Sunday: The Book and the Blood
Daily Lesson for Sunday 31st of August 2025
Read Exodus 24:1-8. What roles do the reading of the Word of God and the sprinkling of blood play in the ratification of the covenant between God and His people?
The living God of the Bible is the God of relationships.
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
The important element for our Lord is not a thing or an agenda but the person. Thus, God pays close attention to people, and the primary purpose of His activities is to build a personal relationship with humans. After all, a God who “is love” would have to be a God who did care about relationships, for how can there be love without relationships?
Jesus said: “ ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’ ” (John 12:32, ESV). God is interested not only in our ethical behavior, right doctrine, or in a set of proper actions, but, above all, in a personal, intimate relationship with us. Both Creation institutions (Genesis 1:1-31; Genesis 2:1-25) are about relationship: the first about the vertical relationship with God (the Sabbath) and the second about the horizontal relationship between humans (marriage).
The ratification of the covenant at Sinai was to reinforce the special relationship that God wanted to have with His people. In the ceremony, the people twice shouted that they would obey God in everything that He required. “Everything the Lord has said we will do,” they proclaimed (Exodus 24:3, NIV). They meant it, too, but they did not know their brokenness, fragility, and lack of power. The blood of the covenant was sprinkled on the people, indicating that only by Christ’s merits was Israel able to follow God’s instructions.
We do not want to accept that our human nature is fragile, weak, and thoroughly sinful. We have an inherent tendency toward evil. To be able to do good, we must have help from outside ourselves. This help comes only from above, from the power of God’s grace, from His Word, and from the Holy Spirit. And even with all this at our disposal, evil still comes so easily to us, does it not?
That’s why a close personal relationship with God was as essential to the people then, at Sinai, as it is to us today.
|
“Everything the Lord has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3, NIV). How many times have you said the same thing, only to fail? What is the only solution? |
(12)
How many of us have made a New Year's resolution? This year I am going to do more exercise, eat better food, read my Bible every day, and so on, How many of us have kept our resolution right through until the end of January?
Researchers have studied this and the results are staggeringly bad. By the end of January, about 40% of us have forgotten our New Year's resolution to do something better or different?
So when we read if the Israelites:
... and a few weeks later they are worshipping a golden calf, should we be surprised?
We are filled with righteous indignation at how quickly they changed. How could they hear the voice of God and make such a solemn promise and forget it so quickly? We would never to that. How long do we keep our New Year's resolutions?
We could write reams about, "They should have done this and that!", but the fact remains that we are no better than the Israelites. Human nature has not changed.
God does not want a bunch of resolutions, poorly kept. He wants a relationship. A relationship is hard to describe because it is one of those things you have to experience to understand.
When I wake up in the morning, Carmel is there beside me. It has been like that for 57 years. She is not a resolution, thought up at the beginning of the year. She is always there. (Well, almost always. A couple of days ago she was sick so I slept in another room not to catch what she had!) She is not even a habit. She is part of my life and we do things together. We don't read the marriage law, nor do we get out the marriage certificate and check that we signed it correctly. And yes, we argue and disagree at times, but we work on the resolution.
That is what God wants - A personal relationship with us. He wants to be there when we wake up.
Very true!
What is the value of Christianity or Adventism without having a relationship with God and fellow human beings? Without personal knowledge of God and relating to fellow human beings in a meaningful way, religion is empty, dead, cold, and tasteless. The litmus test for our relationship with God can only be demonstrated by how we relate to one another.
“ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, [a]how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21, NKJV).
Therefore, the essence of the Mount Sinai covenant was God’s effort to have a people for Himself that reflect His highest character of love. God was trying to teach them how they can love Him and how to love each other. Having lived under slavery for so long, their identity, values, and moral compass had been totally disoriented. What was the essence of freedom without love? God was revealing Himself as a God of love (1 John 4:8), and He was also trying to instil in them values of dignity (family, fairness, mercy, honesty, and fellowship). In essence, God was making them a covenant people who would be a beacon of light to the neighbouring nations.
It is only fair, as a community of believers who claim to be keeping God’s commandments, to demonstrate God’s highest character of love in all our human endeavours.
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” (1 John 3:14)
A personal relationship with God can never be borrowed or built on secondhand experiences. Testimonies, sermons, and teachings may inspire us, but they sre not a substitute for walking with Christ ourselves. Jesus said, “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). True faith is not just appearing holy but being transformed by His presence within. Like Paul, we must be able to say, “I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:12), not just what others have believed.
