Through this series, we hope to drive home the fact that you do not need a seminary degree to read the Bible. Wait what? Yes, because sometimes in our churches, we talk about the Bible as if the Old Testament were only for seminarians. That is wrong. The OT is for God’s children, and all Christians are His children.
Today, we look at the first 5 books of the Old Testament, also known as the Torah, the Pentateuch, and the books of Moses. Read on to see the big structure and key sections to fill in that structure, so that you would have confidence to fill in everything in-between!
(A) Introduce the LORD, the God of the Bible
So how does the Bible, and the Books of Moses, begin? What is its chief subject? We often think of it chronologically. For many of us, we turn to Genesis 1 and start thinking about Darwinian evolution and its ilk, so as to make sense of the narrative as it best fits our times. But we need to realise that when its original Hebrew audience read it, they read it differently.
A quick survey of Gen 1 and 2 informs us that the author’s point is not to give us a chronological account of events. We know this because Gen 2 begins by reframing the events of Gen1. We may try to sequence things, but Genesis 1 and 2 are not designed that way.
Instead, we see immediately that Gen 1 begins by introducing us to the LORD. Don’t worry, no one is shouting. “LORD” in capital letters is intentional, for it is how we know that the author is referencing the personal name of God. This raises a crucial point: the LORD is a Person, and not an idea.
This also tells us that God is the subject of these books. We know this because God is the subject of Genesis 1 and 2 (Gen 1:1):
God (the subject) created (verb) the heavens and the earth (object).
This is the pattern for all of Gen 1. And if this is the focus of these books, the question we should be asking ourselves every time we read the Bible is not “how do i sequence things?”, but “what kind of God is this?”. That is the main topic of the Books of Moses. Moses wrote them so that his main audience, the people of Israel, would understand who it was that they were trembling before.
If God is the chief subject of the books of Moses and the whole Bible, then what we are doing is a quick soak of the Bible. Survey the table below to see what God does in the Books of Moses, and what we can learn about Him.
Here’s a quick summary of the books:
The God of the Bible begins with creation. When Adam and Eve sin, He curses and judges them for their sin. But He’s not done, for He promises blessing. The word “blessing” works just like the word “God” - we don’t get to take the word and fill it with our contemporary ideas. We when see “blessing” (Gen 12), we should think “curse” (Gen 3) and its undoing. One aspect of this blessing is the making of a great nation, and that’s the rest of Genesis - God makes a nation out of a dead body. He takes a barren womb, fills it with life, and we have 70 people by the end of Genesis.
In Exodus, God’s people come under threat and God has to rescue them. After they come out, we are faced with the big question - why did God redeem them? The answer is clear. He redeemed them to possess and covenant with them. He redeemed them to marry them, so that their relationship would be exclusive through a covenant. The rest of Exodus is God fleshing out what a covenant looks like. We may struggle to read through it, but once we understand it as God putting forth marriage vows, it quickly becomes one of the most beautiful narratives. For we also see that Israel concurrently turns away from God. They turn away from the covenant, and become idolatrous (Ex 31) through their making of a golden calf. They attribute to the idol all that they should attribute to God. And God rages. But Exodus has a beautiful ending - God comes down and reestablishes His covenant with them.
Leviticus is an echo of this covenant. God is with His people, and by His holy presence He makes them holy. The word “sanctify" is a common Christian buzz-word. We often take it to mean “improve”, but that’s wrong. It means that God makes His people fit for Him. He changes them so that He would dwell with them. In some sense, Leviticus is like Advent, for it is preparation for God’s people to prepare themselves for His dwelling.
Numbers is exciting, for God’s people are homeward bound. But a great tragedy happens with spies at the edge of the Jordan. For Israel disregards God’s instructions, and forgets God’s power in the Exodus. And God judges them for it - Moses included. Numbers is the best possible book for a second generation Christian, for it behooves us to keep away from the sins of our forefathers and cleave to God’s commands.
In Deuteronomy, Moses is at the end of His life. It has been 40 years of wandering and learning, and they are at the edge of Canaan. So God repeats the law one more time. Deuteronomy literally means “the second law”, or “the law twice given.” Why? Because the covenant is so important. Moses is hammering home the importance of Israel’s relationship to God through the covenant. On that note, let’s move on to see what a covenant is and why it is so important.
