Rescued and Called
Restoring the Foundations · Article 5 of 14
God brought Israel out of Egypt before he gave them his commandments: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (Exodus 20:2). He called the people he had rescued to be his own, and he came to live among them: “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” (Exodus 25:8).
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), current public-domain edition, checked word for word. The WEB prints God’s name as Yahweh. Notes on the Hebrew and Greek are at the end.
A Fair Question
Many people carry a simple picture of the Bible: in the Old Testament, people tried to earn God’s favor by keeping rules; in the New Testament, God finally showed grace. On that picture, the Law of Moses was a ladder, and nobody could climb it.
So here is the question for this article: Was the Law a way to earn God’s favor?
Exodus answers by the order in which it tells its story. Before the commandments of Sinai, there is a rescue. Before the tabernacle, there is a God who wants to live with his people. Before the sacrifices, there is a God who gives the means of atonement himself. We will follow that order, and then face two New Testament texts that seem to say the opposite.
Part 1: Rescued First
God remembers
The last article ended with God telling Abram that his descendants would be afflicted in a land not theirs. Exodus opens with that word coming true. Israel is enslaved, and “their cry came up to God because of the bondage” (Exodus 2:23). Then:
God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the children of Israel, and God understood. (Exodus 2:24-25)
God acts because of his covenant with the fathers, not because Israel has proved worthy. Before the exodus he already calls them “my people” (Exodus 3:7) and says, “Israel is my son, my firstborn” (Exodus 4:22). Moses later says it plainly: “Yahweh didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people... but because Yahweh loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8).
At the bush, “Yahweh’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush” (Exodus 3:2), yet “God called to him out of the middle of the bush” (Exodus 3:4) and said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6). Then: “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”” (Exodus 3:14). Some read the angel as a second divine person, and I AM as a name Jesus later claims. Exodus itself says of the angel God sends, “my name is in him” (Exodus 23:21): a messenger who speaks in God’s name. That this angel is Yahweh’s messenger and not a second person of God is our conclusion. I AM and John 8:58 are weighed in The Hard Texts, Article 2, Before Abraham Was.
“I will redeem you”
I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments. I will take you to myself for a people. I will be your God (Exodus 6:6-7)
Every verb is God’s. When Moses brings them this word, they do not listen, “for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage” (Exodus 6:9). The rescue does not depend on their strength to receive it.
Before the last plague, God gives the Passover: “The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:13). God supplies the sign of protection. The Passover came with commands: Israel was to “strike the lintel and the two door posts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning” (Exodus 12:22). Hebrews says of Moses, “By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood” (Hebrews 11:28). That the command was the way God’s rescue was received, not its price, is our conclusion. Then God brings them through the sea, and they sing, “You, in your loving kindness, have led the people that you have redeemed.” (Exodus 15:13).
Rescue, then commandments
At Mount Sinai, God speaks through Moses:
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exodus 19:4-6)
When the Ten Commandments come, they begin not with a command but with a fact: “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” (Exodus 20:2). Only then: “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3).
The order is explicit. The commandments are spoken to people already rescued. That they were therefore not the price of the rescue is our conclusion from that order, and Moses teaches it that way. When a child asks what the commandments mean, the answer is a story: “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 6:21).
Part 2: Called to Be His People
The “if” is real
We should not soften what comes next. Exodus 19:5 says, “if you will indeed obey my voice.” The covenant calls for obedience, and the people promise it: “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” (Exodus 19:8). Moses even tells Israel to say, “It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all these commandments before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.” (Deuteronomy 6:25). That is one of the verses most often cited for reading the Law as righteousness by doing, and we read it at full strength.
Read it in its place, though. It ends the answer to the child, which began, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves,” and just before it the answer says, “Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive” (Deuteronomy 6:24). Our conclusion is that this is the righteousness of a rescued people living faithfully with their God, not a ladder up to him. That is our conclusion from the setting; Moses does not draw the contrast in words.
So Exodus holds both together. God chose Israel and brought them out before they had obeyed anything. And he called them to obey, with real blessings and real warnings attached (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). Scripture never uses the words conditional or unconditional for this covenant. That God’s choice stands while a generation’s enjoyment of its blessings depends on obedience is our conclusion, from texts that state both. After the curses of Leviticus 26 comes this: “when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them” (Leviticus 26:44).
