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The Story – Week Five

“New Commands and a New Covenant”

Welcome to week five in The Story!

The Story is held together with a few key narrative threads. These threads can be traced

throughout every part of the book from beginning to end. One of the most important

threads is that God wants to live with His people. This was His desire in Eden. It is

fulfilled in the Tabernacle and later the Temple.1

Mt. Sinai is the setting for chapter five of The Story, “New Commands and a New

Covenant.” We’ll be in the second half of the book of Exodus this week; last week we were in

the first half. Here’s a simple outline of the structure of Exodus:

Part One: “Deliverance”

Moses is born / raised in Egypt (ch 1-2)

Moses in Midian / burning bush (ch 2-4)

Moses returns to Egypt (ch 4-6)

10 Plagues / Passover (ch 6-12)

Israelites depart from Egypt (ch 12-13)

Deliverance at the Red Sea (ch 13-15)

Journey from the Sea to Sinai (ch 15-18)

Part Two: “New Commands and a New Covenant”

The Ten Commandments (ch 19-20)

Israel’s Constitution / the book of the Covenant (ch 20-24)

Plans for the Tabernacle (ch 25-31)

Idolatry: the golden calf (ch 32-33)

Intercession: God forgives (ch 33-34)

The Tabernacle is constructed (ch 35-39)

God is in the Tabernacle, with His people (ch 40)

1 Exploring the Story, Chapter 5

1 | P a g eThe Story Series – Week Five

Pastor Steve Evoy – Ripon Free Methodist Church

The second half of Exodus takes place at the foot of Mt. Sinai, where the Israelites

camped for about one year. Earlier at Mt. Sinai, God spoke to Moses through the burning bush.

Now, God will speak to all of His people from a blazing fire atop the mountain peak. To Moses,

God had said, “I AM the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” To the people, He

says, “I AM the LORD your God who brought you up out of Egypt.”

At Mt. Sinai, God reveals His nature and character: “I AM holy,” He said, and then He

said to the people, “You are to be holy as I AM holy.” God illustrated what this meant: through

the Ten Commandments, a broad set of social regulations and a detailed list of ordinances to

direct their religious ceremonies. Collectively, these “new commandments” revealed God’s

character, and they gave structure to the “new covenant” He was establishing with His people.

This “new” covenant was, in fact, actually a fulfillment of the covenant God established with

Abraham centuries earlier:

God said to him, “As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You will be the father of

many nations. No longer will you be called Abram [father]; your name will be Abraham

[exalted father], for I have made you a father of many nations.

“I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your

descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your

descendants after you.

“The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting

possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”2

2 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ge 17:3–8). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.



A covenant is a formal agreement; today, we would call it “legally binding.”

It is often solemnized or ratified by an oath…and usually places demands on one or both

parties. Covenants played a major role in the ancient Near East, which made them a

useful way for God to relate to His people and demonstrate His commitment to them.

God’s covenant with Israel is the primary concept used to describe his relationship with

His people.3

But why, one might ask, would God choose to relate to His people in this way? This is an

important question, and John H. Walton offers an excellent response:

God has a plan in history that He is sovereignly executing. The goal of that plan is for

Him to be in relationship with the people whom He has created. It would be difficult for

people to enter into a relationship with a God whom they do not know. If His nature were

concealed, obscured, or distorted, an honest relationship would be impossible.

In order to clear the way for this relationship, then, God has undertaken as a primary

objective a program of self-revelation. He wants people to know Him. The mechanism

that drives this program is the covenant, and the instrument is Israel. The purpose of the

covenant is to reveal God.4

Historically, Christians have assumed that the purpose of the covenant was salvation.

Obviously, salvation is a key component of God’s plan; if He’s going to relate with people on a

permanent basis, He needs to save them. Certainly, God intends to save people; and towards that

end, He chooses to reveal Himself. But we need to be careful lest we wind up relate everything

in Scripture (especially in the Old Testament) to the important issue of salvation. Otherwise,

we’ll misread the text; for example, we’ll end up in arguments about whether or not a person has

to obey all of the Ten Commandments in order to “be saved.”

