. (#5) “Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you. (#6) “You must not murder. (#7) “You must not commit adultery. (#8) “You must not steal. (#9) “You must not testify falsely against your neighbor. (#10) “You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.”
In Exodus 24:3, the Israelites accept the terms of their covenant or agreement with the Lord. Then –
Exodus 31:18 | When the Lord finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, written by the finger of God.
God writes the 10 commandments in stone with His own finger and Moses takes them down the mountain to God’s people.
But before Moses can even get back down the mountain, the Israelites have already broken their agreement with God! While Moses was gone, they asked Aaron to make some gods that could lead them and they melted down all of their gold and made an idol - a golden calf that they built an altar to and worship (Exodus 32:1-6). [Remember Commands 1 & 2?]
The Lord is angry (Exodus 32:9) and so is Moses (Exodus 32:19). Moses ends up smashing the tablets with the 10 commandments. He also grinds the calf the Israelites made into powder and forces the people to drink it (Exodus 32:20).
Ultimately, the tablets are re-written by God (Exodus 34:4), but the Israelites are no better at keeping the laws that are on them. Was God surprised the Israelites broke His law? Was He setting them up to fail with a law they couldn’t keep? Did He just want these complainers to be guilty and deserving of death? Not at all.
The New Testament explains exactly why the law was given -
Romans 3:19-20 | Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.
The law was given to show that no one could be good on their own. Not one of us can keep the whole law (Romans 3:10, 23). And breaking any part of the law is a big problem-
James 2:10 | For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.
The punishment for breaking God’s laws (or sin) is death (Romans 6:23a) - separation from God forever.
When the Israelites broke God’s laws, they had to make sacrifices to God to show their repentance. The blood of an animal would be poured out on the altar to represent the blood covering their sin. But these animals could not make God’s people forever right in His sight-
Hebrews 10:1-4 | The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared. But instead, those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins year after year. For it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Because of the law (10 commandments), the Israelites would be reminded over and over again of their sin and be sent over and over again back to the Lord for forgiveness. Even here in the second book of the Old Testament, God was pointing people directly to their need for the Savior who would come to satisfy the law and pay for all their sins once and for all by pouring out His own blood -
Hebrews 10:5-14 | That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God— as is written about me in the Scriptures.’” First, Christ said, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings or burnt offerings or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them” (though they are required by the law of Moses). Then he said, “Look, I have come to do your will.” He cancels the first covenant in order to put the second into effect. For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time. Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy (made right in His sight- Romans 3).
Our Timeless Truth today from the 10 commandments was true for the Israelites and it is true for us - The law shows we need Jesus. There was nothing the we or the Israelites could do to live without sinning or to forever take away our guilt because of our sin. Instead, Jesus did that in our place. When we put our faith in Him as Lord of our lives, we are made holy or declared right in God’s sight and God promises-
Hebrews 10:17b | “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”
The law, and our inability to keep it, shows we need Jesus.
What is something you learned or that stood out to you from the account of Moses and the 10 commandments?
Why did God give the Israelites the 10 commandments?
Which of the commandments are hardest for you to follow? Why?
Why would God give us a set of rules that are impossible for us to keep?
How do the 10 commandments, or the law, show us we need Jesus?
How did Jesus fulfill or satisfy the law?
Because Jesus satisfied the law, how does God the Father view the sins of people who have made Jesus their Lord?