To travel from Easter to Pentecost, as we all have in the past two months, is also to traverse the ground from the Exodus to Sinai—and we’ve done that, too, in the past two months. God refers to his care for his people through the desert as carrying them on eagles’ wings (Ex 19:4). What happens after the eagles?

Last week, Pentecost Sunday, we arrived at Sinai (see the satellite photo, and click here for a map of the journey from Egypt to Canaan). The sermon dwelt on the Bible’s love of patterns of days and months, such as the seven weeks from Easter to Pentecost, and on the meaning of the biblical word covenant.

A covenant is an agreement that defines and stabilizes the relationship between two people or groups of people. A marriage is a covenant; so is a treaty between nations and a labor-management agreement. A covenant may be between equals (marriage) or unequals (as is often the case with treaties), and God has made a proposal, offered a treaty, pledged himself to an agreement. This is part of his plan to retake a world gone bad. He struck the “old” covenant at Sinai, revealing himself and his ways to the people, making promises, and asking for their loyalty. The new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31) does not so much change the terms as provide us with greater resources for obedience to its terms.

In Exodus 19, God proposes the covenant; in chs. 20-23, he continues to unveil himself and his expectations for people; and in ch. 24, the people pledge their agreement to it.

After the Eagles

Left over from last week is the most important part of the reading from Exodus, the description of what God intends his people to be. Here is that passage, Exodus 19:4–6:

The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel:

⁴‘You have seen
what I did to the Egyptians,
how I bore you on eagles’ wings
and brought you to Myself.
⁵Now then, if you will obey me faithfully
and keep my covenant,
you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples
—indeed, all the earth is mine—
⁶you shall be to me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation.’

These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Here are three expressions for us as signers to God’s great covenant to redeem the world (vs 5–6). 1 Peter 2:9–10 quotes these words and helps us understand them. Here are Peter’s words:

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1. God’s covenant people of the Old and New Testament are his treasured possession. What does this mean?
   • Not that we can be relieved of ordinary requirements or have God make exceptions for us because we’re us: No, we keep God’s covenant.
   • Not that we are better than other people: On the contrary, to think that is to be guilty of an inner arrogance that is as bad as the sins of the flesh.
   • Not that we can receive special boons and blessings that other people don’t get (although I firmly believe that God honors those who honor him).
   • Not that we can kick sand in the faces of those who are not Christians, although, of course, we are Christ’s with every fiber of our being.

   The same word, segullah, occurs in 1 Chronicles 29:3, a passage that offers a fine window onto its meaning. In this story, King David has called for gifts from the people for the building of the Temple, which his Solomon would undertake. That money is already on hand. In addition to all that is already laid up, David says, “I have a treasure of my own”—that’s the word segullah—“that I am giving to the house of my God.”

   That is, beside the huge wealth of the nation and the monies on deposit from the people’s gifts, the king will give his personal treasure to this project in which he’s so deeply interested. That’s what the people of the covenant are to God: Out of all the riches he has, the believers who form the church are his personal treasure, dedicated to a specific cause and purpose. We’re God’s personal stash, set aside for this specific need.

   This first word is about our relation to God.

2. God’s covenant people are to be a kingdom of priests.
   1. To be a kingdom is to be a people under authority, gathered around our royal leader, Jesus Christ. “Once you were not a people,” Peter says, “but now you are God’s people.” This is different from being a folk migration like the Exodus; it’s different from being a nation at war with itself; it’s different from being a loose federation of tribes. It is to have order and focus.
   2. That focus is in the word priests. Now, it’s true that any Christian can confess his/her own sin and receive forgiveness through Christ’s atonement, without the help of a priest, but that’s not what these words mean.

   In the Bible, to be a priest is to be in God’s service in a specific way. A priest represents the people to God and God to the people. The priest teaches God’s ways, prays for the people, seeks reconciliation between God and humans.

   As priests exist among the biblical nation of Israel in the role of service, representing God, so the people of the covenant are to be throughout the world. They are a kingdom, a group organized under a common leader and loyalty, and they are to represent God throughout the world, seeking reconciliation between God and human beings everywhere.

   And this is exactly how Peter puts it above: We are “a people for his own posession, that”—here’s the purpose—“you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” That is, God cherishes the church because we will proclaim all that he is and longs for, carrying the Gospel to the ends of the earth. God’s choosing of his people, his esteem, the distinctive character, all have to do with mission.

   This word is about our relation to our neighbors.

3. The people of the covenant are to be a holy nation.

   Here the word holy turns most of us away. We know how far we are from being holy. I want to make the word accessible without taking away its sternness.

   1. To start with, to be holy is to be set apart for God. It’s a position rather than a quality. You can see it right in Exodus 19, where the Lord says, “Set limits around the mountain [Sinai] and consecrate it” (vs 12, 23). In the original Hebrew, consecrate is simply “make holy.” For the mountain to be holy is to be set apart from common, ordinary uses, for God’s arrival to declare the Ten Commandments.

      The church is a holy nation: We have set ourselves apart to be Christ’s and live for him. Even in our imperfection, that great move of heart and will declares that our loyalty is with him. Turning away from proposals from other powers, we’re signers of the treaty he proposes. As a bride “forsakes all others,” so we know ourselves pledged to God through Christ and to no other.

   2. But holy also implies the high moral quality that we find in God. It denotes the surpassing excellence of the divine character. Of this purity, the Bible uses fire above all else as a symbol. For example, “the Lord descended on Mt. Sinai in fire” (Ex 19:18). God calls us to moral excellence through divine grace: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:1, 1 Peter 1:16).

   We are to be people seeking lives of honesty, generosity, compassion, integrity, sacrifice—qualities found above all in Jesus, our Lord. This word is about our character.