Exodus 20:18-26
The People Afraid of God’s Presence
18 Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. 19 Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”
20 And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” 21 So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.
The Law of the Altar
22 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make anything to be with Me—gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. 25 And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 26 Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.’
The people of God were deathly afraid as they witnessed the thunder and lightning with heavenly trumpets sounding from the smoking mountain of God’s presence when He spoke with Moses. They feared death so much that they begged their mediator Moses to tell them all Gd said, not daring to hear it directly from such a mighty God Himself. Moses then wisely advised them to fear not; they were being tested by the LORD God with this fearful sight and sound to make the seriousness of the penalty for their sin if they continued in it. He was literally scaring the sin out of them by these demonstrations of His power and word. The people therefore stood at a respectable distance of respect and awe from the overwhelming darkness of the clouds and thundering of God’s word to Moses. When we hear the gospel, we also may feel this great fear of looming judgment on our sin before our salvation and an ongoing awe-filled fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12) when we reflect back on how serious our sin was that led Him to sacrifice His own Son on the tree of our curse of sin (Galatians 3:13) until He arose to proclaim our life from death and eternal forgiveness of sin. God talked to us from heaven by the conviction of His word and Spirit when we were regenerates and reborn in Christ Jesus just as the people of the LORD heard His word proclaimed through His servant spokesman Moses by the mountain of great fear. We who are in Christ, however, do not have that same fear anymore (Hebrews 12:18-19), just fearful awe and trembling to please Him for our salvation already secured for us, not a fear to do well enough to obtain or keep our standing (1 Corinthians 3:14-15) with Him. God then commanded the people through Moses to not have any gods of dead idols but sacrifice and worship Him only. These sacrifices were a foreshadowing of the sacrifice Jesus Himself would make of His only Son for us since the sacrifice of animals could never fully and forever atone (Hebrews 9:12-13, 14, 23-24) for our sins; only a perfect Lamb of God could do that (Hebrews 9:27-28, 10:11-12) with absolute assurance for us. The perfect altar then is not a hand crafted one from stone as then but one made by God’s own hand (Hebrews 9:11) where His Son sacrificed Himself as the final and complete atonement to pay our sin’s price, once and for all time. Of we then are in Christ, we can hear and repeat the words, “Fear not!” with full assurance. This is made clear as we celebrate Easter and remember His work of bringing life from death for us by His sacrifice.
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