The Present Tense Covenant: Text: Deuteronomy 5:1-5
Introduction: The Second Giving of the Law
The book of Deuteronomy is, as the name suggests, the second giving of the law. It is a series of sermons preached by Moses to the children of Israel on the plains of Moab, just before they were to enter the Promised Land. The generation that had come out of Egypt, the generation that had stood at the foot of Sinai and heard the voice of God, had perished in the wilderness. Their unbelief was a stench, and their carcasses were scattered over forty years of wandering. Now a new generation stands at the threshold, and Moses, their great leader, is about to be gathered to his people. Before he goes, he must charge this new generation with the same covenant obligations that their fathers had failed to keep.
But we must not think of this as a mere history lesson. This is not Moses saying, "Let me tell you a story about what happened to your dads." Deuteronomy is a covenant renewal document. A covenant is not a dusty contract filed away in a cabinet; it is a living, breathing relationship, a bond sealed in blood. And like any living relationship, it must be reaffirmed, renewed, and personally owned by each successive generation. This is why our worship services are structured as covenant renewals. We are not just remembering what God did for Abraham or Moses; we are meeting with that same God today.
This is the central challenge for every generation of God's people. It is not enough that your parents believed. It is not enough that you were baptized as an infant. It is not enough that you know the stories. The covenant is not with dead men. The covenant is with you, today. The question that Moses puts to Israel is the same question God puts to us: Will you own this covenant for yourself? Will you hear the voice of God for yourself? Or will you be content to live off the spiritual fumes of a previous generation, only to perish in your own wilderness?
This passage serves as the preamble to the second recitation of the Ten Commandments. Before Moses gives them the law, he must first establish the basis of that law. The law is not a set of arbitrary rules for a distant people; it is the terms of a personal, immediate, and terrifyingly glorious relationship with the living God.
The Text
Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and be careful to do them. Yahweh our God cut a covenant with us at Horeb. Yahweh did not cut this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. Yahweh spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire. I was standing between Yahweh and you at that time, to declare to you the word of Yahweh; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said,"
(Deuteronomy 5:1-5 LSB)
Summoned to Hear (v. 1)
We begin with the summons in verse 1:
"Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the judgments which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and be careful to do them." (Deuteronomy 5:1)
The first word is "Hear." This is the great command of Deuteronomy, the famous Shema: "Hear, O Israel" (Deut. 6:4). Biblical hearing is not the passive reception of sound waves. It is not letting the Word of God wash over you like elevator music. To hear, in the Hebrew sense, is to pay attention, to understand, to assent, and to obey. It is an active, engaged listening that results in doing. Notice the progression: hear, learn, and be careful to do. This is the biblical pattern of discipleship. You cannot do what you have not learned, and you cannot learn what you have not heard.
Our modern evangelical culture is often long on hearing and short on doing. We have an entire industry built around Christian conferences, books, and podcasts. We can become professional hearers, connoisseurs of sermons, collecting spiritual insights the way some people collect stamps. But Moses says the goal of hearing is doing. The Word of God is not given for our information, but for our transformation. It is not meant to make us smarter sinners, but to make us careful saints.
Moses is speaking "today." This is a crucial theme in Deuteronomy. The covenant is always a present-tense reality. Faith is not something your ancestors did for you. It is something you must do, today. "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts" (Psalm 95:8). The statutes and judgments are not museum pieces; they are the living words of the living God for the people who are living now.
A Covenant for the Living (v. 2-3)
Next, Moses grounds the law in the covenant relationship established at Horeb, which is another name for Mount Sinai.
"Yahweh our God cut a covenant with us at Horeb. Yahweh did not cut this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today." (Deuteronomy 5:2-3 LSB)
This is a startling statement. What does Moses mean that God did not make this covenant with their fathers? Did He not make a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Of course He did. And didn't He make this very covenant at Horeb with the previous generation, the parents of the people standing before Moses? Yes, He did. So is Moses contradicting himself?
Not at all. Moses is making a profound theological point about the nature of covenant. He is employing a powerful rhetorical device to shock his listeners into realizing their own personal responsibility. He is saying that the covenant at Horeb was not just some historical event that happened to their ancestors. It is a living reality that confronts them, right now, on the plains of Moab. He is collapsing the forty years of history and saying, "You are there. This covenant is with you."
