The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
Sinai has just shaken with fire, smoke and the voice of God speaking the ten commandments. A whole nation backs away in terror while one man walks toward the cloud. And God, who had come down to speak, stays hidden in the darkness while He speaks.
A people at a distance
The people's retreat was not a mistake. It was an honest reading of their own condition. One writer explains both their fear and the darkness:
Edward DennettThey might have learned from this that sinners cannot stand in the presence of God... Holiness and sin cannot exist together, and if they are brought into contact apart from atonement, there could be only one result. So these trembling children of Israel simply state the plain truth... The position is now clearly shown. The people are at a distance, both actually and morally. God was in the thick darkness, which shows that He had to remain concealed as long as He was on the ground of law.
Majesty on show, God concealed
God was not hiding because He had nothing to say. He spoke His law. What He withheld was Himself.
C. CrainGod came out from the unapproachable light to make His law known. He made known His demands on man — what He requires of him as a man standing on his own responsibility. But He did not reveal Himself. He surrounded Himself with "a thick cloud"... There was a display of majesty, power and authority. The storm and the shaking of the mountain were so great that the people trembled, and Moses himself was full of fear.
Another writer describes the same distance as a road closed in both directions:
H. Forbes WitherbyGod had withdrawn, as it were, a long way from man; the gracious closeness that marked His ways with His people in the days of the patriarchs was gone... He did not come out to man — and man could not go in to Him.
The one man who went in
Moses did not go in on his own merit. He went in holding a role, and that role pointed to someone else.
L. M. GrantWhile the people stood far off, Moses was privileged to draw near to God (v. 21). This is because he was the mediator, a picture of the Lord Jesus, who alone, on the ground of law, can stand before God. However, God desires others also to draw near to Him.
Love commanded by a God unseen
The law demanded love from man. But the One man was told to love had not shown His face. That gap is the weakness of the whole arrangement:
J. A. TrenchTake the law in its most positive demands. What a state of things it reveals, that God had to demand His creature's love! Yet the law had no power except to condemn. God was unrevealed, yet He was to be loved ["Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was"]. And no new nature was given that could love Him. Love was never produced by commanding it. If it were produced that way, what would it be worth?
What Moses brought back out of the cloud
The darkness was not empty. Inside it Moses received instructions about two altars, and each one said something about man.
An Outline of Sound WordsYet it is while Moses is in the thick darkness with God that he receives God's instruction about coming near to Him in worship. There is the altar of earth, which recognises what man is in his frailty. And there is the altar of stone, which shuts out man's work and leaves no room for man to be exalted.
Far off and drawing near
Two phrases from this scene — "far off" and "draw near" — mark the line between law and gospel.
C. H. MackintoshWe may search the whole legal system from end to end and never find those two precious words, "draw near." No, such words could never be heard from the top of Sinai. They could not be heard among the shadows of the law either. They could only be spoken at heaven's side of the empty tomb of Jesus... The words "far off" are as characteristic of the law as "draw near" are of the gospel.
The change is not only about access. It is also about how much of God we can know:
W. W. FeredayThese passages show us very clearly the contrast between knowing God as Lawgiver and knowing Him as "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Moses and Solomon may have had very close fellowship with the God of Israel. Even so, they did not know Him as the humblest believer has the right to know Him now. God was not yet fully revealed... All that God is has come out in the person and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Summary
- Darkness — God spoke His law from a cloud. He showed His majesty, but not Himself. On the ground of law He had to stay concealed.
- Distance — By standing far off, the people told the truth about themselves. Sin and holiness cannot meet apart from atonement.
- Mediator — Only Moses entered, and he did so as a picture of Christ, the one who can stand before God on that ground.
- Altar — From inside the darkness came the way to come near at all: an altar with man's work and man's exalting shut out.
- Light — Sinai said "far off." The gospel says "draw near." God is now fully revealed in the person and sacrifice of Jesus.