3 Jones, M. R. (2014). Covenant. D. Mangum, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, & R. Hurst (Eds.), Lexham Theological Wordbook. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.4 Walton, John H. Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI. 1994 (Kindle Edition)



The covenant is a revelatory program that [develops through] phases of election [e.g.,

calling Abraham, claiming Israel, confirming David’s dynasty] that are designed to

highlight the nature and attributes of God.

When God has made Himself known in such a way, He closes the program of revelation

by making a means of reconciliation possible through His Son, Jesus Christ.

The [revelation] program thus eventuates in a [salvation] program.

We have been given the knowledge of God so that we might enter into relationship with

Him. He has provided the revelation of Himself and He has provided the way to

Himself.5

Christians must resist the temptation reduce the message of Scripture to a concise “plan

of salvation” that can be quickly explained and immediately experienced. Otherwise, we’ll wind

up reading the Scriptures incorrectly: as a list of things we must know, believe and do in order to

“be saved.” Let’s remember Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees: “You diligently study the

Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that

testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.” (John 5:39 NIV)

This week’s reading in The Story is an excellent case in point. If salvation was the sole

function of the covenant, then God would’ve given the Law to the Israelites while they were

stuck in Egypt, saying, “OK, here’s the deal: if you can faithfully follow these commandments

with all of your heart, then I will save you. If you will obey, then I will be your God and you will

be My people. The ball’s in your court. If you obey, then I will save you from your miserable

situation and take you to a better place.” That might seem to make sense, but it’s not at all what

God did.

5 Ibid.



It’s a matter of biblical fact that God saved the Israelites from their oppression and

bondage and then He gave them the “New Commands and a New Covenant” (the title of chapter

five in The Story.) God graciously chose to save them, and then, He formalized the covenant at

Mt. Sinai. The Israelites did not have to “audition” through obedience to “earn” their election

(which means selection, i.e., salvation).

Recently scholarship is demonstrating – convincingly - that first century Jews (of Jesus’

day) were not trying to earn their salvation by a legalistic effort to obey the Law. They were

secure in their sense of election (they knew God had chosen them to be “His people” by grace);

their debates about the Law revolved around identifying the proper marks that confirmed their

status. If Martin Luther had been confronted with the evidence behind this assertion (most of it

is in the Dead Sea Scrolls, not discovered until the twentieth century), the Reformation may have

unfolded very differently.6 The issue between Jesus and the Pharisees needs to be explored

along these lines: Jesus claimed that His life was replacing the Law as the primary means of

knowing God. Jesus didn’t accuse the Pharisees of “legalism,” (contrary to popular assumption);

He did accuse them of misreading the Scriptures (they weren’t the last ones to do this!)

Let’s back up a bit in The Story and review what God said to Moses at the burning bush:

God also said to Moses, “I AM the LORD. 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. I also

established My covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as

aliens. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are

enslaving, and I have remembered My covenant.

6 As it is, Reformed theologians are unsurprisingly opposed to any reconsideration of their assumptions about why there was conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees – the issues are enormous; too big to review in this message. Those who are curious can explore topics related to “the New Perspective on Paul,” and the (so-called) “Third Quest for the Historical Jesus.” I advise reading the sources, not simply the reviews. A prolific Anglican theologian, N.T. Wright, has published a great deal on the subject, for laymen and scholars.



“Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I AM the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the

yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you

with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as My own

people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I AM the LORD your God, who

brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I

swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you

as a possession. I AM the LORD.’” 7

Notice the three stages of divine action, and their sequence:

Deliverance: “I will redeem you…I will take you as My own people”

Covenant: “I will be your God, then you will know that I AM the LORD your God”

Inheritance: “I will bring you to the land…I will give it to you as a possession.”

