# The Sinaitic Theophany



## Peairtach (Apr 12, 2013)

> 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 and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” (hebrews 12:18-21)



Was this terrifying theophany given because the Israelites had already broken the Covenant of Works in Adam, or because they were going to break a new Covenant of Works given to them through Moses?


----------



## A5pointer (Apr 12, 2013)

Sin brought on the transcendent separation characterized by terror to the sinful upon contact.


----------



## Peairtach (Apr 12, 2013)

I believe the theophany was given to teach the Israelites the distance there was between sinful man, even sinful man in the administration of the Covenant of Grace, and Holy God, but was interested to hear others' views.


----------



## A5pointer (Apr 12, 2013)

I think of the guys who mixed the incense wrong and Uzza, etc. a Vail of terror in the old.


----------



## Christusregnat (Apr 12, 2013)

Peairtach said:


> > 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 and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” (hebrews 12:18-21)
> 
> 
> 
> Was this terrifying theophany given because the Israelites had already broken the Covenant of Works in Adam, or because they were going to break a new Covenant of Works given to them through Moses?



None of the above. Our God is a consuming fire, and the terrors of the law are part and parcel of the evangelical use of the law. Keep reading:



> 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
> 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. *For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven*:
> 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
> 27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
> ...



Paul draws a parallel where a dispensational hermeneutic draws a contrast of covenants.


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Apr 13, 2013)

John 1:17, "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."

While I think it is a mistake to see the Sermon on the Mount as "new law," I do believe Matthew intends the reader/hearer to find a parallel between the mountainside Jesus goes up and sits upon (Mt.5:1), where his disciples are invited to come to him, even into the mountain; and the original mountain-of-meeting with God, which was unapproachable, in which the people were obliged to come as close as the barriers--but who, when God spoke to them, pressed backward and away, eventually begging Moses to go forward on their behalf, and bring the rest of the Word of God to them.

Sinai was awe-full, yes because God is holy and transcendent and his law is to be revered as a thing that conveys that terrible majesty; but also because it would stand in contrast to another "presence" of God, one in which God removed the terror by adopting human flesh. Our Lord is all perfection, all acceptable with the Father, and we are acceptable in him.


----------



## Peairtach (Apr 13, 2013)

*Adam*


> None of the above. Our God is a consuming fire, and the terrors of the law are part and parcel of the evangelical use of the law. Keep reading:



Absolutely. He remains the same, a just God and consuming fire, but He used different means to present Himself to the childhood Church than He did to the NT Church in the Sermon on the Mount.



> Paul draws a parallel where a dispensational hermeneutic draws a contrast of covenants.



More of an a fortiori argument than an exact parallel.

*Bruce*


> Sinai was awe-full, yes because God is holy and transcendent and his law is to be revered as a thing that conveys that terrible majesty; but also because it would stand in contrast to another "presence" of God, one in which God removed the terror by adopting human flesh. Our Lord is all perfection, all acceptable with the Father, and we are acceptable in him.



That's all true, but for the unbeliever, even in the administration of the NT, the terror isn't removed but rather than being expressed in a theophany is expressed in the preaching of the law and the penalty for the breach of it.

My main point was about Republication - no doubt the Republicationists see in the theophany evidence that the "Sinaitic Covenant", as they like to call it, which He was about to declare, was a CoW "in some sense" - but presumably we agree that doesn't have much traction. God in His grace was revealing or emphasising the distance between Himself and His people because they'd _already_ broken the CoW in Adam.


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Apr 13, 2013)

Richard,
I just don't see that God chooses "sensory overload" to manifest himself at Sinai _because_ (a direct relationship of cause to effect, or effect to cause) man has either broken the CoW, or will break the CoW redivivus. How I read your initial question was as a kind of claim to one or the other of this dichotomy.

Sinai is a near-revelation of God-As-Is. No creature--not a one--can handle an unmediated experience of the divine. And the less mediated it is, the more we are "undone," regardless of which of the four-fold state we occupy.

That is what Sinai is about--the need men have for true mediation with God. *The distance exists in ALL cases, whether man is perfect or imperfect*. Sinful man either denies this entirely, or he appeals to false mediators. He either does not know this, or he has forgotten it. In the garden Adam and Eve had mediated experience with the divine; that is, they did not experience God in a purely direct way. The fact of the Trees is proof enough of this. God ever accommodates himself to the weakness of his creatures of flesh; and now, even to sinful flesh.

In the sense that man needs instruction or reminder in something even more basic than the CoW (because he is now fallen), to relearn something integral to any covenant or relationship with God whatsoever, then perhaps we can say that the Lord appears in a Dreadful aspect at Sinai _because_ of man's ignorance, which is an effect of breaking the CoW.

Again, I'm having trouble with thinking of the terrifying quality of the Sinai theophany simply or especially in terms of the _threatening_ character of law. Because the promise is also present, and that idea isn't threatening at all. And yet, *it was appropriate to announce blessing in the same Awesome manner*, still conveying the message: mediation is required.

