The Terrible Voice and the Appointed Go-Between Text: Deuteronomy 5:22-27
Introduction: The Fear We Have Lost
We live in a sentimental age. Our generation has domesticated God, house-trained Him, and taught Him to fetch. The modern god is a therapeutic deity, a celestial life-coach whose chief attributes are niceness and a sort of vague, affirming benevolence. He would never raise his voice. He would never frighten anyone. He is, in short, a god manufactured in our own effeminate image. And because this is the god of modern evangelicalism, our worship is frequently an exercise in mawkishness, a casual get-together with "the man upstairs."
But the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is not a tame lion. When He speaks, mountains quake and melt like wax. When He reveals even a sliver of His glory, prophets fall on their faces as dead men. And when He descended upon Mount Sinai to give His law, the people of Israel were undone. They were terrified, and rightly so. They discovered a foundational truth that our generation has gone to great lengths to forget: direct, unmediated contact with the unadulterated holiness of God is a terrifying, consuming, and lethal business for sinful creatures.
This passage is not simply a historical report of a scary light and sound show in the desert. It is a fundamental lesson on the nature of true worship. It teaches us about the terror of God's holiness and the absolute necessity of a mediator. The Israelites at the foot of Sinai learned something that day that we must learn again. They learned that you cannot approach a consuming fire casually. You cannot treat with the Holy One of Israel as though He were your buddy. They learned that day that they needed a go-between, someone who could stand in the fire on their behalf and bring back the words of life. Their terror was a healthy terror. Their fear was the beginning of wisdom. And their request for a mediator was the seed of the gospel planted deep in the soil of the old covenant.
What we have here is a record of Israel's appropriate response to the presence of God. They were terrified, they were humbled, and they begged for a mediator. This is the only sane response for sinners in the presence of a holy God. And in this, they show us the very heart of the gospel.
The Text
"These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the dense gloom, with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. Now it happened that when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said, ‘Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. So now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? As for you, go near and hear all that Yahweh our God says; then speak to us all that Yahweh our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’"
(Deuteronomy 5:22-27 LSB)
The Unrepeatable Proclamation (v. 22)
We begin with the summary of the event:
"These words Yahweh spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud and of the dense gloom, with a great voice, and He added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me." (Deuteronomy 5:22)
Moses is recounting the giving of the Ten Commandments, the "Ten Words." Notice the setting. God did not speak from a felt-board paradise with gentle, rolling hills. He spoke from fire, cloud, and dense gloom. This is the consistent biblical imagery for the raw, unveiled presence of God. It is glorious, but it is also terrifying. It is unapproachable light and, paradoxically, thick darkness. The voice was a "great voice," a voice that shook the very foundations of the mountain. This was not a conversational tone. This was the voice of the Creator of all things, and it carried the weight of its own authority.
And then we have a crucial phrase: "and He added no more." God spoke the Ten Words directly to the entire assembly, and then He stopped. This was a unique, unrepeatable event in the history of redemption. This was the foundation of the covenant, spoken directly by God to His people. Everything else, all the subsequent statutes and judgments, would be delivered through a mediator, through Moses. But the foundational moral law, the transcript of God's own character, was delivered to every man, woman, and child. No one could say they didn't hear it. No one could plead ignorance. God Himself made His basic requirements known to all, and the experience was overwhelming.
He then engraved these words on stone. This signifies permanence. This is not a temporary suggestion list. This is the fixed, unchanging moral standard of the universe. It is not subject to cultural revision or personal negotiation. The law of God is as permanent as the stone it was carved on, because it is a reflection of the character of the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
The Astonishing Survival (v. 23-24)
The reaction of the people was immediate and visceral.
"Now it happened that when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. And you said, ‘Behold, Yahweh our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.’" (Deuteronomy 5:23-24 LSB)
The leaders of the people came to Moses, not in rebellion, but in awe-struck terror. They correctly interpret what they have seen. They saw God's "glory and His greatness." They understood that this was not a natural phenomenon. This was a theophany, a manifestation of the living God. And their conclusion is one of sheer astonishment: "we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives."
