Well, the title of our fourth and last introductory study, before we jump into the actual narrative of Exodus, is "Law and Grace." I think this is one of the most profoundly important contributions of Exodus to us. There is so much misunderstanding, in the church, in God's people, about God's law and his grace. There are thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of Christians who think that God's law and his grace are in opposition to one another. Maybe you have fallen into thinking that the Old Testament is about God's law and the New Testament is about God's grace. And one of the things that I find most helpful about Exodus is its ability to clear up our misunderstanding when it comes to law and grace, making the relationship between the two clear and understandable.
The first thing here, that you find in Exodus, is it's important to pay attention to when God's law was first given. The history here is vital to understand. At the giving of the law, God had already chosen Israel as his own. He had already redeemed them from slavery. He had already placed his love and grace on them. Now, here's what this means; this means the law of God was never, ever given as a means of achieving acceptance with or relationship with God because the people who first received the law had already been redeemed by his mercy. God had already chosen to place his love on them.
In the book of Romans, Paul writes of the impossibility of anyone ever gaining the acceptance of God by keeping the law. No sinner could ever be that perfect. The first giving of the law on Mount Sinai, oh you need to hear this, was a gift of grace! You see, God loved his people, and he knew that after four-hundred years of slavery, in a pagan nation, they had no idea how to live. They had no idea how to live in worship, surrender, and obedience to him. They didn't know what that was like. They had no idea how to live in peace, love, and harmony with one another. They had no idea how to erect a moral culture that had God at the center. They had no understanding of his moral boundaries. So, in an act of beautiful mercy, God gave them his law. It was meant as a gift of love and grace to those he had chosen, redeemed, and taken as his own.
You see, the law is a gift. The law has a unique ability to expose our sin. The law is a wonderful guide for our life, but the law has no ability to rescue us from us, no ability to make our hearts clean, no ability to make us acceptable in the sight of God, none! And so, that was never the purpose of the law; the law was given as a gift to those God had already placed his love on!
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
1. In the past, how have you typically viewed the Law of God? In what ways have you believed that the law would give you good favor with God?
2. Why is the history of when the law was given such a significant detail as we read about and observe the timeline in which God operated with his children? Why does mercy always come before obedience, and not the other way around, when it comes to God?
3. Knowing that God has chosen to place his love on you and accept you by his grace, how does that make you want to respond? Why will grace always be a better motivator for heartfelt obedience than persistent law-keeping itself?
4. In your own words, explain why God's giving of the law was actually a gift of grace. When a parent sets up boundaries for his or her child, why are the rules a form of gracious love? How can you begin to see God's law and boundary-giving as a form of his loving grace in your life?
Conversation Prompts to Use with Children
For Younger Children:
1. Why do you think parents set up rules for their kids? Why are rules so important? What do you think your life would be like if nobody ever gave you any rules?
2. Do you think that parents should have rules too? Why or why not? Without rules, what do you think the world would be like?
3. How do the rules in the Bible (God's Law) help us to see our need for Jesus?
For Older Children:
1. What do you think is the purpose behind rules in our house? What would our home be like without any rules?
2. Even though they can usually be seen as negative, why are rules a way for love to be shown from a parent to a child? How do you think God shows us love through things like the law (God's rules for his children) in the Old Testament?
3. When you look at the history of the Law given to God's children, why do you think it's so important that loving deliverance from slavery came before the giving of the Law?
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