The last is the main message of Sinai's "presentation." And that is what stands in such marvelous contrast to our Savior-Lord's self presentation on the later mountain. He is God-with-us, and he is Mediator.


----------



## Peairtach (Apr 15, 2013)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Richard,
> I just don't see that God chooses "sensory overload" to manifest himself at Sinai _because_ (a direct relationship of cause to effect, or effect to cause) man has either broken the CoW, or will break the CoW redivivus. How I read your initial question was as a kind of claim to one or the other of this dichotomy.
> 
> Sinai is a near-revelation of God-As-Is. No creature--not a one--can handle an unmediated experience of the divine. And the less mediated it is, the more we are "undone," regardless of which of the four-fold state we occupy.
> ...



Thanks for that, Bruce.

But surely the lesson of Sinai was particularly that the people needed a mediator as sinners - breakers of the Covenant of Works - rather than that they needed God to be mediated to them as creatures?

Adam and Eve, before the Fall, never had such a lesson from God that they needed His revelation of Himself to be mediated to them _qua_ sinless human beings. 

Also Adam himself -in some senses - mediated God to the creation and the creation to God, as prophet, priest and king, anticipating Moses role, and being fulfilled in Christ, the Last Adam.

I'm not disputing or arguing with anything you're saying, Bruce, but rather exploring this subject and learning from what you're saying.


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Apr 15, 2013)

Richard,
First, please don't worry that I dislike people opposing some opinion I hold. Or contradicting me. I have issues only with people who ignorantly assume that anything they don't agree with must be a stupid view.

2) I agree that a lesson taught at Sinai is that people are sinners, and cannot make a successful covenant (of works) with God. But these are lessons that _come out of_ the event. They belong to the event, God certainly intends such lessons; but I think Israel starts out this meeting being taught the most basic of relations: creature to Creator. One of the great insights of the Reformation (you may find it in Calvin), is that the Exodus and Sinai are the "birth" of this nation. Israel is a child. "Out of Egypt I called my son." The distance between the Progenitor (God) and his infant must be both manifested and overcome.

And yes, the child must be taught about his rebellious nature. But, he comes (say I) to know this about himself not because God in the first place is, by the very manner of revelation, trying to make the child feel *worthless* and *guilty*. If we think about human parental relations with their children, I'd think that such an "introduction" would be a particularly bad form of parenting. On the other hand, if God actually IS in his nature just this very smoking, holy and dread-inducing Being, then it is salutary for the creature to begin with such an understanding. Man is _relatively_ insignificant, but he has _worth_ because God is entering into covenant with him.

3) I think Adam and Eve _*DID*_ have a lesson from God about necessary mediation, besides the fact that this knowledge was innate in them as unfallen. The lesson is plain in the sacramental Trees. Why does man need symbols, if he could just approach God in his essence and get the information first-hand? I'd even say that _*the spoken word of God*_ is a form of mediation. Our souls or minds don't enter directly into the mind of God to know him or know what he knows. His word is intimate, no question and thank God for it. But it is still accommodated revelation. We cannot know God in his pure divine essence.

4) Yes, Adam was a mediator to the rest of creation. Man's relationship to God in covenant is unique. But God is still mediating himself to Adam from the start. Moses is a mediator to the rest of Israel. (He is also a "mother" in some sense, to God as Father.) Moses is the greatest Old Covenant mediator, and certainly a type of Christ. Christ is Mediator _par exallance_. He is utterly unique, in that he brings God as close to man as conceivably possible under any notion that yet maintains the absolute distinction between Creator and creature.


In the end, I'm saying that the exposure of man's sinfulness at Sinai is an _effect_ of the covenant and the manner of the revelation, rather than being properly a *cause* or special purpose in the fireworks. The overwhelming nature of God apparent at Sinai is just who he is. He would be the same God if he came down in like manner for nothing else but to pass out favors and speak no laws or commandments. There would be nothing untoward or unreasonable about dispensing pure grace in that way. But it clearly sets up that afterward, "grace and truth" came by Jesus Christ. The latter clearly stands in marvelous contraposition because of that first terrifying Advent.

It is not _because_ men are sinners that it is a terrifying encounter. It is a terrifying encounter, and for that reason sinners come to know who God is, and their own condition.


----------



## Peairtach (Apr 15, 2013)

Thanks for taking the time on that, Bruce.


----------



## littlepeople (Apr 15, 2013)

Contra_Mundum said:


> It is not because men are sinners that it is a terrifying encounter. It is a terrifying encounter, and for that reason sinners come to know who God is, and their own condition.



That was amazingly helpful


----------



## MW (Apr 15, 2013)

Hebrews presents but one application of the theophany, namely, as it applies to those who had entered into the glories of the better administration but were now shrinking back. There are other applications. Psalm 68, for example, speaks of it in a positive light and relates the blessings which came to the congregation because of the glorious presence of God.


----------

