We join Moses again this week after he has gone up Mt. Sinai a second time to meet with the Lord. This week, we’re going to focus on God’s request to the people and what that means to us today. Please join me by reading Exodus 25:1-8:
The LORD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give. These are the offerings you are to receive from them gold, silver and bronze; blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen; goat hair; ram skins dyed red and hides of sea cows; acacia wood; olive oil for the light; spices for the anointing oil and for a fragrant incense; and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and breast piece.
Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.
God has provided a long list of items that the people are to give “whose heart prompts him to give.” This offering was not a requirement, it was a request. Read verse 8 again. What was God’s purpose in requesting these items? Do you see it? God, the great deliverer, wants to live among them. The one whose name was so sacred that I is not spoken aloud, wants to know them. Because God does not force himself on a people, this offering was optional. It was not an offering of atonement for sin, it was a love offering. It was response to God’s desire to live among the people. God did not want to speak to the people from the mountain on high. He wanted to dwell with them. He wanted his own dwelling place very close to them, where they would be reminded of His presence and where he was part of their daily lives.
God’s desire to live among His people is constant throughout history. In Moses day, God wanted to live with the people in a place, the tabernacle. His relationship with Israel that started with Moses at Mt. Sinai was His first covenant, or promise. However, there was a greater covenant to come. In this new covenant, God displayed himself very differently, but his aim was still the same.
The New Testament book of Hebrews 8:8-12, quotes the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, saying:
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 did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from 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 laws in their minds
and write them 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 to the greatest,
for I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.
The author of Hebrews is using this excerpt to show the purpose for Christ’s coming. Just as God desired to live among the people through the law and the tabernacle, He continued to show his desire by coming to live among the people as a man. The rules, sacrifices, and requirements of the first covenant were all guides to help the people to be closer to Him. The people would not listen to His messengers, so he became a man and shared the message himself. The all-powerful creator wrapped himself up in the skin of a man, came to earth, and lived and died so that we could be rightly related to Him. Christ came so that we would “be His people.”
1 Peter 3:18 says:
For Christ died for sin once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body, but made alive by the spirit …
2 Corinthians 5:21 says:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Peter says that Christ died to “bring you to God.” Paul, in 2 Corinthians, says that God made Christ who never knew sin to be sin for us so that we can become rightly related to God. For a moment, let’s read that last sentence differently. Read the following out loud to yourself: “God Himself never sinned but He became sin for me so that I can have a right relationship with Him.” As you read that statement pause and reflect on what it means to you.
Thought Questions
- Is the connection between the God of Moses and the 10 Commandments and Jesus any easy one to make for you or is it difficult? Why do you think that is?
- Does reading 2 Corinthians 5:21 in first person change your perception of the message the scripture is trying to communicate? If so, how?
- Review the verses below and read them in the first person.
- John 3:16 (replace ‘the world’ with ‘me’; replace ‘whosoever’ with ‘if I’)
- Romans 3:23 (replace ‘all’ with ‘I’)
- 1 John 1:0 (replace ‘we’ with ‘I’; replace ‘us’ with ‘me’; replace ‘our’ with ‘my’)
Related posts:
- Listening to God
- God’s Desire for Relationship: Exodus 19 – 34
- Consuming Fire
- Does God Really Provide?
Bridging the Old and New
We join Moses again this week after he has gone up Mt. Sinai a second time to meet with the Lord. This week, we’re going to focus on God’s request to the people and what that means to us today. Please join me by reading Exodus 25:1-8:
God has provided a long list of items that the people are to give “whose heart prompts him to give.” This offering was not a requirement, it was a request. Read verse 8 again. What was God’s purpose in requesting these items? Do you see it? God, the great deliverer, wants to live among them. The one whose name was so sacred that I is not spoken aloud, wants to know them. Because God does not force himself on a people, this offering was optional. It was not an offering of atonement for sin, it was a love offering. It was response to God’s desire to live among the people. God did not want to speak to the people from the mountain on high. He wanted to dwell with them. He wanted his own dwelling place very close to them, where they would be reminded of His presence and where he was part of their daily lives.
God’s desire to live among His people is constant throughout history. In Moses day, God wanted to live with the people in a place, the tabernacle. His relationship with Israel that started with Moses at Mt. Sinai was His first covenant, or promise. However, there was a greater covenant to come. In this new covenant, God displayed himself very differently, but his aim was still the same.
The New Testament book of Hebrews 8:8-12, quotes the Old Testament book of Jeremiah, saying:
The author of Hebrews is using this excerpt to show the purpose for Christ’s coming. Just as God desired to live among the people through the law and the tabernacle, He continued to show his desire by coming to live among the people as a man. The rules, sacrifices, and requirements of the first covenant were all guides to help the people to be closer to Him. The people would not listen to His messengers, so he became a man and shared the message himself. The all-powerful creator wrapped himself up in the skin of a man, came to earth, and lived and died so that we could be rightly related to Him. Christ came so that we would “be His people.”
1 Peter 3:18 says:
2 Corinthians 5:21 says:
Peter says that Christ died to “bring you to God.” Paul, in 2 Corinthians, says that God made Christ who never knew sin to be sin for us so that we can become rightly related to God. For a moment, let’s read that last sentence differently. Read the following out loud to yourself: “God Himself never sinned but He became sin for me so that I can have a right relationship with Him.” As you read that statement pause and reflect on what it means to you.
Thought Questions
Related posts: