Exodus 19:5-6

A peculiar treasure unto Me.

God’s people His treasure

1. A treasure is something searched for. The Holy Spirit is ever diligently seeking after Christians.

2. A treasure when found is carefully guarded. As the apple of His eye God protects those who trust Him.

3. The finding of a treasure is the occasion of rejoicing. “There is joy in heaven,” etc.

4. To obtain a treasure we will make great sacrifices. “God gave His only begotten Son,” etc. (Homiletic Review.)

National ideals

The problem was: How to convert a horde of demoralized slaves into a nation of virtuous freemen, paying a free obedience to law, as they had before paid a forced obedience to the lash of the taskmaster? The practical solution of the problem involved the application of three spiritual forces or living principles. We may describe them thus:--

1. The revelation of the new name of God, “Jehovah,” the Eternal, the unchangeable, the self-same.

2. The revelation of the ideal or standard, which the nation is to keep steadily before mind and conscience, as the thing to be aimed at and striven after. This revelation is given most explicitly and clearly in the words of our text: “A kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”

3. The actual legislation which is founded upon these two revelations:--of which legislation the law of the Ten Commandments is the eternal and indestructible substructure--as strong and durable now as when it was first uttered by the voice of God to Israel--as much the foundation of all legislation now as of the distinctively Mosaic legislation then. It was under the operation of these three forces that Israel became and continued to be a nation. It is under the operation of the same or analogous forces that any nation becomes and continues to be a nation. When such forces cease to operate upon a nation, it dies.

To prove and illustrate this point must form the remainder of our subject.

1. It is impossible for any of us to overlook the importance of the words which introduce the Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord.”--that is, the Eternal--“thy God.” They are not an ornamental flourish or accidental prefix. They are the living root of all that follows. Again and again, in the course of the subsequent legislation, the words recur; even in those parts of the legislation which are most minute and temporary, sanitary or ceremonial. The new name, upon which the nation is to be built, is the name “Jehovah,” the Eternal; to which is added the old name, “thy God,” as a name to be cherished and dear as ever. Now, in this name Jehovah is involved the notion of permanence, unchangeableness; and this notion lies at the root of law, whether laws of man, or laws of nature, or laws of God. But to this tremendous, this oppressive, notion of unchangeableness, there is added the tender grace of the old name, “Thy God”--One with whom every Israelite and every human being may plead, as the Psalmist does, “O God, Thou art my God.” It is the blending of the two together; it is the intertwining of the two subtle and mighty spiritual forces, implied in the two names, that made the revelation so potent for its great purpose--the creation of a nation, that should be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. And just in proportion as the hold of those names upon heart and conscience relaxed, the nation decayed and died. For, indeed, it is everlastingly true, as one of our own poets has said, that “by the soul only the nations can be great and free.” Any one can see, that a really free people must be a loyal or law-abiding people; and that laws, which are to receive the willing obedience of such a people, must be founded on the immutable principles of truth and justice and morality. Nor can any one doubt that the Mosaic legislation is founded on such principles.

