As with Moses and Israel, many want someone to be a buffer so they don’t get too close to God.
When we conclude this chapter, we’ll be half-way through Exodus. Chapter 20, one of the most epic in the whole Bible, is not only filled with “thunderings,…lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking” (v 18), but with an open door into the heart and mind of God. We’ll overhear what Israel overheard as God told Moses what He wanted for His people. How many miss the point; this is not some arbitrary set of rules. It’s God’s plan for happy, holy, healthy relationships—with Himself and others. The problem? The law, though perfect, “could not do [this] in that it was weak through the flesh” (Rom 8:3). Our sinful hearts made us unable to live the way God desired. He knew this, of course, but never gave up on His plan that some day, through Christ’s redemptive work, not the law itself, but “the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (v 4, KJV). So where does God start? The Lord Jesus introduced His kingdom with a Sermon on the Mount. Similarly, God gathers His people at Sinai to lay the foundation for this new nation. Israel is being raised up as God’s proof to other nations that the world is not run by impersonal forces working on mindless matter. There is a personal God behind the universe, One who should be reverenced and obeyed, and can be known and loved. But in light of God’s awesomeness, the people and Moses respond in opposite ways: “You speak with us, and we will hear,” they said, “but let not God speak with us, lest we die.…So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near…where God was” (Ex 20:19, 21). We all must decide to be stand-offish with God, or to draw near where He is. And that will make all the difference.