In a literal sense, many of those present who were under twenty at the time of the Exodus were, in fact, physically present at Sinai. But Moses' point is deeper. He is saying that in the covenant, you are corporately and personally identified with those who stood at the mountain. The covenant transcends time. When we take the Lord's Supper, we "proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). We are not just remembering a past event; we are participating in its present reality. In the same way, Moses is telling this new generation, "Sinai is not your father's story. It is your story. The fire, the smoke, the thunder, the voice, it was all for you."
This demolishes any attempt at second-hand religion. God does not have grandchildren. He only has children. You cannot get into heaven on your father's coattails. The covenant demands your personal allegiance, your personal faith, your personal obedience. It is with "us, with all those of us alive here today."
Face to Face with Fire (v. 4)
Moses then describes the terrifying intimacy of God's revelation at the mountain.
"Yahweh spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire." (Deuteronomy 5:4 LSB)
What an astonishing phrase: "face to face." Now, we know that no man can see God's face and live (Exodus 33:20). This is a figure of speech, but it is a powerful one. It means that God's communication was direct, personal, and unmediated. He did not send an angel with a memo. He did not whisper in a dream. The Creator of the cosmos spoke directly to this rabble of slaves in audible words that shook the very foundations of the earth. He revealed Himself not in abstract propositions but in the midst of consuming fire.
The fire represents two things simultaneously: God's holiness and His presence. His holiness is terrifying to sinners. It is a consuming fire that purges all dross and impurity. His presence is glorious. It is the source of all light, life, and warmth. At Sinai, Israel saw both. They saw that their God was not a tame God, not a manageable idol, but a holy terror. And yet, this terrifying God desired to dwell with them and speak to them.
This is the paradox of true worship. We are drawn to the glorious presence of God, and at the same time, we are terrified by the consuming fire of His holiness. This is why the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It is not the cowering fear of a slave before a tyrant, but the awe-filled, trembling reverence of a creature before his infinitely holy and glorious Creator.
The Mediator in the Middle (v. 5)
The people's reaction to this direct, fiery revelation was predictable. They were terrified. And this terror necessitated the role of a mediator.
"I was standing between Yahweh and you at that time, to declare to you the word of Yahweh; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain." (Deuteronomy 5:5 LSB)
The people saw the fire and heard the voice, and they said to Moses, "You go speak with God, and then come tell us what He said. If we hear His voice directly anymore, we will die" (cf. Deut. 5:25-27). Their fear was appropriate. It was a sane reaction to the presence of absolute holiness. Sinful man cannot stand in the presence of a holy God without a mediator.
And so Moses stood "between." He stood in the gap. He went up the mountain into the fire on their behalf, received the Word of God, and brought it back down to them. He was their representative, their go-between. In this, Moses was a magnificent type of the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the mediator of a new and better covenant (Hebrews 8:6).
Moses, a sinful man, could only temporarily stand in the gap. But Jesus, the God-man, is the perfect and eternal mediator. He is the one who came down from the Father, full of grace and truth, and declared Him to us (John 1:14, 18). He is the one who went up the fiery mountain of Calvary, absorbed the full, consuming wrath of God's holiness against our sin, and stood in the gap for us. Because of what Christ has done, we can now "draw near with confidence to the throne of grace" (Hebrews 4:16). We do not need to shrink back in terror. The fire of God's holiness has been satisfied by the sacrifice of His Son. The voice that once thundered in judgment now speaks to us as beloved children.
Conclusion: Your Covenant Today
This preamble to the Ten Commandments sets the stage for everything that follows. The law is not given in a vacuum. It is given in the context of a personal, terrifying, glorious, and mediated covenant relationship.
The same is true for us. The moral law of God, summarized in the Ten Commandments, is not a ladder we climb to try and earn God's favor. That is the way of death. Rather, it is the way we live in response to the covenant God has already made with us in Christ. God did not give the law to the Israelites in Egypt to show them how to get out. He brought them out of Egypt by grace, and then He gave them the law at Sinai to show them how to live as His redeemed people.
In the same way, God does not give us His law to save us. He saves us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, our mediator, who stood in the fire for us. And then He gives us His law to show us how to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him. He writes it not on tablets of stone, but on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).
The question for you is the same one Moses put to Israel. Do you hear this word "today"? Is this covenant something that happened to your parents, or is it a living reality for you? Have you owned it? Have you understood that God speaks "face to face," that His claims are personal and direct? And have you, in holy fear, fled to the only Mediator who can stand in the gap between your sin and the consuming fire of God's holiness? Do not stand at a distance. Through Christ, you are invited to draw near. Hear His Word, learn it, and by His grace, be careful to do it.