Liam Hungate
Tonight continued the Redemption Series through the middle of Exodus, picking up as Israel arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai and God began laying out His Law. The lesson opened around one question that runs through the whole Old Testament: God is holy, we are sinful, so how could the two ever be close? The picture used to frame it: a parent crossing the distance to reach a child who was still running away, rather than waiting for the child to find their own way back. That's the shape of everything covered tonight.
Passages: Exodus 19-20, 24, 34, 40; Leviticus 16
By the time Israel reached Sinai, three months after leaving Egypt, they had crossed the Red Sea, eaten bread from heaven, drawn water from a rock, and won a battle. God described His care for them in Exodus 19:4 using the image of an eagle: eagles are known to carry their young on their backs rather than in their claws, so that any threat from below would have to go through the mother first. God's purpose in rescuing Israel wasn't just to set them free. It was to bring them into fellowship with Him.
God then gave the Ten Commandments aloud to the whole nation at the foot of the mountain:
These commandments serve as the foundation of the Law, which does three things: it's a guardrail that keeps us on a moral path, a mirror that shows our failure and need for a savior, and a guide that reveals the heart and desire of God for His people. The order matters: God rescued Israel first, then gave them the Law. It was never a bar Israel had to clear to earn His love. It was instruction for a people He had already claimed. Every believer since has needed the same thing Israel did: someone who could keep that Law perfectly, since we can't. That's exactly what Jesus came to do (Matthew 5:17).
Exodus 24 marks the start of the Mosaic Covenant, distinct from the earlier covenant God made with Abraham. This one wasn't about new promises. It formally established that cleansing sin would require a sacrifice, the shedding of blood. Sin carries a real cost, paid for with another life. In the Old Testament that meant repeated animal sacrifices. In the New Testament, Christ gave Himself once, for good.
By Exodus 34, Israel had already broken this new covenant. Rather than destroying them, God revealed His own character to Moses: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love, with judgment reserved for those who reject that love and forgiveness. There is no angry Old Testament God who is somehow different from the God of the New Testament. He is the same, loving and merciful, yesterday, today, and forever.
Exodus 40 closes the book with the completed Tabernacle, and when it was finished, God's glory filled it, the same presence that had rested on Sinai now dwelling among His people. God has never been distant. Building Him a home wasn't about high maintenance, it was about His desire to be close. John 1:14 later says the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us, using a Greek word that literally means "to tabernacle." The Tabernacle in Exodus was a preview of Christ Himself coming to dwell with us.
With a holy God now present among sinful people, ongoing atonement, making amends for wrongdoing, was necessary. Leviticus 16 lays out the yearly Day of Atonement, when the high priest followed three steps: sacrifice a bull for his own sin, sacrifice one goat for the sins of the people, and release a second goat, the scapegoat, into the wilderness carrying the people's sins away. The first goat shows how atonement is granted, through the sacrificial payment of another life. The second shows its effect, sin carried far away and not returning.
One way of picturing it: backing your parents' car into something you can't afford to fix, and instead of making you pay, they simply cover it themselves. The damage doesn't disappear and neither does the cost, someone else just absorbs it. That's atonement. In the Old Testament, that cost was paid by an animal. Ultimately, it was paid by Jesus, who serves as the High Priest, the sacrificial lamb, and the scapegoat all at once, suffering to make His people holy through His own blood (Hebrews 13:12).
The question stands the same today: how can a holy God dwell with sinful people? The gap hasn't gotten smaller. But the solution is no longer a mountain we can't climb, a room we can't enter, or an animal we have to sacrifice. The solution is a person, and He's already done the work. The job now isn't to earn acceptance or make up for sin through effort. It's to receive what's already been provided, and to live like someone who is already loved, no matter how many times we fall down.
These are the same questions the group wrestled with tonight. They are a good way to keep the conversation going at the dinner table.
A few easier openers if you want to start smaller: