The God Who Is a Consuming Fire Text: Exodus 19:18-25
Introduction: The Therapeutic God of Modernity
We live in an age that has domesticated God. The modern god, the god of American therapeutic deism, is a safe god. He is a celestial grandfather, a cosmic therapist, a divine butler who exists to affirm our choices and validate our feelings. He is house-trained. He never raises his voice. He would never dream of offending anyone, least of all the delicate sensibilities of modern man, who believes himself to be the center of all things. This god is a projection of our own narcissistic desires, a deity created in our own image. And he is, consequently, a pathetic and useless idol.
The Scriptures, however, present us with a very different kind of God. The God of the Bible is not safe; He is terrifyingly good. He is not a tame lion; He is the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth, whose holiness is a devouring fire. To encounter this God is not to be affirmed in your sin but to be undone by His purity. It is not a cozy chat, but a ground-shaking, mountain-quaking theophany. Our text today is a cannon shot into the heart of our sentimental, flaccid spirituality. It is a necessary corrective, a bucket of ice water on a slumbering church that has forgotten what it means to fear the Lord.
At Mount Sinai, God is not revealing a new set of self-help principles. He is establishing His covenant with His redeemed people, and He does so in a way that is designed to permanently etch into their consciousness the absolute, unbridgeable gulf between the Creator and the creature. He is teaching them, and us, the grammar of holiness. And the first lesson is this: God is holy, and you are not. Until you learn that lesson down in your bones, you will never understand the gospel. You will never appreciate the desperate need for a mediator. You will never grasp the sheer grace of being invited into His presence, rather than being consumed by it.
This scene is not just a historical account of what happened to Israel thousands of years ago. It is a revelation of the character of the God with whom we still have to do. The fire, the smoke, the earthquake, the trumpet blast, these are not just special effects for a primitive people. They are a tangible display of the reality of God's being. And they force a question upon us that our generation has done everything in its power to avoid: How can sinful man stand in the presence of a holy God and live?
The Text
Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.
And the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder; then Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder.
And Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, lest they break through to Yahweh to see, and many of them perish.
Also let the priests who come near to Yahweh set themselves apart as holy, lest Yahweh break out against them.”
And Moses said to Yahweh, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain, and set it apart as holy.’ ”
Then Yahweh said to him, “Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to Yahweh, lest He break out against them.”
So Moses went down to the people and told them.
(Exodus 19:18-25 LSB)
The Terrifying Descent (v. 18-20)
We begin with the sensory overload of God's arrival:
"Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. And the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder; then Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. And Yahweh came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and Yahweh called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up." (Exodus 19:18-20)
This is a full-orbed assault on the senses. You see the smoke and fire. You feel the mountain shaking. You hear the deafening, ever-increasing blast of a trumpet that has no earthly source. This is a theophany, a manifestation of God's presence. And notice the elements: fire, smoke, earthquake. These are instruments of judgment and purification throughout Scripture. God is teaching His people that His presence is a dangerous thing. His holiness is not a benign attribute; it is an active, powerful, consuming reality.
The smoke is like that of a furnace, a place of intense, refining heat. The mountain itself, the very symbol of stability, trembles violently. This is what happens when the uncreated God makes contact with His creation. The creature cannot bear the direct weight of the Creator's glory. This is the ultimate Creator/creature distinction made visible and audible. God is God, and everything else is not. This is the fundamental truth that undergirds all reality, and when men forget it, they begin to think that they can saunter into God's presence on their own terms.
Amidst this terrifying display, two sounds are heard. First, a trumpet, growing louder and louder. This is the sound of a herald, announcing the arrival of the King. It is a summons to attention, a call to assemble before the sovereign. And then, a conversation. Moses speaks, and God answers him with thunder. The voice of God is not a gentle whisper here; it is the voice of ultimate power, a voice that shakes the foundations of the earth. Yet, in the midst of this cosmic upheaval, God is in communion with His chosen representative. This sets the stage for the absolute necessity of a mediator. The people cannot speak to the thunder. They need someone to go up the mountain for them.
Yahweh calls Moses to the top of the mountain, into the very heart of the fire and smoke. Moses went up. This is a staggering act of faith and courage. But it is also a picture of what Christ, our greater Moses, would do. He ascended the hill of Calvary, into the very furnace of God's wrath against sin, in order to stand in our place.
The Necessary Boundaries (v. 21-24)
God's first instruction to Moses is not a word of greeting, but a word of warning. He sends his mediator right back down the mountain to reinforce the boundaries.
"Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, lest they break through to Yahweh to see, and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to Yahweh set themselves apart as holy, lest Yahweh break out against them.” (Exodus 19:21-22 LSB)
The danger is not that the people will flee from God in terror, but that they will rush toward Him in foolish presumption. Their curiosity might overcome their fear. They might "break through to Yahweh to see." This reveals the sinful human heart's deep-seated desire to domesticate God, to reduce Him to a manageable spectacle. We want to see God, but on our terms. We want to treat Him like a tourist attraction. But God will not be trifled with. To approach Him on any terms other than His own is to invite death. "And many of them perish." God's holiness is a lethal force to sinful man.
Notice the double warning. It is not just for the common people, but also for the priests. "Also let the priests who come near to Yahweh set themselves apart as holy." Even those who were set apart for sacred service, those whose job it was to draw near, were in mortal danger. Proximity to God does not breed contempt, but it ought to breed a profound and holy fear. Leadership and office are no protection from the consuming fire of God's holiness. In fact, to whom much is given, much is required. Their consecration had to be constant, lest Yahweh "break out against them." This language is violent. It is the language of a dam bursting, of a caged lion breaking loose. God's holiness, when it comes into contact with sin, is explosive.
Moses' reply is telling. He thinks the warning is redundant. "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, 'Set bounds about the mountain, and set it apart as holy.'" Moses thinks the physical boundary is enough. He has a good, practical, administrative mindset. But God knows the human heart better than Moses does. God knows that our sinful presumption is far more powerful than our sense of self-preservation. God insists. "Go down." The warning must be repeated. The boundary is not just physical, but must be spiritual. It is a boundary between the holy and the common, between the Creator and the creature, between life and death.
God then clarifies the arrangement. "Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through." Only the designated mediators, Moses and Aaron, are permitted to ascend. This establishes the principle of representation. The people cannot approach God directly; they must come through their appointed head. This entire arrangement is a glorious type, a foreshadowing, of our approach to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Gospel at the Terrifying Mountain
So what are we to do with this scene? This is not our covenant. We are not standing at the foot of Sinai. The author to the Hebrews makes this gloriously clear. "For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and storm, and to the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further word be spoken to them... But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:18-22).
Sinai was the ministry of condemnation and death, designed to show us our sin and our desperate need for a savior. It was designed to terrify us, to show us that we cannot, by our own efforts, stand before a holy God. The law given at Sinai acts as a mirror, showing us our filth, and as a fence, keeping us away from the holy presence of God. It drives us to despair of our own righteousness. And that is a great grace.
But the terror of Sinai should make the grace of Zion all the more sweet. We do not come to a burning mountain, but to a bleeding Savior. We do not have Moses as our mediator, but Jesus, the mediator of a new and better covenant. Jesus is our great High Priest who did not just go up the mountain of smoke, but who passed through the heavens themselves (Hebrews 4:14). He did not just carry the blood of bulls and goats, but His own precious blood, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Because of Him, the boundary has been removed. The veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The way into the holiest of all has been thrown open.
Therefore, we can now "draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:22). But this does not mean we approach God with a casual, flippant, irreverent attitude. The author to the Hebrews draws the exact opposite conclusion. Because we have received an unshakeable kingdom, and because we now have access to this holy God through Christ, what should our response be? "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).
Do you see? The same God of Sinai is our God. The fire has not been extinguished. The difference is not that God has changed, but that we have been changed. In Christ, we are clothed in a righteousness that is not our own. We are fireproofed by the blood of the Lamb. And so we can draw near to the consuming fire, not to be destroyed, but to be warmed. We can approach the throne of holiness, not as a throne of judgment, but as a throne of grace. Our fear is no longer the craven terror of a condemned criminal, but the reverent, awesome, joyful fear of a beloved child standing before his glorious and holy Father. It is a fear that trembles with joy.