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Yep. Hebrews 10 is still our destination.

In our re-examination of the story, we have moved from the Garden, through Noah and the Flood, to God’s covenant with Abraham. At this point in the story, we have learned that The One Who Is Coming to crush the Enemy will indeed bring, not simply relief from the curse, but, in it’s place blessing.

And so, Abraham begets Isaac, and Isaac, Jacob. Jacob is renamed “Israel”, and it is with his 12 sons, who become the tribes of Israel, that the promise of a nation coming from Abraham begins to take shape. The book of Genesis ends with these sons and their families seeking relief from a famine by going to Egypt.

Four-hundred thirty years later, these 12 have grown 600,000 men capable of going to war, in addition to women and children. But, fearing them, the Egyptians have made them slaves.

God sends Moses to lead them out of Egypt, into the Land of His promise to Abraham. Egypt’s objections are mitigated with a series of 10 Plagues, and God brings them out, to Mount Sinai, where they meet Him and formalize their relationship.

Having received a commitment from the people of Israel, through Moses, to obey God and become His chosen people, God calls an assembly at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19:1-15).

After careful preparation,  the people gather at Sinai. What they experience is very different from Adam and Eve’s meetings with God, where they walked with Him in the cool of the day, in the Garden, pre-fall. Instead, they find themselves before a mountain that is quaking violently and engulfed in smoke. They are surrounded by thunder and lightening, with the sound of a trumpet that grows louder and louder. And, they have been warned that if they touch even the edge of the mountain, they will be killed. In the midst of this God speaks to them, laying out the 10 Commandments – the outline of the Covenant that will govern their relationship with Him. The experience is so terrifying, they never want to do it again.

“All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” (Exodus 20:18-19).

If this is any indication, having God in their midst is going to be a very difficult experience. And, indeed, it is.

Moses receives the details of the Covenant – the rest of the Law – privately, from God, on the mountain. Unlike the Covenant with Abraham, this Covenant places obligations . . . many of them, on Abraham’s descendants. In addition to the Laws which govern a myriad of details in their every day lives, there are two other essential components to the Mosaic Covenant – The Tabernacle, and The Priesthood.

The Tabernacle was the place where God dwelt among His people.  But, while He dwelt in their midst, three curtains stood between Him and the people. The first was the Tabernacle enclosure – the outer curtain which defined the perimeter of the Tabernacle. The open area inside this curtain is sometimes called the Court of the Sanctuary. In order to enter this courtyard, an Israelite must be free from any of the defilements laid out in the regulations of the Covenant related to uncleanness. The typical Israelite could never get closer to God than this, still separated from Him by two curtains.

Which brings us to the Priesthood. Only the priests were allowed to pass through the second curtain, into the Holy Place, where they served before the Lord. Beyond the Holy Place was the Holy of Holies, where the Presence of God dwelt. Only one man – the High Priest – was permitted access here. And only on one day a year – the Day of Atonement. And only if he did everything just right. An “oops” here meant death.

The message in all of this is that God is exceedingly holy, man exceedingly sinful, and their co-existence is no casual matter. This gap between God and man is a concept Israel will have difficulty grasping. For the next 800-900 years, when they do worship Him, it will usually be as one of several gods that they honor. Not until they spend 70 years in Babylonian captivity do they begin to comprehend His holiness.

After the Exile, they return to the Land of Promise a different people, no longer worshipping multiple deities. But, in the process, they traded syncretism for self-righteous legalism.

This legalistic orientation will still be a dominant mindset some 500 years later, when Jesus arrives. By this point, the religiously minded, such as the Pharisees, now have an inkling of God’s holiness, but are quiet confident in their own righteousness, attained through keeping the Law. It was this attitude that Jesus went after in the Sermon on The Mount; the righteousness necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven exceeds that of the righteousness of the Pharisees. True righteousness must deal with sin at the heart level. (For a fuller discussion of the Sermon on the Mount, see Loving Your Enemies: What Was Jesus’ Point – Part 1 and Part 2.) Paul will later clarify that the Law was never intended to make us righteous, only to show us our sinfulness (Galatians 2:15-16, 21; 3:19-22; 1 Timothy 1:8-10).

But again, we are getting ahead of the story. For now, the Mosaic Covenant brings two significant developments.

With the Covenant, Abraham’s descendants become more than a race, they become a nation, in keeping with God’s promise to Abraham. As this part of the promise develops, so does the hope that, through Abraham, One will come Who will bring blessing in place of the curse.

And with the Mosaic Covenant, God acts to once again dwell among men for the first time since the Garden.

Hope grows.

(For the next article in the series, click here.)