Exodus 24:4-5 says, “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill....And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord.” God did not give the law that His people might keep it. Therefore, He did not ask them to swear that they would keep the law; rather, He told Moses to build an altar and to offer sacrifices. The altar and the sacrifices indicate that they could not keep God’s law; they needed to be redeemed, and they also needed to be terminated and replaced by the sacrifices.
The burnt offering signifies that Christ lived a life on earth that was absolutely for God, offering Himself without blemish and spot to God to fully satisfy God’s desire. The peace offering signifies that Christ shed His blood and died for man to become the peace between man and God, that God may have harmony and fellowship with man and that God and man may enjoy peace together. Originally, the law contained in this covenant was for man to keep God’s commandments that God might be satisfied and that man might have harmony with God to enjoy peace with Him. However, because man was unable to keep God’s commandments, he needed Christ to be the burnt offering and the peace offering. For this reason, when this covenant was made, Moses built an altar and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, which typify Christ.
Exodus 24:6 says, “And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.” This blood came from the sacrifices offered on the altar. Moses also sprinkled the blood on both the book of the covenant itself and on all the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded to you” (Heb. 9:19-20; Exo. 24:8). To sprinkle the blood was to use the redeeming blood to cover the book of the covenant and those who received the book, satisfying the requirement of the book toward those who received it, so that those who received the book and violated it would not be condemned. The sprinkling of the blood also caused those who received the book to be redeemed and freed from the requirement and condemnation of the book. This indicates that at the time the covenant was made, because God knew that the children of Israel, who received the covenant, would break the words of the covenant, He prepared Christ’s redemption for them.
Before the covenant was consummated, the children of Israel, who were to receive the covenant, made a golden calf and worshipped it (Exo. 32:1-6), violating the first three commandments of the covenant. Thus, the tablets of the covenant were broken before they were delivered (Exo. 32:19). This shows that before the covenant was consummated it was broken; this also indicates man’s inability to keep the covenant. Therefore, before He delivered the tablets of the covenant, God first revealed to the people who would receive the covenant how they should draw near to God through the tabernacle and the offerings (Exo. 25—31).
After the consummation of the covenant, the children of Israel, who received the covenant, disobeyed all the commandments, statutes, and judgments of the covenant throughout their generations. Thus, they were cursed and punished by God. Therefore, God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (Jer. 31:31-32). The covenant being impossible because of the weakness of man (Rom. 8:3), God promised to make a new covenant with the children of Israel. Thereafter, the covenant of law which He previously made with them became the old covenant. “Now that which is becoming old and growing decrepit is near to disappearing” (Heb. 8:13).
Among the children of Israel who received the covenant, some became the just men who were made perfect by God in the Old Testament (Heb. 12:23). These just men, such as David, Samuel, and the prophets in the Old Testament, were kept and shut up by the covenant and brought to the way of God’s redemption, being accepted and blessed by God.
When God through Moses delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, the land of bondage, and brought them to the foot of Mount Sinai, He made a covenant with them, the fifth covenant that He made with man. They had kept the Passover and had been redeemed by God, they had been rescued out of Egypt by God’s power, and they had been brought through the wilderness by God’s grace. However, not knowing themselves, they thought they were able to keep God’s commands by themselves. Therefore, through Moses, God decreed the law, which was enacted according to what He is, in order to expose their offense that they might know sin, and to guard and shut them up that they might be brought to Christ. The contents of the law are divided into the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances. The commandments, as God’s basic commands, are the general principles of the law. There are ten commandments. The statutes set forth, explain in detail, and supplement the ten basic commandments; their stress is on man’s worship and service to God and on the rituals and regulations pertaining to man’s relationship with God. The ordinances, which are statutes with verdicts, or judgments, also set forth, explain in detail, and supplement the ten basic commandments; the emphasis is on the verdicts that concern the relationships between man and others and between man and God. This covenant was consummated by the offering of burnt offerings and peace offerings and by the sprinkling of the blood of sacrifices on the book of the covenant and on the people. Because God knew that they would break the words of the covenant, He prepared the sacrifices, which typify Christ, that they might be redeemed and have harmony with God to enjoy peace with Him. The result of making the covenant was that before the consummation of the covenant they worshipped the golden calf and thus broke the covenant. Moreover, after the consummation of the covenant, they disobeyed all the commandments, statutes, and judgments of the covenant throughout their generations. However, there were some just men who were perfected by God and who were kept and shut up by the covenant and were thus brought to the way of God’s redemption.