2. But now I wish to speak to you about the second of those three spiritual forces, in the strength of which Israel was to be moulded into a nation. I have already described it as the revelation of the ideal which the nation was to keep steadily before mind and conscience, as the thing to be aimed at and striven after. Our text words it thus: “Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant.” The destiny--the calling and election--of the nation of Israel was higher and holier than the destiny of any other nation. It was chosen to bear witness to the kingdom of God and His righteousness, before all the nations of the earth; a kingdom of priests, a royal and priestly race, each member of it uniting in his own person the attributes of a king and a priest: a king, to rule right loyally over his own lower and baser nature; a priest, to offer himself up in willing sacrifice to God. This pattern of righteousness the most choice and elect members of the nation did exhibit. You have only to think over the long list of truly kingly and priestly characters--from Moses to John the Baptist--to be satisfied of this. The fact that the election of Israel was what it was, does not deprive all other nations of an election of their own. On the contrary, tile very words of our text, which affirm most strongly the election of Israel, do at least suggest the thought of a corresponding, though inferior, election of all other nations. At this distance of time we have not the data for determining the special calling of Egypt, for example, or of Assyria. But we can discern with very tolerable clearness the election, the manifest destiny, of Greece and of Rome; the call of Greece to catch the inspiration of beauty, and to be the nurse of freedom; the call of Rome to be the schoolmaster of the nations, with its iron rod of law and order. We can discern, also, with perfect clearness, the vast inferiority, even of such a calling and election as this, to the calling of Israel; and can therefore fully justify the language of our text: “Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people.” But if this principle of a calling and election of nations holds true of the whole ancient world, why should it not hold true of the whole modern world also? So long as national distinctions and national characteristics exist at all, there must exist along with them corresponding national duties and national responsibilities. What is it, then, for England and for us? It may be said, that it is the manifest destiny of England to colonize and subdue the earth--to girdle it with rails of iron and steel, and lines of telegraph wire. It is in words like these, Duty and Justice-in the response which they awaken in our hearts--that we English people find the revelation of our national calling and election of God. As a nation, we are called, in a special sense, to be just and dutiful. And if our children are to go out into distant lands, and among subject peoples, to be models of duty and justice there, they must be nursed and trained in those principles first at home. A “kingdom of priests”:--yes--and that title belongs also to us, as well as to Israel; though to us, not as Englishmen, but as Christians. For is it not written: “Unto Him who loveth us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father: to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” I need not say that there is no discrepancy whatever between our special calling as Englishmen, and our more general calling as disciples of Christ. On the contrary, the latter must and does sustain and verify the former. Just in proportion as we learn to rule, as kings, over our lower, baser, selfish nature; and to offer ourselves up as priests, living, reasonable, and spiritual sacrifices, in the power and virtue of the one perfect Sacrifice, to God; just in this proportion shall we be enabled to do justice and judgment, and to walk dutifully and uprightly, and so to uphold the true glory of the English name, in whatever circumstances we may be placed--whether at home, or amongst strangers and foreigners in some far distant land. It was so with the heroes of England in the past. (D. J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Lessons

1. In covenant-making or lawgiving from God there is need of some mediator to be with God.

2. God’s call alone can qualify or authorize a mediator between Him and sinners.

3. It is incumbent on the mediator to declare fully God’s mind unto His people.

4. A due recognition of God’s gracious acts for souls against enemies is a good preparation to receive His law.

5. God’s securing providence as well as selecting a people to Himself prepare them to hear His covenant (Exodus 19:4).

6. God’s covenanted people are His peculiar treasure in the world.

7. It is God’s free grace who owneth all nations on earth to make one His peculiar above another (Exodus 19:5).

8. Royalty, near communion with God, and sanctity are the privileges of God’s peculiar ones. Kings, priests, and saints.

9. The words of duty and privilege must be spoken and made known unto the Church (Exodus 19:6). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

God’s promise to the Jews

I. The recital of His works.

II. The proposes of His love.

III. The promises of His grace. (T. Mortimer.)

“All the earth is Mine”

I. God’s assertion of universal possession in the earth

1. Nations.

2. Lands.

3. The animal and vegetable kingdoms.

II. God’s assertion excludes every other being from universal possession.

1. It is not man’s earth.

2. It is not the devil’s.

3. It does not belong to any created intelligence.

III. God’s assertion should awaken confidence in His saints and terror in sinners.

1. All forces are under His control.

2. Everything that is not of Him must fail.

3. His possession of the earth will be fully manifest in the end. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Explanation of the Divine preferences

Here is the explanation of the Divine preferences which have distressed so many hearts under the cruel name of sovereignty and election. There need be no torture in using those words. II we feel distressed by them, it is because we have come upon them along the wrong path. They are beautiful and noble words when set in their places according to the Divine intent. “Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people.” Is that partiality in any exclusive sense? Not at all; it is really meant to be inclusive. God elects humanity. “And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom.” In what sense? In the ordinary sense--namely, a great aggregate of subjects ruled by one arbitrary and despotic king? In no such sense. The literal meaning is, ye shall all be kings. Now ye see the meaning of that great name, “King of kings”--not king of an individual monarch here and there, as in Britain, or Russia, or China, but of all believers. All obedient souls are lifted up unto kinghood. We are royal equals if we obey Heaven’s will, and God is King of kings--King of all. We are a royal generation. All this language is typical. Beautiful is the historical line when seized and wisely applied. Let us attempt such seizure and application. The firstborn were chosen, and the firstborn were to be priests. In what sense are the firstborn chosen? Not as relegating the afterborn to positions subordinate and inferior; but in the sense of being their pledge and seal. God has the eldest Son, and therefore--that is the sacred logic--He has all the other children. Then the laws regarding the priesthood underwent a change, and the family of Aaron was called. We proceed from an individual, namely, the firstborn, to a family, namely, the Aaronic stock. But why were they chosen? That all the children of Aaron might also be priests, in the truly spiritual and eternal sense, though not in official and formal name and status. Then the family was deposed and a tribe is chosen--the tribe of Levi. Mark how the history accumulates and grows up into a prophecy and an argument! First the individual, then the family, then the tribe, then the Son of Man--absorbing all the past, gathering up into its true and official meaning all priesthood, aH intercession. There is one Advocate with the Father, the Man Christ Jesus. A new light thus begins to dawn upon the cloud. There is nothing arbitrary in the movement of God when we can penetrate its infinite philosophy. Will God have the first-fruits of the harvest field? He claims all such. Why will He claim the first-fruits? That in having the first-fruits He might have all the field. He will not take the whole wheat acreage of the world into His heavens and devour our poor loaf of bread; but He will take the first ear of corn that we can find in all the fields, and, having taken that, He says: “In giving Me this you have given Me all.” (J. Parker, D. D.)

God’s peculiar treasure

Exotic flowers or foreign plants, if seeded on the mountain side, or inserted in the meadow amongst the promiscuous herbage growing there, soon become choked and disappear. Those who wish to preserve the flaming glories of the Cape, or the rich fruits of the tropic, must provide a garden enclosed--must keep out the weeds and rough weather. And so God, anxious to preserve “His Holy Law,” fenced in the Hebrew nationality. He secluded them, and wailed them in, and made them, as it were, His own conservatory--a conservatory where Divine truth should survive uninjured until Messiah should come.

God’s covenant uniform

What covenant could this be, containing such promises, and by which a people should be a peculiar treasure to God, and above all others upon the earth; yea, a royal priesthood, a holy nation? This could be no other than the covenant of redemption by Christ, to the blessings of which man has no claim but in grace. The covenant of God, as the Church of God itself, under every diversity of dispensation has been the same. Whatever of a national character was peculiar to Israel, and that ceased under a better economy, was extraneous to this, and not an essential constituent or feature thereof. Uniformity of design is discoverable through the whole progress of Divine revelation, and under every form of religious ceremony. God has not at any period contradicted Himself, or set before man a covenant of grace at one time, and a covenant of works at another, for the hope of life. It would have been contrary to all that God had done, and to all that He yet promised to do, as also a break of an awful character, and the introduction of confusion into the whole system of redemption, to have here brought the nation under a covenant of works, by which they had virtually perished. True it is, that Sinai and Zion are, by the apostle, placed in contradistinction: the one as gendering to bondage; the other as free: the one as characterized by the law of condemnation; the other by the law of righteousness: but it is in certain respects only that that contrast holds good, not in the essential intention of things. The whole fabric of their ecclesiastical polity, conjoined in all its parts with exquisite wisdom, was the workmanship of mercy. By redemption it was that God claimed Israel as His own, a treasure, His best and greatest treasure, a treasure containing a treasure, His grace, His glory, the promised seed His Son. All the earth was His; yet in all the earth was nothing He so valued, nothing He held so dear. Still this treasure so great had been lost but for the security and grace of the covenant. The intrinsic value of His people was enhanced beyond all price by what this covenant embraced and required. It cost much to make them His people, and to secure them to Himself--a treasure for ever. (W. Seaton.)