A kingdom of priests
What were they rescued for? “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Within Israel, Aaron’s family served as priests, but here the whole nation receives a priestly calling. Moses says keeping God’s statutes will be their wisdom “in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’” (Deuteronomy 4:6). That their calling faced outward, showing the nations what their God was like, is our conclusion.
The Law itself was a gift: “What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:8). A psalmist says, “How I love your law! It is my meditation all day.” (Psalm 119:97). Paul, who wrote the hardest things about the Law, also wrote, “the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, righteous, and good” (Romans 7:12).
“A holy nation”: shared, not transferred
Peter uses Exodus’ own words for believers in Jesus: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). We checked this with a concordance of the WEB: in the 66 books, the phrase “holy nation” occurs in exactly two verses, Exodus 19:6 and 1 Peter 2:9. Peter’s “a people for God’s own possession” also echoes “my own possession from among all peoples” (Exodus 19:5) and “a people for his own possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6). So this is a canonical connection by distinctive shared wording, and Peter tells his readers, “In the past, you were not a people, but now are God’s people” (1 Peter 2:10).
Some take this, with Jesus’ warning to the chief priests and Pharisees, as proof that Israel’s calling has passed to the church: “God’s Kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to a nation producing its fruit.” (Matthew 21:43). That is the text most often cited for replacement, and it should be heard. But read what the texts say.
- Matthew names the “you”: “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke about them.” (Matthew 21:45). The warning is aimed at leaders who rejected him, not at Israel’s calling. Jesus promises his followers that they “will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28); Israel’s tribes are still there in his future.
- Peter applies Israel’s titles to his readers. He never says Israel has lost them.
- Paul answers the question directly, years after the cross: “I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be!” and “God didn’t reject his people, whom he foreknew.” (Romans 11:1-2). He still lists among the Israelites’ privileges “the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises” (Romans 9:4), and says of Israel, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:29).
So we state it plainly. Israel keeps its calling. That is not our inference; Romans 11:1-2 and 11:29 say it. Believers from the nations are brought in to share Israel’s titles and hope through the Messiah; they do not take Israel’s place. How exactly the nations share them is our conclusion, which the twelfth article examines more fully, but the boundary is in the text: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
Part 3: God Among His People
The tabernacle
Then comes the reason for everything else:
Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)
God says what the exodus was for: “They shall know that I am Yahweh their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them” (Exodus 29:46). Rescue was movement toward a God who wanted to live with his people. The Hebrew word for “dwell” shares its root with the word for “tabernacle” (Exodus 25:9).
But before the tabernacle is built, Israel breaks the covenant. They make a golden calf and say, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 32:8). God says, “I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you on the way” (Exodus 33:3). Moses pleads, “If your presence doesn’t go with me, don’t carry us up from here.” (Exodus 33:15). And God proclaims his name:
Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:6-7)
Moses asks again, “please let the Lord go among us, even though this is a stiff-necked people; pardon our iniquity and our sin” (Exodus 34:9). The tabernacle is built after that failure, not before it. When it is finished, “Yahweh’s glory filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34). A forgiven, stiff-necked people now has God in the middle of their camp. That is mercy, not wages.
A presence that is holy
God’s presence was a gift, and dangerous to treat lightly. Leviticus promises, “I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people.” (Leviticus 26:11-12), but that promise opens with “If you walk in my statutes” (Leviticus 26:3). A sanctuary did not protect a people who despised the God who lived in it.
The thread does not end at Sinai. John writes, “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14), and his word for “lived” is formed from the Greek word for a tent; hearing the tabernacle there is our conclusion. At the end of the Bible John hears, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people” (Revelation 21:3), which takes up the promise of Leviticus 26:11-12 and Ezekiel 37:27, “My tent also will be with them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” That link is our conclusion.
Part 4: Atonement God Gives
“I have given it to you”
A holy God living among an unclean people raises an obvious question: how can they survive his nearness? Leviticus answers with sacrifice, and its key verse puts the gift on God’s side:
For the life of the flesh is in the blood. I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life. (Leviticus 17:11)
Israel was not discovering something that forced God’s hand. God provided the means. Even the poorest were provided for: someone who could not afford two birds could bring flour, and “The priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin that he has sinned in any of these things, and he will be forgiven” (Leviticus 5:13). Whether “by reason of the life” means in exchange for the life is debated; the grammar allows it, and Scripture does not say which.