This is a profound theological insight. The uniform assumption throughout the ancient world, and indeed throughout Scripture, is that for a sinful man to see God is to die. Jacob was astonished that he saw God face to face, "and yet my life has been delivered" (Gen. 32:30). Manoah was certain he and his wife would die because they had seen God (Judges 13:22). Isaiah, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, cried out, "Woe is me! For I am lost... for my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:5). The Israelites understood this principle. They knew that the gulf between God's perfect holiness and their own sinfulness was a lethal one. So their survival was a miracle. It was an act of sheer, unadulterated grace. They had stood in the presence of the consuming fire and had not been consumed. This was not because of their own righteousness, but because of God's covenant mercy.
The Wise Fear of Death (v. 25-26)
Their astonishment quickly turns to a very logical and healthy fear.
"So now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived?" (Genesis 5:25-26 LSB)
This is not the cringing fear of a slave before a tyrant. This is the intelligent fear of a man standing too close to a blast furnace. They are not questioning God's goodness; they are acknowledging His power and their own frailty. They say, "we have survived this encounter by grace, but let's not push our luck." They understood that prolonged, direct exposure to this level of holiness would be fatal. The fire would consume them.
This is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. Our culture has inverted this. We are told to fear man, to fear being on the wrong side of history, to fear being cancelled. But we are not to fear God. The result is that we are a nation of cowards, terrified of all the wrong things. The Israelites here model for us the proper orientation. Fear God, and you will not fear man. They were not afraid of the Egyptians anymore. They were afraid of God. This is a spiritual promotion. They recognized their creaturely status. They understood that "all flesh" cannot endure the direct presence of the living God. This is not a failure on their part; it is a correct assessment of reality. Sinful flesh and holy fire do not mix.
The Plea for a Mediator (v. 27)
And so, out of this healthy fear, comes the central request of the passage, a plea that echoes down through the entire Old Testament.
"As for you, go near and hear all that Yahweh our God says; then speak to us all that Yahweh our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’" (Deuteronomy 5:27 LSB)
Here it is. Here is the gospel in embryonic form. They are saying, "Moses, you go. You are the one appointed by God. You stand in the fire for us. You go into the thick darkness where God is. You hear His voice, and then you come back and tell us what He said. You be our mediator. You be our go-between." And notice their promise: "and we will hear and do it." Though they would later fail in this promise spectacularly and repeatedly, the desire itself was a right one. They understood that the word of God, even when it is a terrifying law, is life. They wanted the word, but they knew they could not receive it directly without being destroyed. They needed it to be mediated.
Moses was a type of Christ. He was the one who could go up the mountain into the presence of God and not be consumed, and who could bring the covenant down to the people. This entire event is a massive, flashing signpost pointing to the necessity of a greater mediator, a better Moses. The people's request here is the cry of every human heart that has ever truly glimpsed the holiness of God: "We need someone to stand in the gap for us!"
From Sinai to Zion
This scene at Sinai is the essential backdrop for understanding the glory of the new covenant. The writer to the Hebrews makes this contrast explicit. He says, "For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them... But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:18-19, 22).
The old covenant, represented by Sinai, was characterized by fire, fear, distance, and terror. It was designed to show us the holiness of God and our desperate need for a mediator. And it succeeded. The new covenant, represented by Zion, is where we come through that mediator. We do not come to the fire directly. We come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant (Heb. 12:24).
The Israelites begged for Moses to go into the fire for them. And God, in the fullness of time, answered that prayer far beyond what they could have asked or imagined. He sent not just a prophet, but His own Son. Jesus Christ did not just stand near the fire; He absorbed the full heat of the consuming fire of God's wrath against our sin on the cross. He went into the "dense gloom" of death and judgment on our behalf. He is our great high priest, our go-between, our Moses and more.
Because of Him, we can now draw near with confidence to the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16). But this does not mean we lose the fear of God. The writer to the Hebrews immediately follows his glorious description of Mount Zion by saying, "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).
Notice the paradox. We come with confidence, but we also come with reverence and godly fear. Why? Because the God we approach is still a consuming fire. The difference is not that God has changed. The difference is that we are now in Christ. We are clothed in His righteousness. We are shielded by His blood. We can approach the fire because our mediator has passed through the fire for us. Our worship, therefore, should be characterized by both intimate joy and profound awe. We have been brought near, but we must never forget that it is the blood of Jesus that allows us to stand in this place of grace. We have a mediator, a better Moses, who not only brings us the word from the fire, but who has brought us through the fire, and seated us with Himself in the heavenly places.