The spirituality of the old covenant

The characteristic feature of the Sinai revelation is the law; but it is important to observe that it is not law as a means of salvation, but law as a sequel of salvation. If this simple and evident fact were only borne in mind in the reading of the Old Testament, endless perplexities and confusions of thought would be avoided. Observe, also, the kind of blessings which are promised. How many are there who will persist in maintaining that the old covenant offered mere temporal blessings, while it is the distinctive feature of the new to promise spiritual blessing. It is true that temporal blessings were included under the old covenant, just as they are under the new; and though they do hold a more prominent place in the old, as was indeed to be expected, yet it is a slander upon that covenant to say that these were the blessings it offered. The great blessings of the old covenant were undoubtedly spiritual, as is manifest here: “If ye will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then ye shall be to Me a peculiar treasure above all people”; “and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” Nearness to God, dearness to God, holiness--these were the characteristic blessings of the old covenant. These promises are among the richest and most deeply spiritual in the whole Bible; and it is with great reluctance that, yielding to the exigency of our plan, we refrain from entering into the wealth of meaning which each separate word conveys. Let me only notice in leaving it, that when the apostle Peter wishes to express in the very strongest terms the highest privileges of the children of God under the new dispensation, he can do nothing better than quote these old but “exceeding great and precious promises” (1 Peter 2:9). (J. M. Gibson, D. D.)

Holiness ensured

A writer tells of going down with a party into a coal mine. On the side of the gangway grew a plant which was perfectly white. The visitors were astonished that there, where the coal-dust was continually flying, this little plant should be so clean. A miner who was with them took a handful of black dust and threw it on the plant, but not a particle of it adhered. There was a wonderful enamel on the plant to which no finest speck could cling. Living there, amid clouds of dust, nothing could stain its snowy whiteness. This is a picture of what every Christian life should be. Unholy influences breathe incessantly about us and upon us. But it is our mission to be pure amid all this vileness, undefiled, unspotted from the world. If God can make a little plant so wondrously that no dust can stain its whiteness, surely He can, by His grace, so transform our heart and life that sin shall not cling to us. He who can keep the plant stainless and white as snow amid clouds of dust, can guard us in purity in this world of sin.

A kingdom of priests.--

Priests to the world

They were to be the trustees, for humanity at large, of the revelations, promises, and ordinances which God communicated, and they were to keep them for the benefit of all mankind. For a time, indeed, these heavenly communications were to be reserved to themselves; only, however, that they might be the more securely preserved; but at length all restrictions would be broken down, and that which, in its ritual exclusivism, had been confined to them would, in its spiritual persuasiveness, become the heritage of every true believer who should, like them, enter into covenant with the Lord, not over a merely typical sacrifice, but over the true and real atonement which Christ would make for the sins of men. Thus, in this peculiar promise, which looks at first as if it conferred a patent of protected privilege, we see that the present protection is in order to the future diffusion; and we have an echo of the Abrahamic blessing, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” What the Levitical tribe ultimately was among the Israelites themselves, that the Israelites were to be among the nations; and the more faithfully they performed their duties, the richer would be the ultimate blessing to the Gentiles. Reading these words in the light of the history to which they form the introduction, it needs no keenness of insight to perceive the bearing of these principles upon ourselves; for we Christians are now the world’s priests, custodians of those spiritual blessings by which our fellow-men are to be benefited; and only in proportion as we maintain holiness of character shall we discharge our duties to mankind at large. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)