The Day of Atonement
Once a year the high priest made atonement for the Holy Place, “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins” (Leviticus 16:16). He laid both hands on a live goat and confessed over it “all the iniquities of the children of Israel,” and “The goat shall carry all their iniquities on himself to a solitary land” (Leviticus 16:21-22). God’s promise for the day was large:
for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you. You shall be clean from all your sins before Yahweh. (Leviticus 16:30)
Many readers see substitution here, the animal standing in the worshipper’s place. The text shows hands laid on the offering (Leviticus 1:4), and Aaron “shall put them on the head of the goat” (Leviticus 16:21). But no verse in Leviticus says in place of. That the animal dies in the worshipper’s place is our conclusion; Leviticus itself does not say in place of, and nothing here rests on it. What Leviticus states is that God gave the means, God forgave, and God remained among his people.
Part 5: Two Texts Answered
Text 1: “The law is not of faith”
Paul writes:
For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t continue in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them.” Now that no man is justified by the law before God is evident, for, “The righteous will live by faith.” The law is not of faith, but, “The man who does them will live by them.” (Galatians 3:10-12)
And in Romans: “For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, ‘The one who does them will live by them.’” (Romans 10:5). Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5, “which if a man does, he shall live in them,” and sets it against faith. He gives two reasons. The Law pronounces a curse on everyone who does not continue in “all things” written in it (Galatians 3:10). And it is a different principle: “The righteous will live by faith”, but “The law is not of faith” (Galatians 3:11-12).
Yet Moses said of the commandment, “this commandment which I command you today is not too hard for you or too distant” and “the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it” (Deuteronomy 30:11, 14). Did Paul contradict Moses? We will not pretend this is easy.
On Moses’ side, the commandment really could be done; he says so. He also says, “Yahweh has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.” (Deuteronomy 29:4), and he looks ahead to the day when “Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 30:6). Leviticus 18:5 itself follows “I am Yahweh your God” and “You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived” (Leviticus 18:2-3). It tells a rescued people how to live with the God who rescued them; the problem the Law exposed was the heart.
On Paul’s side, the question is different: on what basis is anyone counted righteous before God? His answer is that do and live is a different principle from “The righteous will live by faith”, and that “the Scripture imprisoned all things under sin” (Galatians 3:22); no law could “make alive” (Galatians 3:21). The Law “was weak through the flesh” (Romans 8:3), yet it is “holy” (Romans 7:12). “Christ is the fulfillment of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4), where the Greek word behind “fulfillment” can mean goal or end. When Paul quotes Deuteronomy 30:14, he stops before “that you may do it” and reads the near word as “the word of faith which we preach” (Romans 10:8). That is a canonical connection by quotation; Paul’s use does not change what Moses meant for Israel.
So how do they fit? Our conclusion: they answer different questions. Moses tells a rescued people that God’s commandment is near and doable for those who love him, while admitting their hearts needed God’s work. Paul tells people seeking to be counted righteous that doing the Law cannot be the ground of it, because the Law, though holy, gives no life to those who break it. Both look past Israel’s heart to God’s own act: the circumcised heart in Deuteronomy; in Paul, the Messiah’s redemption, “that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14). Paul adds, “Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.” (Romans 3:31). None of these texts says God rescued Israel in return for their obedience.
Text 2: “impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins”
Leviticus promised, “You shall be clean from all your sins before Yahweh” (Leviticus 16:30). Hebrews says:
But in those sacrifices there is a yearly reminder of sins. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. (Hebrews 10:3-4)
Both statements are explicit, and Hebrews 10:4 is the text most often cited for saying the old sacrifices did nothing real. Hebrews itself grants the old offerings an effect, “to the cleanness of the flesh” (Hebrews 9:13), while Leviticus 16:30 speaks of cleansing “from all your sins... before Yahweh,” which is more than the flesh. Hebrews itself gives the pieces that join them.
Here is what Hebrews says. The old gifts were “incapable, concerning the conscience, of making the worshiper perfect” (Hebrews 9:9); they were offered “year by year” (Hebrews 10:1); and “a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15), the Messiah’s own, as 9:14 shows. Our conclusion is that the forgiveness God promised in Leviticus was real, because God gave it, and that its final ground was the one offering to come: Jesus “offered one sacrifice for sins forever” (Hebrews 10:12). That is our conclusion from Hebrews 9:9-15; neither book states it in one sentence. Leviticus does not say the yearly day was Jesus’ once-for-all offering, and Hebrews does not say the yearly day was worthless.
