The Cover of Grace & The Burden of the Law
Brian Jakowsky
They’d been spared the Plagues that destroyed Egypt. In daylight, their path was marked by a Pillar of cloud, a visible sign of God’s presence and guidance. At night, a column of fire showed their way, symbolizing God’s protection and light in the darkness. They are Israel, God’s chosen people.
Wandering the desert, they murmured against God but experienced abundant grace and mercy:
Exodus 14:11 — Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? God fought for them. As a result, the Egyptian army drowned in the same sea they had just crossed as dry land!
Exodus 16:13 — The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” The father gave them more Manna and Quail than they could eat.
Exodus 17:3 — But the people were thirsty for water there and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” God brought fresh water from a rock Moses struck.
God showed His people patience, provision, grace, and mercy in all their grumbling and complaining. At that time, Israel walked under the shadow of Grace and Mercy, not judgment or punishment; none died.
But that was all to change at Mt Sinai.
What Are Covenants
A Covenant is a binding contract between two parties. Bilateral Covenants require both parties to perform specified actions to fulfill the Covenant, while an unconditional Covenant only demands the action of one party.
There are seven Covenants in the Bible: the Adamic Covenant introduced God’s curse against man as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin; the Noahic Covenant, in which God promised never to destroy the world by flood again; and the Abrahamic Covenant, in which God promised Abraham he would have an heir from his body and land and be the father of many nations.
These three were unconditional Covenants. God bound himself to fulfill these promises to the people of Israel.
The remaining four are the Palestinian Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, a bilateral Covenant (Exodus 20–29, Deuteronomy 11), The Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant. This article will focus on the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant.
In the Ancient Near East, cutting Covenants was serious business. The practice was used to ratify or seal treaties and contracts. The Term Cutting Covenant is an apt description of the practice.
The people entering into the Covenant would take a bull, slaughter it, cut it in half, and lay the halves opposite each other, creating a path. They would then speak their part of the covenant as they walked between the animal halves, exchanging sides.
Upon reaching the opposite end, they finalized the covenant by saying, “May it be done to me as was done to this animal if I fail to keep my commitment.” Needless to say, Covenants were not entered into lightly.
The Coming Of The Law
At Mount Sinai, God gave Israel the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law, which jointly make up what we commonly call the Old Covenant today. It was a bilateral Covenant of works, or what Israel should and should not do and whether God would respond with blessings or curses.
In their third month after leaving Egypt Moses went up Sinai to meet with God.
“This is what you are to say to the descendants of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the. So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the Lord had commanded him to speak. The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. Israelites.” Exodus 19:3–8
Surprisingly, the elders of Israel committed to the Covenant without hearing what would be required of them or sharing the terms with the people. They pridefully said they would do all that was required.
The Old Covenant or the Mosaic Law were impossible burdens to keep, and no one could live up to the demands of the law without fault. The Old Covenant’s law and sacrificial system were little more than a band-aid temporarily cleansing the people of sin.
The law was never intended to make Israel holy or righteous. John Piper beautifully illustrates this point in the Romans 8:1–4 excerpt. (Click here for the entire message.)
Why could the law not do these two things? Because if we can see the reason for this weakness clearly, we will be protected from the deadly mistake of counting on the law for justification and sanctification. And, even better, we will know where to look for the declaration that we are right with God and for the transformation that follows.
And that is so crucial for us all. You may have come today wondering how these Baptists think about salvation and about how to get right with God and have eternal life. Well, we think about it the same way Biblical Christians have thought about it for centuries: this is historic Christianity, not just Baptist Christianity. The law — the Ten Commandments and the other rules that Moses gave the people of Israel — cannot make you right with God and cannot transform you into the kind of righteous and loving person you want to be.
Why not? Verse 3 answers: “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did.” The problem with the law is not that its commandments are evil (Romans 7:12) but that we are evil (Romans 7:14). The word “flesh” does not mean skin vocabulary. It means our old fallen nature. We will see this next week in the following verses, where he contrasts the mind of the flesh and the mind of the Spirit. The flesh is what we are and what life is without God and his gracious, saving work by the Spirit. That is what the law encounters when it comes to us.
