Both the Old Testament and the New assert an inflexible sequence concerning grace and law; grace precedes law.13 Two examples of Old Testament texts where this unchanging sequence is most apparent are Exodus 20:2-3 and Deuteronomy 11:7-8.14 In both passages, the gracious, redeeming work of Yahweh is rehearsed before law is pronounced, and especially in the latter passage, the grace of God appears as an explicit impetus for law-keeping. In the New Testament, both the letter to the Ephesians and the sequence presented in Colossians 1-2 suffice as examples of said sequence. The first three chapters of Ephesians recall the redemptive work of God in Christ, and only when this remembrance has been afforded is one given words of command, in chapters 4-6.
Likewise, Colossians 1:1-2:5 is a lengthy indicative section lacking a single imperative (command). Not until Colossians 2:6 does one find the first imperative of the letter.
Grace precedes law, and the impulse for law-keeping is the experience of grace.
This outlined pattern is epitomized in Exodus 19:4-6. God’s grace (v. 4) is celebrated before the call is given to obey God’s law (v. 5). Graeme Goldsworthy well expresses the import of the sequence: “The law is given to those who have already
11So Kaiser, Exodus, 472.
12Bruckner, Exodus, 172, explains that Exod 19:4 contains a “description of God’s grace in three stages.”
13The phrase “priority of grace” in this section, used in connection with Exod 19:4, has been borrowed from Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1991), 142.
14A similar pattern may be detected in Deut 4:37-40.
experienced the grace of God in salvation, and it is not the basis upon which they will be saved.”15
Exodus 19:4 is a recital of God’s gracious salvation: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Three stages of grace are recounted. First, Yahweh “did” something “to the Egyptians.” Probably the phrase “what I did to the Egyptians” means “how I devastated the Egyptians by plagues and water.”16 Israel had been helpless, imprisoned in the cruel fist of Egypt, and Yahweh had decimated the Egyptians on Israel’s behalf: grace.
The second stage of grace for Israel is summarized in the phrase: “how I bore you on eagles’ wings.” Following his victory over the Egyptians, God “bore” or “carried”
the people as they traveled through the wilderness on their way to the mountain. Pointing to Isaiah 46:1, Victor Hamilton opines, “Either God/god(s) carry the people, or else the people have to carry their god(s).”17 Yahweh rightly credits himself with carrying Israel safely through the wilderness, like a mother eagle who watches over her fledglings.18 The
15Goldsworthy, According to Plan, 142. In a similar vein, Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission, ed. Jonathan Lunde (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 2010), 117, notes that in Exodus “we have 18 chapters of salvation before we get a single chapter of law. Law is the response to grace, not the means of earning it.”
16Stuart, Exodus, 422, explains that the initial words of Exod 19:4 “encapsulate the entire story of the humiliation of Pharaoh and Egypt and the Egyptians through the plagues.”
17Hamilton, Exodus, 302.
18The Hebrew word that is translated “eagle” in Exod 19:4 is ר ֶשׁ ֶנ. Milton C. Fisher, “ר ֶשׁ ֶנ,” in Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody, 1980), 607, notes that each of the twenty-six occurrences of ר ֶשׁ ֶנ in the Hebrew Bible (plus the two Aramaic occurrences in Daniel) are translated in the King James Version as “eagle.” However, both Kaiser, Exodus, 472, and R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary, The Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 2 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 144, conclude that the bird in view in Exod 19:4 is probably the “Palestinian vulture.” According to Eric Hosking and David Hosking, Eric Hosking’s Birds of Prey of the World (London: Pelham, 1987), 108, 112, old world vultures, with wingspans between 6.5 and 9.75 feet, may have had “eagle-like ancestors,” and similarities between old world vultures and fish eagles have been noted. Certainly the ר ֶשׁ ֶנ of Exod 19:4 is not a bald eagle, since such birds never existed in the ancient Near East. As one reads Exod 19:4, probably it is best to think that God is comparing himself to an old world vulture with eagle-like qualities.
correspondence suggested in this verse, between Yahweh and a large bird of prey, is not exceptional in the Hebrew Bible. Psalms 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 63:7; and 91:4 each speak of the “wings” of God providing protection for his people, and Deuteronomy 32:11 is even more explicit: Yahweh is “like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions.” Like a powerful mother eagle who tenderly helps her hatchlings learn to fly, Yahweh had guided his children through the wilderness after freeing them from Egypt19: grace.
The third stage of grace for Israel is described in the phrase “brought you to myself.” Yahweh might have said: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and freed you from your slavery,” but that is not what Exodus 19:4 records. Rather, the defeat of Egypt and safe passage through the wilderness had been orchestrated by Yahweh in order that the people might be brought close to Yahweh himself.20 One might say that the redemption at the Red Sea and the provision of manna in the wilderness had been means toward a greater good, which was covenantal relationship with Yahweh; a bringing of the people to himself at Mount Sinai. The comment of W. Ross Blackburn is apt: “While Israel’s physical destination remains the land of Canaan, their ultimate destination is the Lord himself.”21 Fellowship with Yahweh was Yahweh’s purpose in extracting Israel from Egypt and sustaining Israel in their journey toward the mountain. Exodus 29:46 affirms such a perspective. Yahweh explains that the reason Israel was brought out of Egypt was not ultimately or simply for their own freedom, but rather “that I might dwell among them.”
19See Fretheim, Exodus, 210; and MacKay, Exodus, 326.
20Fretheim, “Because the Whole Earth Is Mine,” 233, writes, “God’s intentions for Israel are not simply that the people will be delivered from all that has enslaved them, as important as that is. They are now to be ushered into the divine presence, and Yahweh ‘will be their God’ (cf. 6:7).”
21W. Ross Blackburn, The God Who Makes Himself Known: The Missionary Heart of the Book of Exodus, New Studies in Biblical Theology 28 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2012), 88-89.
In the New Testament, Jesus appointed twelve disciples “so that they might be with him”
(Mark 3:14), and even the death of Jesus—like the Red Sea deliverance—was the means by which his people might be “brought to God” (1 Pet 3:18). Intimacy and fellowship with God are God’s ultimate end game: grace.
Thus, the initial word of Yahweh at Mount Sinai is a threefold rehearsal of grace. Exodus 19:4 is a rich meditation on God’s gracious actions for Israel. However, as verse 4 gives way to verse 5, the receptors of grace will begin to hear their marching orders.22