A Kingdom of Priests | Exodus 19:1-6

Introduction

Max is in his mid-twenties. He’s active on Twitter and pays attention to local and national news. He’s not blind to the moral insanity in our clown world. But his emotions fluctuate between fear about the future to frustration with it all. When he looks at his own life, he feels helpless and wonders, “What can I do?”

Rose is in her early thirties. She’s a busy mom with four kids under the age of 6. She hardly has time to worry about the world outside of her home. She’s too busy with diapers and discipline, buying groceries and doing laundry. But sometimes the endless repetition of it all gets to her and she wonders, “What am I doing with my life?”

Jake is in his early forties. His work is demanding and stressful. Yet for all the hours he puts into his job, he doesn’t feel satisfied or fulfilled. It all seems so trivial and pointless.

Can you relate to any of these people? Like them, have you ever wondered, “How can I live my life with purpose when the world’s problems are so big and my life seems so small?”

Imagine the doubts and questions that must have gripped the hearts of a generation of Israelites who were born and raised in the wilderness. Wandering in the wilderness was all they had ever known. They must have wondered things like, What is God’s intention toward us? Does God care about us? Is God good? What is our purpose? Is God ever going to do something about our situation?

To that generation, God graciously delivered the book of Exodus. And our text this morning is at the heart of the book. In fact, one author writes, “The words that follow are sometimes described as the heart of the Old Testament. … Really everything else in the Old Testament—indeed, everything else in human history—can be explained in terms of the covenant relationship described in these verses” (emphasis added).

That is quite a claim, and I agree with it. Everything in human history—including the purpose of your life—can be described in terms of the covenant relationship described in these verses.

Exodus 19:1–6

“On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 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; 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.”

God’s Plan

Exodus 19:1–6 assures us that God is unwaveringly committed to accomplishing his purpose for this world. Here’s how I would summarize that plan: God’s plan is to gather God’s people in God’s place to enjoy God’s presence forever. 

In the very beginning, God’s people (Adam and Eve) dwelt securely in God’s place (Paradise, the Garden of Eden) and enjoyed God’s presence. But when they rebelled against God, they were banished from the Garden. And the question driving human history is whether humans would ever enjoy that again.

Exodus 19:1–6 assures us that, in spite of human sin and suffering, God is graciously working to bring about his original purpose for humanity on earth. God acts, God redeems, God establishes covenants with his people in order to restore paradise: God’s people dwelling in God’s place and enjoying God’s presence.

And my aim this morning is to show you that this plan, which was first established in Eden and then renewed at Sinai, is being fulfilled in Christ and his Church. If you are in Christ, your everyday life is part of God’s grand purpose to manifest his presence on earth.

God’s Place

When we come to Exodus 19:1, we come to what one author calls, a major “seam.” There is a noticeable scene change emphasized in through numerous time and location markers in in vv. 1–2: 

“On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain.”

In vv. 1 and 2, the text simply refers to “the mountain,” but the rest of the chapter will refer to it as Mount Sinai (vv. 11, 18, 20, 23), which is also called Mount Horeb. This is the same mountain where God called and commissioned Moses from the burning bush back in Exodus 3. 

“Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1).

And it was at the burning bush that God had given Moses this sign.

“He said, ‘But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain’” (Exodus 3:12).

The sign that God sent Moses was not the Ten Plagues. Not the Red Sea Crossing. Not the manna from heaven or the water from the rock or the victory of the Amalekites. 

Returning to this mountain with the people of Israel to worship God. That was the sign!

In fact, Mount Sinai will be the setting for the next 59 chapters of the Pentateuch. That’s the rest of Exodus (19–40), all of Leviticus, and the first ten chapters in the book of Numbers. Israel will camp here for nearly a year. God will appear to them in fire on this mountain. He will establish his covenant with them, give them the Ten Commandments, and give them instructions for building the tabernacle. And this is where God will first fill that tabernacle with his glory.

Geographic locations where formative events happen are significant in the history of a people. Think of Plymouth Rock, where the Mayflower pilgrims landed. Or Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the U.S. Constitution was written. Think of Tranquility Base, where humans first set foot on the moon. Mount Sinai is monumental in the history and formation of Israel. 

But the events that happen at Sinai are significant for another reason. Throughout Scripture, mountains are a major theme. God is frequently described as dwelling on a holy mountain. Some of the biggest events in the Bible happen on mountains: the ram substituted for Isaac on Mount Moriah; Elijah faced the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel; Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.

But the importance of mountains first emerged in Genesis 2, where God planted Paradise on a mountain. T. Desmond Alexander writes, “In Genesis the elevated location of the garden of Eden is indicated by the fact that a single river flows out of Eden, before dividing to become four rivers. … The description [in Genesis 2] implies that the garden of Eden occupies a raised position in the middle of the world. In keeping with this picture, the prophet Ezekiel designates Eden as both ‘the garden of God’ and ‘the holy mountain of God’ (Ezek. 28:13–16).”

Another author writes, “That Eden was the original ‘holy mountain’ explains the significance of God’s choice of mountains as sites for His redemptive acts and revelations.”

Adam and Eve were banished from Eden and the way back to the Garden was guarded by cherubim and a flaming sword (Gen. 3:24). But now the people of Israel have come to the mountain of God. Exodus 19:1–2 is packed with hopeful anticipation that God has not abandoned his purpose but is achieving it.

God’s People

The significance of Exodus 19 is not merely the mountain, but the fact that verses 1 and 2 announce that “The people of Israel … came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain” (v. 2).

And when Moses ascended the mountain (v. 3), God gave Moses a specific message for the people of Israel. Notice how God emphasized his address to the people: “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel.” God’s repeated reference to the patriarch Jacob, AKA Israel, anchors the identity of these people in God’s redemptive and covenantal work. These are the descendants of the patriarchs, with whom God established a covenant. 

These are God’s people! Throughout the Plagues, God said to Pharaoh again and again, “Let my people go!” (Ex. 5:1, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13, 10:3). And when Israel was discouraged by Pharaoh’s hard heart, God promised, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians” (Exodus 6:7).

You will be my people and I will be your God. That is the most basic summary of God’s covenant promise to his people.

Now at Mount Sinai, God proposes an expanded covenant with Israel. He does this by recounting what he has done for Israel (v. 4), clarifying what he requires of Israel (v. 5a), and promising to bless Israel (vv. 5b–6).

First, God recounts what he has done.

“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4).

God initiated his covenant with Israel by graciously working for their welfare before he gave them his Law. Israel was saved by grace! Before they obeyed God—before they had God’s Law to obey—God had already fought for his people, provided for them, carried them and delivered them, and brought them to himself. This is the way God always relates to his people: first he saves, then he sanctifies.

Next, God states what he requires of Israel.

“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” (Exodus 19:5).

Israel’s salvation was completely unmerited, but it was not unconditional. God required trust in his voice, obedience to his word, and faithfulness to his covenant.

Some people teach that the difference between the Old and New Covenants is that the Old Covenant was conditional while the New Covenant is unconditional. But that’s not accurate. The New Covenant has conditions too.

“Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:28–29).

My children do not earn their place in the family by their obedience, but I do require them to obey because they are my children. When God establishes a covenant relationship with his people, he calls them to trust him and obey him.

Finally, God makes incredible promises about how he will relate covenantally to Israel.

“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; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5–6).

Israel will be God’s “treasured possession.” We have a clue to the meaning of this term based on how it’s used elsewhere. In Ecclesiastes 2:8, Solomon says, “I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces” (cf. 1 Chron. 29:3). As Philip Ryken says, the word refers to “the most prized possession in a king’s personal treasury.” And that is how God describes his attention toward and affection for his people. You will be my treasured possession, the unique object of my favor.

God also says they would be “a kingdom of priests.” This is the only place this phrase appears in the Old Testament. It means that God’s purpose was for every person in the nation of Israel to enjoy both a royal and a priestly status. Israel was to be a nation of priest-kings.

And in this designation, there is another echo of Eden. Adam was the first priest-king. He was created in the image of God to enjoy God’s presence on earth (like a priest) and to rule the world under God as his representative (like a king). When Adam rebelled, he lost that status, but his sin did not utterly thwart God’s purpose for humanity. God is here promising that Israelites—who had been slaves in Egypt three months ago—will be restored to the same status that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden.

And Israel was to be “a holy nation.” Holiness is best understood as complete and exclusive devotion to God. God is holy because God is exclusively devoted to God. God is not an idolator; God has no other gods before himself. God’s greatest delight is his own glory, which he displays for the good of his people, as we saw in his dealings with Pharaoh. Likewise, the people of God are to be a holy nation—an entire nation of people completely and exclusively devoted to God in their hearts and in their lives. This exclusive devotion to God sets Israel apart from all the other nations on earth.

But this distinction was not meant to puff up Israel, but was meant to bear witness to the world of the goodness and grace of God. Right in the midst of the most exclusive statements about the people of God—“my treasured possession,” “a kingdom of priests,” “a holy nation”—God makes a global claim: “You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine” (v. 5). I love the way one commentator says this: “Israel is commissioned to be God’s people on behalf of the earth which is God’s.”

No one on earth is autonomous or independent from God. All the peoples of the earth are God’s possession. All people owe God honor and thanks and praise and obedience.

But no one on earth worships or obeys God. And so, from the midst of all the people on earth, God selected one particular family to be his treasured possession. Why? In order to make himself known through them to all peoples. God’s election and redemption of a particular people is not about their moral goodness; it’s about the glory of God’s grace. It’s not about Israel’s exclusive access to God but about God’s desire to be worshiped by all people.

Adam failed, but God recommissioned Israel to be a corporate Adam, a holy nation of priest-kings to extend God’s rule and reign on earth.

God’s Presence

God’s people in God’s place without God’s presence would have been a disastrous tragedy. But this text is packed with hope and assurance because God is there.

“There Israel encamped before the mountain, while Moses went up to God” (Exodus 19:2–3).

“Moses went up to God.” Those are staggering, breathtaking, incomprehensible words. Think about what that means! 

Again, there are echoes of Eden, where God walked in the Garden and manifested his presence (Gen. 2:8). But Adam and Eve were banished from God’s holy mountain in Genesis 3, and this has been the question for all humanity: Will God ever again dwell with his people on earth? At Mount Sinai we are assured that this is still the purpose of God. All of humanity’s sin and rebellion has not thwarted God’s plan to possess a people for himself and to dwell with them forever.

This was God’s purpose in saving Israel: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself” (Exodus 19:4, emphasis added). What was the purpose of the plagues against Egypt? What was the reason for carrying Israel through the desert? I brought you to myself!

And at Mount Sinai, God speaks. God spoke to Moses on the mountain (v. 3) and gave him words to speak to the people of Israel (vv. 3, 6). God’s Word is a manifestation of God’s presence. And God rules his people by his Word. When God calls for covenant faithfulness and obedience, he says, “If you will indeed obey my voice,” which anticipates how God is going to speak and reveal his righteous ways to Israel in the coming chapters.

God’s enduring presence in the midst of Israel is also implied in God’s promises to make them his “treasured possession” (v. 5) and “a kingdom of priests [to me]” (v. 6). God will possess his people by bringing them to himself and keep them for himself. And as priests to him, they will behold his glory and enjoy his presence.

The presence of God on the mountain before his people means that God is working toward the fulfillment of his purpose on earth.

Fulfilled in Christ & the Church

But for us, it gets even better. Like Adam, Israel too would fail to keep covenant with God. But God sent his Son to succeed where Adam and Israel failed. And as the better Adam and the true Israel, Jesus has established a New Covenant and a new humanity. And now, God’s plan, which was first established in Eden and then renewed at Sinai, is guaranteed by the blood of Jesus to be fulfilled in his Church.

The Church Is God’s Place

The Church is the Mountain of God. The prophets frequently describe God’s saving acts on earth in relation to the Mountain of the Lord. The author of Hebrews tells Christians: 

“For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet …. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, … and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:18–19, 22–24).

That’s the Church! When you come into the Church—not the building, but the gathered people of God—you come to something greater than Sinai.

And Isaiah prophesied about the Church: 

“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:2–3).

That is not talking about heaven, because nations who don’t yet know God are turning to God. And Isaiah 2 was not fulfilled in Old Testament Israel. It is being fulfilled today in Christ and his Church, the New Jerusalem. The Church is the mountain of the house of the Lord, established as the highest of the mountains and lifted up above the hills. The Church is God’s place on earth where the nations can come to learn God’s ways and walk in his paths.

The Church Is God’s People

The Apostle Peter, writing to Christians dispersed throughout the Roman Empire, applied the words of Exodus 19 to the Christian Church: 

“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” (1 Peter 2:9).

This is a radical development in the saving work of God. It means that the people among and through whom God is manifesting his presence on earth are those who are in Christ. It means that the words God spoke to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai are fulfilled in you here in this room who have put your faith in Christ.

As John writes in Revelation, 

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5–6; cf. Rev. 5:9–10).

This is what the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders sing in Revelation 5: 

“By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth’” (Revelation 5:9–10).

This is talking about you! Jesus himself has made you a kingdom of priests, and he does it by his blood. Because of his death for your sins, you enjoy free and full access to God. By his resurrection, Jesus conquered sin and death, and now you reign with him. And you are a holy nation, a people exclusively devoted to God and his glory.

So now your life exists to exhibit and display and testify to the greatness of God and his sovereign, saving grace.

The Church Enjoys God’s Presence

Ephesians 2:22 says, “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” God dwells among us, and it is his plan to manifest his presence on earth through you. You are his people and God himself will be with you now and forever as your God (Rev. 21:3). And through you, God is revealing himself to the world.

Conclusion

So whatever you spend your days doing, no matter how small or insignificant or powerless or purposeless you may feel, take heart! God is faithfully fulfilling his purpose for the world through Christ Jesus and in his Church. And if you are in Christ, then you participate in God’s eternal purpose for the world when you participate in his Church. And everything you do, you do coram deo, “before God” or in the presence of God. And you can live each day with the joy and humility and confidence that come from knowing you are God’s treasured possession and a kingdom of priests to our God.