So, what is the weakness of the law? The weakness of the law is that it was not designed to redeem fallen, condemned, rebellious, selfish people like us. John Piper
In short, the purpose of the law was to highlight our need for a savior and to point us to Jesus Christ, the flawless lamb whose blood is able to cleanse us of all sin for all time.
As the perfect sacrifice and payment for our condemnation, Jesus is not the end of the law but the fulfillment of the law — Grace Incarnate.
The Burden Of The Law
The law’s introduction brought with it the possibility of consequences and curses if the law’s requirements were not fulfilled.
The people who had seen God’s miracles and His provision in response to their grumbling, without qualification or consequence, now had to wash and consecrate themselves to have an audience with God. (Exodus 19:14–15)
They were warned not to approach Mount Sinai lest they be shot with an arrow or stoned. (Exodus 19:12–13)
Moses then told the people and the elders what the law would demand of them, and they responded. The people all responded together,
“We will do everything the Lord has said.” So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord. Exodus 19:8
In doing so, the people put aside the Grace they had walked under thus far and put on the yolk of the law. Now, there were consequences to fear and condemnation to endure if they failed to keep the law.
With the law of sin now active in their lives, they became acutely aware of their failings and had to make ongoing sacrifices to cover their sin. The demands of the law were now an overwhelming burden in their lives.
The peril of their choice confronted them quickly in the form of a Golden Calf.
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Exodus 32:1
You Know the rest of the story: Israel fell headlong into apostasy while dancing and partying around their new god, a Golden Calf, already breaking Covenant with God. Three thousand people died that day at the hands of their brothers and friends.
Why? They had put on the yolk of the law, effectively walking out of the cover of grace. The law required punishment for their failure to live up to its exacting demands. This is why, in 2 Corinthians 3:7–9, Paul refers to the Law as the ministry of death.
Conversely, centuries later, Peter stood in Jerusalem at Pentecost preaching the name of Jesus, and 3000 people were saved. Mercy triumphs over wrath; grace changes everything.
The radically different outcomes of these two events clearly illustrate how the Law demands while grace gives.
Why Do People Choose The Law Over Grace?
I can’t offer a definitive answer, but we’re broken and fallen. However, I would guess that it has to do with American culture.
We’re taught to be individualistic, strive for self-sufficiency, and pride ourselves on not needing others.
Based on this tendency, the law seems deceptively like something we can manage, control, or accomplish in our strength — a box we check off and move on to bigger and better things. All this appeals to our inflated egos.
In reality, this deception is as old as the Garden of Eden and has plagued man in one form or another since Adam and Eve decided they should eat from the Tree of Good and Evil.
Adam and Eve are the end-all examples of how hopeless it is to achieve righteousness through the law. They had one law to keep, and they still failed.
In the thousands of years since God gave the law to Moses, Only Jesus could fulfill its demands.
The Way Of Grace
In Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus makes this proclamation,
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Today, thanks to God’s abundant grace, this declaration resounds to all peoples worldwide.
However, when Jesus spoke these words, He was talking to the Jewish people of Israel, who labored endlessly in a futile attempt to achieve righteousness by living up to the letter of the law.
He was inviting them to throw off the bondage of the law, come under the umbrella of Grace, and gain righteousness through His coming sacrificial death on the cross.
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus announces that he is the fulfillment of the law.
With the death of Jesus, the perfect sacrificial lamb, all the requirements of the law were met. The condemnation of man was erased. All sin was paid for and forgiven. The power of sin and death was broken; Satan and his minions were stripped of their power.
We are now in the era of the New Covenant and are no longer subject to the laws of the Old Covenant.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8–9ESV
Grace, in the person of Jesus Christ, was, is, and always will be the only way out of sin and restoration to God the Father!