I’ve already commented regarding God’s decision to save Israel before He gave them

instructions as to how they were to live. Now I want to raise this question: wouldn’t it have

made more sense for God to say, “I will bring you out of Egypt, and I will bring you into the

Promised Land, and then you will know that I AM the LORD your God”? Why wouldn’t God

fulfill His entire promise to Abraham – by settling the Israelites in the land that was promised to

them as an inheritance – and then say, “Well, that should prove that I’m who I say I am.”

Apparently, something unique happened at Mt. Sinai that enabled Israel to “know…the

LORD their God.” They certainly learned something about Him during the sequence of events

that led up to their deliverance from Egypt: the plagues, the Passover, the Red Sea, the manna,

etc. Those things revealed God’s preference for Israel and His power over all rivals. But God

had much more in store for His people; at Mt. Sinai He revealed His character and nature – He

did this through the commandments and the covenant.

7 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ex 6:2–8). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.



The Book of the Covenant (Exodus 24:7) was not given to Israel so that the people could

obey the commandments and be “saved” (in the sense that Christians usually talk about

salvation). Through the covenant, God revealed Himself to Israel, so that they could reveal Him

to the nations. That was the point at the time; we need to read The Story with that in mind.

Why was it necessary for God to initiate this program of revealing His character and

nature to Israel, and ultimately to the nations? Quoting Walton once again:

[The first eleven chapters of Genesis function as] an introduction to God’s program of

revelation. How did it come about that people needed a revelation of Yahweh? Why did

He not just keep in contact from the start?

Genesis tells the story of how God created humankind in fellowship with Him, but also

relates how that relationship was destroyed by the Fall. The destruction of all but Noah

and his family in the flood gave humanity a second opportunity to maintain a

relationship, but again sin interfered.

The primeval history concludes with the important account of the Tower of Babel.

Urbanization in Mesopotamia had provided fertile ground for the development of a new

paganism aptly represented in the symbolism of the ziggurat. The Tower of Babel

represented the definitive formulation of a brand of paganism that pervaded the ancient

Near East in which mythologized deity was portrayed as having all the foibles of

humanity. In so doing, humanity remade deity in its own image.

The perception of God that swept [over] the ancient world was incapable of providing a

sound basis for a relationship with the one true God. The result was the need for God to

vouchsafe an accurate revelation of Himself. He therefore instituted a revelatory program

by means of the covenant. In this way chapters 1–11 of Genesis show why there was a

need for a revelatory program and lead into the details of how God embarked on that

program using the mechanism of the covenant.8

8 Walton, John H. Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI. 1994 (Kindle Edition)



God revealed Himself to Israel gradually; through the developmental stages of a long-

term relationship that spanned generations. He fulfilled the original promises made to Abraham

regarding descendants and a Promised Land. He described His holy character at Mt. Sinai

through the content of the national covenant. He demonstrated His mercy and justice through His

ongoing relationship with the chosen people who were far from perfect. Eventually – after

centuries of a turbulent relationship - Jeremiah summed up what “knowing God” means:

This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man

boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast

about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I AM the LORD, who exercises

kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.” 9

Throughout The Story we will see that, even as Israel’s knowledge of God’s character

and nature increased, they failed to “walk before God” in a manner that was consistent with what

they knew to be true about Him. This jeopardized God’s plan to reveal Himself to all nations.

When God’s people refused to live in faithfulness to the terms of the covenant, they sent

a mixed message to the nations about God. They were not reflecting His character clearly. God

was offended by the sinful behavior of His people – largely because it was preventing the nations

from knowing who He was. Remember, He didn’t just want a relationship with Israel, He

wanted a relationship with all nations; He’d said that to Abraham at the commencement of the

covenant program: “Through you, all nations will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

9 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Je 9:23–24). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.



Towards the end of the Old Testament part of The Story, Israel is living in blatant

contempt of covenant. How can a holy God reveal Himself to the world through a chosen nation

that is behaving worse than the pagans? God answers this question through His prophets:

First, God must deal with the issue of Israel’s sinfulness. Just like Adam and Eve

were driven from Paradise, the people of Israel were exiled from the Promised Land.