(B) Set forth the Law Covenant between God and Israel as the structure for relationship
In the books of Moses, three important “covenants” show us what kind of relationship God will have with His people. If you’ve been in church, you’ve heard the word covenant, and you probably associate it with “promise”. A covenant is more than that. It is how God reveals Himself, and how His people will relate to Him. It is a groom describing to his bride the kind of life he will have with her. It is the structure of their relationship. Study the table below to find out more about the 3 covenants:
As you read these covenants in the OT, 3 structures of relationship emerge:
God is in relationship with all creation. He will not destroy, but give life even if we sin.
In a world cursed by Him, the curse will not be pervasive, but Abraham will be source of redemption from the curse.
God redeems a special people and gives them a high-definition picture of life with Him.
What does it mean practically?
You are alive because Noahic covenant.
There is hope.
We have a good picture of God and life with Him.
If you have been told that the Old Testament is scary, and the Old Testament God is a scary God who says “do this or I will zap you”, but the New Testament Jesus is gracious, gentle, and kind for He does away with the Law, know that that’s not true. The God we’ve been studying is a gracious God. He permits the unrighteous to live even though they spit on His face with their breath. He blesses a rightfully cursed world - not just a particular ethnic group, but all the nations.
(C) Address our greater human condition through Israel’s experience
At the first covenant ceremony Moses reads all the terms, and the people confirm their intent. Moses then takes the blood of an animal (that was an offering) and he throws it on the altar and the people. It might not make sense to us, but the original readers understood it as a way of saying - if you break the covenant, then so be it to you as it was to the animal (offering).
It is also the story of the gospel. For these are a group of people who have already been redeemed, but both Moses and God knew that they would not be able to live up to their end of the covenant. Friends, this is the story of a sinful people, you and me, redeemed by God. We know all of these things (covenant stipulations), but our lives are the opposite of that. When the new year swings around, we tell ourselves and we tell God that this new year will finally be the year of 100% obedience. We’re really going to love God the way we should. We’re going to love our brothers and sisters. We’re going to follow Jesus. But our lives tell us otherwise, don’t they?
And in the Books of Moses, God doesn’t just remind them once. He reminds them again in Numbers, and again in Deuteronomy. Why? Because they need it. Friends, do you see that when we read these books, we are reading the story of our lives? The Books of Moses address our human condition. Even all of that boring, mundane, and confusing stuff. All of that is God’s precious and gracious reminder to us of what we need to stand before a Holy God, because we keep going astray. It is a reminder that we need someone to make this covenant work, because we can’t. So the Law points us to Moses who not only leads His people out of Egypt, but stands there between God and His people.
That was the extent of Israel’s dependency of Moses. But Moses dies. What happens then? In Deut 18:15-22, as God gives His people preparation for their next phase, He also promises to raise up another Prophet like Moses. Read those words! The Israelites knew that their Holy God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Orchestrator of all things could only dwell with them because of Moses the mediator. So when Moses dies, God promises them that someone else would come. Someone else who would make it possible for God to dwell with us a sinful people.
Friends, we often live as though we are covenantal people, but only on Sundays. We struggle to love God and His Word. We live lives without reference to Him. The fact is that more often than not, we do not care about God’s law. For we care more about our laws than His. The problem with us is that no matter how we try, whether it is the first day of the New Year of the last day of the New Year, we are not going to make it. We need a Moses to stand before God on our behalf, and plead for mercy on our behalf. We need mercy for our sins, for they are many. If you are not clear about how you stand before the Law of God, read the Books of Moses. They tell us that the LORD your God is not an idea. He is a terrifying and holy God, before Whom we will stand in judgment. We belong to Him, and are covenanted to Him. Still, our sin is too real. If you have no love for God and His Word, the books of Moses are a terrifying thing.
But they are also books of comfort. For it promises that a New Moses would come. Jn 1:14-18 tells us about this New Moses, who would come and tell us the true things about our God, intercede on our behalf, and bring us peace. John’s gospel even goes one step further to describe the grace that we have through Christ as a “grace upon (the grace that came through the Law)”. Above everything else, the books of Moses are all about Jesus Christ. The One who truly mediates peace for a world at enmity with God is Jesus. The One who guarantees blessing in spite of the rampant persecution we see in Chian is Jesus. And the One who is the True and Greater Moses before Whom we hear God’s voice, truly know His Law, and find the way to have it etched on our hearts is Jesus.
Friends, the Books of Moses remind us time and time again that God is a Person and not an idea. We are in a covenantal relationship with Him, and we need Jesus the True and Greater Moses to be our mediatory. Will you go to Him, that your heart would be changed to truly love Him and His Law?