The people agree to the covenant that the Lord has offered
and they proclaim they will do all He has spoken and will be obedient. Based on that agreement, Moses and the elders
go up into the presence of the Lord for a banquet, a covenant meal, and we see
that earth and heaven are met in this moment.
Verse 10 describes the throne of God, using the same language John used
in Revelation 4, “before the throne there was as it were a sea
of glass, like crystal.” Moses writes
that they beheld God and ate and drank in His presence. What they saw is not told to us. Did they see a theophany, a pre-incarnation
vision of Jesus, or something else? At
any rate, afterwards Moses is called up to wait on the Lord to deliver the
tablets of stone on which the Lord had written the commandments. Forty days Moses was with the Lord on the
mountain in the cloud of His glory.
There is a pattern established here that we will see in the wilderness,
Moses and Joshua together with Joshua waiting in attendance as Moses confers
with the Lord.
With the arrest of John by Herod, the situation in Jerusalem
is volatile and Jesus withdraws as His hour is not yet come. Surprisingly, He goes north to Capernaum and
in doing so Matthew says Jesus fulfilled the prophetic word that from that
region would come Messiah, everything had a purpose. The message Jesus preached in that place was,
in some ways, an extension of John’s ministry, a message of repentance for the
kingdom is at hand. Jesus’ message
validates John’s message, that repentance is basic preparation for the coming
of God, always has been and always will be.
Recall that in our readings earlier in the week we saw God calling the
people to consecrate themselves for His meeting with them. What implications does that have for us in
preparation for worship together?
Does the opening sentence of this passage mean that
Christians should know nothing of philosophy or that it has nothing to
offer? I don’t believe that is what Paul
means at all. The reality is that
philosophy asks and attempts to give tentative answers to questions that should
concern Christians but what it lacks, unless it is Christian philosophy, is the
ability to give a definitive and final answer to the questions it asks. If the fullness of deity dwells bodily in
Christ, we need not wonder about the nature and character of God apart from
Him. We can wonder and marvel at the
incarnation of God in flesh and continue to learn about Him all our lives but
we do so based not on speculation but on the reality of Jesus. The philosophies of which Paul writes are
connected with regulations about diet and are particularly Jewish and Paul says
that baptism and the cross are sufficient, those other things are of no benefit
to us concerning how we are saved. We
are in Christ because of what He has done and our faith in that work as
sufficient. We, like the elders and
Moses, have beheld God and know that He is the bread of heaven and we look
forward to that heavenly banquet at the wedding feast of the Lamb.
The earth with its
store of wonders untold,
Almighty, Thy power
hath founded of old;
Established it fast by
a changeless decree,
And round it hath
cast, like a mantle, the sea.
Thy bountiful care,
what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the
air, it shines in the light;
It streams from the
hills, it descends to the plain,
And sweetly distills
in the dew and the rain.
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