The blessing of Mt. Sinai

I know that my claim is not incontrovertible but I am firmly convinced that there are promises made to the physical descendants of Abraham. I will call this the blessing of Mt. Sinai. This blessing is a promise made to the physical sons of Jacob as part of an agreement made at Mt. Sinai. It is usually referred to as the Mosaic Law. More than just a set of laws and rules, this body of law God dictated as part of an agreement he made with certain descendants of Abraham. The agreement is spelled out many places but here is one of them.
 

Deuteronomy 4:1 NOW, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.


That comprises the basic agreement. The sons of Jacob will live in peace and prosperity in the land if they keep the commandments that God gave them. Notice that this promise involves a certain people living in a certain land, i.e. the Sons of Jacob are to live in Israel. They will be his people and he will be their God. And they are to obey his commandments and act as priests to the world. That is basically it.

Later on in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses lists a series of blessings and curses. If they keep the statutes and judgments then they will find blessings. And if they don’t they will find curses. And if we look carefully at the blessings and the curses they are all about prosperity and peace in the land. Blessings are stated in temporal terms, not eternal terms, and they involve things like abundance of crops, cattle, children and rain. The curses are also temporal and involve the removal of food, livestock and children. The land will dry up and the womb will dry up and the people will be removed from the land.

This blessing and cursing is found in Deuteronomy 27 through 29. All the blessings and cursing are temporal and have nothing to do with an individual’s status in the afterlife. This is all about a nation and a God and the promise is for a nation and a people. God did not make this promise to my people or me. He did not say to all Englishman that if they obeyed his commandments that they would stay in England and live in peace and prosperity under God’s protection. This is the blessing of Mt. Sinai for Moses and his people. The problem is, Moses knew and predicted that the Nation, as a Nation would not obey God and that they would suffer the curse.

However, he also says this:
 

SO it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the LORD your God has banished you, and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. The LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the LORD, and observe all His commandments which I command you today.


We can now see how the old Covenant is transformed. The condition for staying in the land in peace and prosperity was obedience to the statutes and judgments of God. The people, as a nation, did not keep those commandments so the land vomited them out. However, God will not leave them there. He will bring them back into the land a final time. This time they will keep the commandments because he will circumcise their hearts. (See Jeremiah 31) God will meet the condition himself. His promise to the physical descendants of Jacob will come true because he will make it happen. The physical descendants of Jacob will finally enjoy the blessing of Mt. Sinai.
 
 


Roger Ruddle is a fellow Bible student, who has been studying the Bible seriously since 1989. His teaching should be taken as one fellow Bible student to another. The focus of his studies is a better understanding of what Jesus and his Apostles said using a Biblical hermeneutic called "authorial intent." Before we can apply the teaching of the Bible to our lives we must first understand that teaching in its original context. Furthermore, if one is to understand the original intent then one is expected to approach the text in humility and allow the Biblical author the same grace we offer to any contemporary writer.


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