120518 - Deuteronomy 10-11 - God's Anticipation and Redemption

Friday SOAP: So why was it OK for Moses to shatter the Law written by God's own hand, but not OK for him to strike the rock a second time? Like God was doing in Abraham's offering of Isaac, the second son who is called "your only son," (Gen. 22:2), I believe God was picturing something about how He anticipates our fall and lovingly redeems, restores and recreates.

S: So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. (Deuteronomy 9:17)

“At that time the LORD said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. And he wrote on the tablets, in the same writing as before, the Ten Commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And the LORD gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark that I had made. And there they are, as the LORD commanded me.” (Deuteronomy 10:1-5)

O: One thing that occurred to me today is that when we picture the Mercy Seat sprinkling as God looking down to see the blood intervening between His eyes and the broken Law, that is a nice summary of the image of redemption conveyed by the Mercy Seat. The tablets that were actually put into the Ark had not themselves been broken, but the original ones had.

A: This made me think about the repeated theme of first things not being final things. The First Adam took the whole race with him into sin and death. (1 Cor 15:22) The Last Adam makes us alive when we are in Him. (1 Cor. 15:45) There was Hagar and Ishmael, representing the passing, earthly things, and Sarah and Isaac, representing the permanent, heavenly things. (Ga. 4:22-28) There was Moses' early attempt to deliver Israel by fleshly means, and leading to the sentence of death, (Ex. 2:11-15), and there was God's later revelation of Himself and sovereign deliverance from Egypt. The Old Covenant was just, holy and good (Rom 7:12). But it is also death to me. (Rom 7:13) It is the New Covenant which is everlasting. (Hebrews 12:24, 13:20)

In Stephen's final sermon in Acts 7, he puts it this way:

“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! (Acts 7:51).

God is the God of second chances. Not only that, but in His picturing the second chance as the right one, He anticipates the result of our brokenness and ruin. Just like how the division of the Tabernacle and Temple's holy place from the Holy of Holies was meant to symbolize that the way to the holiest was not yet made manifest while it stood, (Hebrews 9:8), so the broken and recovered Law became a picture of how it would be continually broken by those to whom it was given, but fulfilled by another means. (Romans 8:4)

P: Father, just as you are our Creator and our Redeemer, not Creator only, but the One Who goes beyond the fallenness and brokenness to recreate us yet again at your own great cost, so you have pictured the same throughout your Word.

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