24:1
¶ And he said unto Moses, Come up unto
the LORD, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
Israel; and worship ye afar off. 2 And
Moses alone shall come near the LORD: but they shall not come nigh; neither
shall the people go up with him. 3 And
Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the
judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words
which the LORD hath said will we do. 4
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the
morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to
the twelve tribes of Israel. 5 And he
sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and
sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the LORD. 6 And Moses took half of the blood, and put it
in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. 7 And he took the book of the covenant, and
read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said
will we do, and be obedient. 8 And Moses
took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of
the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.
This passage brings to mind a key
difference between the Hebrew religion based on the commandments given to Moses
by God for the children of Israel and the religion of the Christian after
Christ’s Resurrection.
There are no rituals laid out in the New
Testament teachings for the Christian. When something like Baptism is mentioned
we aren’t give strict instructions on how it is to be carried out or of a
ceremony to be performed. It is simple, straightforward, and direct. There
isn’t even an outline of a wedding ceremony. This was the nature of the Hebrew
character, the need for a physical event as a vital part of their religious
expression, a ritual, a ceremony, etc.
1Corinthians
1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and
the Greeks [Gentiles,
non-Jews] seek after wisdom…
There are no sacred spaces in Christianity
outside of the human heart where the Spirit of God dwells. There are no
God-ordained rituals or ceremonies, or even formula prayers where we conjure God
up. Bible-believing Christians don’t ask for God to come down and “walk among
the pews” as He is already here, in each of us, if you truly belong to Him.
Luke
17:20 ¶ And when he was demanded of the
Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The
kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom
of God is within you.
John
14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him,
If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we
will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Romans
8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in
the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
Galatians
3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in
the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
We seek to be filled with His Spirit, much
like a little water in a glass when heated up fills the glass with water vapor.
Ephesians
5:18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein
is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; 19
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
and making melody in your heart to the Lord; 20
Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ…
God created the Hebrew people for Himself
with signs and wonders and required memorials and rituals for them to remember
what had been done for them and their place in His scheme of things. These were
tokens for proof of His providence and His actions in the world. The Christian
has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as his or her deposit, a type of earnest
money, on eternal life. We should experience God through His words in His Bible
and see His hand in all reality. If we believe the Bible we see God working in
our lives and in the lives of others every day. We don’t need a ritual and we
don’t need a ceremony to remember what we experience each day of our lives.
Ephesians
1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that
ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after
that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until
the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
As David said, in Psalm 19;
The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
The evidence of a Hebrew’s position was
his obedience to commandments and ritual observances. They justified him
legally, in a sense, before God. The evidence of a Christian’s position is what
the Holy Spirit produces in him or her that comes out, not faked, forced, or strained.
Galatians
5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is
no law.
Just as the Hebrew could comply with the
commandments and have no love of God in his heart, though, the Christian can
miss the boat, as well. If your love for others consists only of telling them
how wicked they are and how they are going to Hell then you are a sorry
Christian indeed. If your peace with God consists of only a smug self-righteousness
as you dislocate your arm trying to pat yourself on the back you are missing
the point entirely. If your longsuffering consists only of an “I suffer fools
gladly” expression on your face then you need to repent and turn to God. The
Hebrew’s disobedience, if there was not heart commitment to obey, was inevitable
and the Christian can very easily descend into a parody, a satire of a
Christian if his or her heart is not right as well.
We have the first mention of a book in
Genesis 5 and then in Exodus 17. Here, Moses wrote all the words of the Lord and Moses reads the book of the covenant with
God as he performs this ritual and the people promise to obey.
A covenant
is a pledge, an alliance of friendship and obedience to principles agreed
upon, between God and man in this case. Notice that the Hebrews repeatedly affirm
that they will obey God.
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