God withdrew His protection from Israel, and they were plundered by pagan nations.

His message to Israel, and through Israel, went like this: “Listen, O Israel, you are

My people, but your lives have not represented My character; therefore, I am going to

judge your sins with an act of severe discipline. Prepare for exile!”

Second, He must display His own sovereignty. God then needed to defend His

reputation, proving that Israel’s defeat didn’t discredit His claim to be the One, true

God. His message to Israel, and through Israel, went like this, “The nations of the

world presume that you suffered defeat because I was not able to protect you. This is

a disgrace; how will the nations know that I am God? Listen, O Israel, I will preserve

you and even prosper you in the land of exile; and eventually, I will bring you home.

But know this: I’m not doing this for your sakes, but for Mine, so that the nations will

know I am the Lord.”

Finally, He must deploy His plan of salvation – the huge reason that God has been

revealing Himself to Israel, and through Israel, is so that everyone may see who He is:

our Creator, and our Savior. His message to Israel, and through Israel, went like this,

“Behold, I am the LORD, there is no other God but Me. I am about to reveal Myself

to you and through you in a way that you can’t possibly imagine. You wouldn’t

believe Me if I told you, but know this: the final portion of My revelation to you will

be the provision of permanent salvation for you - and for all people. When I take

away your sins, I will take away the sins of the world. The means through which I

will save your from the nations is the means through which all nations will be saved;

for everyone will know that I am the Lord, and all who call upon the name of the Lord

will be saved.”



Through the prophets, God promises that He will reclaim His people establish a new

covenant. For example, He gave this promise through the prophet Jeremiah:

“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the

house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with

their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they

broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the

Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God,

and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his

brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them

to the greatest,” declares the Lord. 10

“Breaking the covenant” likely means “rendering it useless;” God revealed His character

to Israel, but they failed to reflect through faithful obedience. If God was going to reveal

Himself to the nations, He’d need to do it Himself – but He’d also need to do it through Israel.

He was on record with that commitment.

Actually, God had been in a situation similar to this – we’ll read about it this week.

During the forty days that Moses was up on the mountain with God, the Israelites got fidgety –

like a bunch of students who go wild when the teacher steps out of the classroom. They began

breaking the commandments which God had spoken to them directly. They forged the golden

calf and started reveling in pagan debauchery. To put it mildly: they were not reflecting God’s

holy character. God says to Moses, “These people are not up to the task. Step aside, so that I

can destroy them; then I’ll start over with you and your descendants.” Is God really threatening

to destroy the Israelites? Or is He testing Moses’ heart? Read The Story carefully to find out:

10 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Je 31:31–34). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.



Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out

of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I

commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They

have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel,

who brought you up out of Egypt.’

“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.

Now leave Me alone so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy

them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “O Lord,” he said, “why should Your

anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of Egypt with great power and a

mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He brought

them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn

from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on Your people. Remember your

servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by Your own self: ‘I will make

your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all

this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” Then the Lord

relented and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened. 11

We’re told that Moses sought the favor of “the LORD his God.” This phrase is important,

for it indicates that Moses does understand the character of the LORD and he is reflecting it. He

speaks courageously to God, saying, “They’re not my people, Lord, they’re Yours. I didn’t bring

them up out of Egypt, You did. They are the descendants that You promised to Abraham. You

have sworn to give them Canaan as an inheritance. They know it, and so do the Egyptians. If

You fail to keep Your promise to Abraham, what will that say about Your character?”

This scene is taut with tension; it almost seems that God is “stuck.” On the one hand, the

Israelites must be disciplined; otherwise, it will seem that God approves of dreadful sin. On the

other hand, they can’t be destroyed; otherwise, it will seem that God is unwilling to keep His

11 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ex 32:7–16). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.



promises or unable to make His plans work. This is not the last time that God will seem (to us)

to be “stuck” between a rock and a hard place. In this situation, He is merciful. Eventually,

however, we know that He will judge: with the exception of Joshua and Caleb (who we’ll read

about next week,) none of the people at the foot of the mountain will enter the Promised Land.