Where We Stand
What Scripture says explicitly: God remembered his covenant and brought Israel out because he loved them and kept his oath (Exodus 2:24; Deuteronomy 7:7-8). The commandments begin with the rescue (Exodus 20:2). God called Israel to obey and to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5-6). He dwelt among them after the golden calf (Exodus 25:8; 40:34). He gave the blood for atonement and promised cleansing (Leviticus 17:11; 16:30). The Law is holy, yet no one is justified by it (Romans 7:12; Galatians 3:11). The blood of bulls cannot take away sins; Jesus offered one sacrifice (Hebrews 10:4, 12). God did not reject his people; his calling is irrevocable (Romans 11:1-2, 29).
Canonical connections: Peter applies “a holy nation” to believers; in the 66 books, the WEB uses the phrase only in Exodus 19:6 and 1 Peter 2:9. Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5, Deuteronomy 27:26, Habakkuk 2:4 and Deuteronomy 30:14 (Galatians 3:10-12; Romans 10:5-8).
Our conclusions: That the commandments were not the price of the rescue. That Deuteronomy 6:25 speaks of a rescued people’s righteousness. That God’s choice stands while a generation’s blessing depends on obedience. That Israel’s priestly calling faced the nations. How believers from the nations share Israel’s titles (Israel keeping its calling is stated, not inferred). That John 1:14 and Revelation 21:3 recall the tabernacle promise. That the animal died in the worshipper’s place (nothing here rests on it). That Moses and Paul answer different questions. That Levitical forgiveness rested finally on the Messiah’s offering.
What Scripture does not say: It does not say Israel earned the exodus. It does not call the Law evil. It does not say the sanctuary protected a disobedient people. It does not say the Day of Atonement was worthless. Neither Peter nor Jesus says Israel’s calling was taken away; Paul says it was not.
What This Means for Us
So, was the Law a way to earn God’s favor? No. God rescued Israel first, out of love and faithfulness to his promise, and then gave his Law to the people he had saved, so that they could live with him and show the nations who he is. He gave them a way to be forgiven, and he came to live among them.
It means grace comes first for us too: “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:8-10). Paul does not cite Exodus there, but we think the order is the same: rescue, then a life of obedience. And obedience matters; Israel’s story shows a people can receive great mercy and still turn to a golden calf. It means God wants to be near us: the tabernacle was “that I may dwell among them,” and the Bible ends with God’s dwelling with people.
And it means the way to God is through the offering he has provided. John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The apostles called people to repentance, faith in the risen Jesus, confession of him as Lord, baptism in his name, and obedience led by God’s Spirit. Peter said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38), and Paul writes of “as many as are led by the Spirit of God” (Romans 8:14). The hope is bodily: “he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies” (Romans 8:11).
For Study
Questions
- What does God do in Exodus 2-15 before he speaks the Ten Commandments?
- Why did God want a tabernacle (Exodus 25:8; 29:46), and why does it matter that it was built after the golden calf?
- Read Matthew 21:43-45, 1 Peter 2:9-10, and Romans 11:1-2, 29. Who is addressed in each, and what does each say about Israel?
- In a paragraph, answer this article’s question.
Verify it yourself
- Exodus 14-15: the crossing of the sea and the song of the redeemed.
- Leviticus 16: the Day of Atonement.
- Hebrews 9-10: the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the one offering.
Notes on the Text
Where the Hebrew or Greek bears on the argument (WEB verse numbers; in the Hebrew, Deuteronomy 29:4 is 29:3):
- Exodus 19:5: “if you will indeed obey my voice” is literally if hearing you will hear my voice.
- Leviticus 16:30: the Hebrew verb is active, he shall make atonement for you, with no subject named; 16:32 names the anointed priest as the one who makes atonement.
- Leviticus 17:11: “by reason of the life” can also be read in exchange for the life.
- Deuteronomy 27:26 (quoted by Paul): the Hebrew has no word for “all”; Paul’s quotation in Galatians 3:10 is fuller.
- Habakkuk 2:4 (quoted by Paul): the Hebrew has by his faith, a word that can also mean faithfulness.
- Matthew 21:43: “its fruit” is plural in the Greek, its fruits.
- Romans 10:4: “fulfillment” renders telos, goal or end.
- 1 Peter 2:9: the Greek has a people for possession, without a word for “God’s.”
Looking Ahead
Israel leaves Sinai with God in the middle of the camp and the land promised to Abraham ahead of them. The next article, The Land and the King, asks: Did God keep his promises to Israel and to David?
© 2026 Elvis Lucas, Open the Text. Original: https://openthetext.com/series/restoring-the-foundations/05-rescued-and-called/
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