Exodus 19:5-6. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
They made it!
God has brought the Hebrews out of Egypt, through the sea, across the wilderness and settled them at the base of Mount Sinai. The same mountain where God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. The mountain that God told Moses to bring the people to worship. It is here that God will describe his personal relationship to the nation of Israel. It is here that he will speak their identity over them.
You will be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine – God not only possesses the nation; they are his treasure. His heart would be broken without them.
you shall be to me a kingdom of priests – from the beginning, humanity was meant to be priests before the Lord. At Sinai, God re-establishes that priesthood. Israel will bridge the world to God.
a holy nation – As God’s representatives, they will be set apart to display the very nature of God. His holiness is now their holiness.
This is jaw-dropping. These statements from God to the people are powerful. They are life-giving. They renew the purpose of humanity. They reveal the heartfelt desire of God to live in relationship to us. But there’s a catch. This beautiful new identity is rooted in a really big ultimatum. If.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant…
Well, it was a nice idea, but if this is up to us as humanity then it’s obviously not going to work. The rest of the Old Testament recalls failure after failure of this people to live as God’s possession, his priests, and his holy nation. They simply won’t keep this covenant. That is until Christ. Jesus Christ will come to earth as the new Israel. He will represent the nation. He will keep the covenant. Every IF fulfilled. Every law obeyed. He will be God’s treasured possession. He will be God’s perfect priest. He will be holiness incarnate.
Romans 8:3-4. 3 For God…by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Now Jesus has turned God’s IF into a SINCE. God now says to Jesus, SINCE you have indeed obeyed my voice and kept my covenant now I can reclaim my possession. My priests. My holy nation. Christian, that’s us! We are in Christ. Christ is in us. Since Christ obeyed, we the church are now the prized possession of God. His royal priesthood. His holy ones. Not because we have done it, but because Christ has done it for us.
1 Peter 2:9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
To live is Christ is to have everything God offered his people through the law, but to have it through Christ. In Christ we are God’s treasured possession, his priests, his holy nation. May we now proclaim the excellencies of him who has called out of darkness and into his marvelous light.
You: What if your salvation was determined by your ability to keep covenant with God?
You in Christ: Praise Jesus for keeping God’s covenant in your place and for placing you into an unconditional covenant with him.
Christ in you: How can you live as a holy priest before God today, pointing to our great High Priest?
To Live is Christ 