Footsteps #62

God wanted the same relationship with Israel that He had with Abraham. In fact, similarities exist between God’s words to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3  and His words to Moses in Exodus 19. In both cases, God emphasizes what He will do for His people. He does not ask the Israelites to promise to do anything to earn His blessings; instead, they are to obey as a response to those blessings. The Hebrew word translated “to obey” in Exodus 19:5 liter­ally means “to hear.” God’s words do not imply righteousness by works. On the contrary, He wanted Israel to have the same faith that character­ized Abraham’s response to His promises (at least most of the time!).  

The covenant at Sinai was intended to point out the sinfulness of humanity and the remedy of God’s abundant grace, which was typified in the sanctuary services inaugurated in the plain below Sinai. The problem with the Sinai covenant was not on God’s part but rather on the people’s part because of their faulty promises (Heb. 8:6). Instead of responding to God’s promises in humil­ity and faith, the Israelites responded with self-confidence. “ ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do’ ” (Exod. 19:8). After living as slaves in Egypt for more than four hundred years, they had no true concept of God’s majesty nor of the extent of their own sinfulness. In the same way that Abraham and Sarah tried to help God fulfil His promises, the Israelites sought to turn God’s covenant of grace into a covenant of works. Hagar symbolizes Sinai in that both reveal human attempts at salvation by works. 

Paul is not claiming that the law given at Sinai was evil or abolished. He is concerned with the Galatians’ legalistic misapprehension of the law. Instead of serving to convict them of the absolute impossibility of pleasing God by law-keeping, the law fostered in them a deeply entrenched determination to depend on personal resources in order to please God. Thus, the law did not serve the purposes of grace in lead­ing the Judaizers to Christ. Instead, it closed them off from Christ. The same danger confronts you and I.