Standing alone before the Lord his God, looking at the situation from the covenant

perspective of God’s desire to reveal Himself to Israel – and through them to the nations – Moses

intercedes for the people and begs God to be merciful for the sake of His own name. His

example points forward to the ministry of Jesus Christ; this is important to observe. This

difficult scene is foreshadowing, it’s meant to inform the reader that God does not always deal

with His people (immediately) according to what they deserve; it’s meant to help us understand

what happens later in The Story. In this scene, therefore, God is revealing Himself.

If the purpose of the covenant was “salvation,” then Israel should’ve been wiped out – as

an example of what happens to those who refuse to obey the commandments. But since the

purpose of the covenant is “revelation,” God relents. We shouldn’t read this as a lesson that “we

can sin all we want and trust God to forgive us.” The point being made is “we need to read this

scene in order to gain an understanding of God’s nature and purposes.”

If we remember that “the purpose of [a] covenant is the revelation of God;” then we can

realize that the purpose of a “new” covenant will be to provide “new” revelation of God. This

new revelation came through Jesus – and it was absolutely astonishing. Instead of describing

Himself through a set of commandments, God displayed Himself through His Son. The character

of God – His holiness, righteousness and love – became profoundly visible in the way that His

Son lived out the commandments that were written in the “old covenant.”



John was moved to express this great reality in these words:

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the

glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. For the

Law was given through Moses [a written description of God’s holiness]; grace and truth

came through Jesus Christ [a living demonstration of God’s love and wisdom]. No one

has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side [referring to

Jesus in His post-resurrection place of ascension] has made Him known. 12

The author of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews put it like this:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many

ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all

things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and

the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.13

Consider this: when Jesus said, “I did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it,” He

didn’t mean, “I’m going to obey every last detail,” He meant, “I going to perform its function:

the covenant was given to reveal God, here I AM!” He did obey the written law completely – not

to give us a perfect example of a human life (as if anyone else could aspire to that!), but to give

us a perfect expression of God’s love.

We need to understand that the “New Covenant” is not a “new” way of “salvation” that is

superior to an “old” way of “salvation” that was encapsulated in the “Old Covenant.” The Old

Covenant was not about salvation (in the sense that Christians think of it), it was about revelation

– it was given to (and by extension through) the people of Israel in order to show them (and us)

what God is like. As Walton says, “The purpose of the covenant is to reveal God.”

12 The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Jn 1:14, 17-18). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.13 New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Heb 1:1–3). LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.



The Old Testament reveals God indirectly – His character is expressed through the

commandments, His nature is discerned through His active involvement in history – and thus it

points beyond itself, to the God who longs to live in relationship with humanity. The Old

Testament concludes with a mysterious promise: somehow, in the events through which God will

bring Israel back to their land, God Himself is going to come back to His people – referring to

all humanity. It’s a staggering promise: When God acts to redeem His people from their exile; it

will mean salvation for all people – to the ends of the earth.

In Christ, the covenant relationship is redefined, but the basic thrust of the covenant has

not changed. Now the character of God is revealed not through legislative examples of

how a godly person will act, but by God’s Son who came and lived among us. The map

has been replaced by a guide. That does not make the map wrong, but a guide [changes

our relationship to the map].14

Today, we’ve begun to see that God’s covenants are about revelation – leading up to

salvation – and that salvation is not earned by obeying any particular set of commands; it’s

embraced as we recognize what God has done for us in Christ and re-order our lives in

response.15

14 Walton, John H. Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI. 1994 (Kindle Edition)15 Next week, we’ll examine what the looks like; examining the “Sabbath Day” as a case study to explore the “Christian” - that is “Messianic” - understanding of the Mosaic covenant.



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