A personal relationship deepens as we grasp His forgiveness and love personally. Forgiveness is not earned; it flows from His grace: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). When we realize, like the sinful woman in Luke 7:47, that we have been forgiven much, love overflows back to Him. That love transforms obedience from duty into delight, and patience into trust, because we know His love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). A genuine walk with God is not patchwork faith—it is daily communion, rooted in His Word and His unwavering love.
A crucial part of this relationship that we are seeking to have with Christ is the realization that we cannot do it in our own strength. We were born in sin and shapen in iniquity.
It is only through a daily surrender to Him can we truly be in relationship with our heavenly Father, which, will in turn, influence our relationship with those around us!!!!!
I think this portion of scripture, is more important than we think, especially for today's Adventist or the present-day Christian. Something about this text, “Everything the Lord has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3, NIV), may need us to do a small introspection on how we manage our discipleship or mentorship in the church.
There seems to be an urgency to count the "souls" we baptize and stop there, rather than investing in making disciples through further teaching, mentoring, and applicative outreach. We should walk with new converts until they're able to disciple others. I realize how meticulous Ezra (Ezra 7:10) and Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8) were in their outreach – not only reading the Book of the Law, but also translating and interpreting it to give the message meaning and sense.
God, through Moses, took His time to edify Israel with experience and involvement. Before sealing the covenant with blood, Israel would confess, "Everything the Lord has said we will do." They did this twice, making solemn vows.
Unfortunately, today, our focus is often on the number of baptisms, and we rush new converts through a process of 13 vows without ensuring they understand the meaning and impact. Vows are serious commitments that require careful administration, as we can see below:
I'm concerned that we might be setting up converts to merely go through the motions of "lip-service" by taking vows without fully understanding their implications. Shouldn't we provide thorough teaching after baptism to ensure they grasp what they're committing to? Matthew 28:19-20 emphasizes making disciples, baptizing, and then teaching. Doesn't this suggest that discipleship requires ongoing work after baptism?
How was the nation of Israel related to God? They were God’s firstborn son - Abraham’s seed, the children of the flesh, the servant/slave son (Gen 17:20; Jn 8:34-37; Rom 9:3-8; Gal 4:4-7,21-31; Heb 3:5,6). They were members of God’s household but as servants, thus the Covenant of Works - the Old Covenant. In it they work six days and rest the seventh day and resume work 24 hrs later - their work was never finished, completed.
In Ex 24 we have the inauguration of the covenant according to Heb 9:18-22 where the people were consecrated to engage in the covenant by the blood of animals (Ex 24:8). The Holy Place of the tabernacle with it’s daily service represented the whole administration of the Old Covenant, the earthly service. There Christ performed His earthly ministry as the light and the bread, as priest and prophet and king (Matt 27:11; Lk 23:3).
The Day of Atonement service represents the inauguration of the New Covenant, the heavenly ministration, where the people’s consciences are cleansed for service to and worship of God by the blood of Christ (Matt 26:28; Heb 9:14,15; Heb 12:18,22-24; Lev 16:1-22).
When loving God with all our heart, the “doing everything” will be graciously covered by His Spirit of Justice – Grace and Mercy. He knows our weaknesses - that we cannot possibly do ‘everything’ that the Law require. This is the reason why He gave us His Son to fulfill the requirements of the Law on our behalf - Rom.8:3-4; Gal.4:4-5.
Yes, our relationship with our heavenly Father starts out with ‘faithful obedience’ to His Word. We need to know what is 'right in God’s sight'; called to walking by faith leads us along the path of His Righteousness. It is not our obedience or the good acts in and of themselves that save. It is God’s Holy Spirit of loving, caring, nurturing, righteousness inhabiting these acts which has the power to heal the faithful and reach the unsaved - Eph.2:10.
Because our life is found in/by Christ Jesus through the Grace of God, we are now a new creation! The influence and power of the Holy Spirit leads to ‘obedience’ for those who love God, helping us to keep our promise that “we can do everything the Lord requires”.
Loving God with all our heart, being 'present' in His heart forms this miraculous, saving relationship between our Maker and us - and so it will remain forever – Psalm 23; 1 John 4:13; John 17:21.
The answer to all our character failures and aberrations is a single word, which means love: Jesus!