Exodus 19:10–11

The meaning attached to this term is always decided by the setting in which it is found. Here it will mean the separation of the people — setting them apart to God on the ground of their promised obedience. It would involve outward separation from everything unsuited to the presence of a holy God. Everything, notice, now has to be done from their side. Moses was to sanctify them, and they were to wash their clothes. The moment they undertook to obey as the condition of blessing, they in fact accepted the responsibility of making themselves fit for God's presence.

It was always God's delight to have His people near Him, enjoying the precious fruits of His grace, rather than far off, reaping the bitter fruits of their works. This last state was simply the result of man's legal words, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." Until the fatal moment when they spoke those words, God had been speaking and acting toward Abraham's descendants in the same unqualified grace He had shown to Abraham himself. But when Israel undertook to do, it was necessary to put them thoroughly to the test. This was done by the law.

To prove what was in their hearts, to bring fully into view what was hiding there, to expose the corruption of their nature, and so to teach them their ruined and guilty condition… It is often like this in the experience of sinners. Awakened to some sense of their condition, they begin to try to improve themselves, to purify their own hearts, and to qualify themselves in this way for the favour of God. But they soon discover that the only effect of all their efforts is to bring their own sin and vileness to light.

In their natural condition they were not fit to meet a God of absolute holiness. Sanctifying is setting them apart from the evil natural to them. Their clothes, which stand for their habits, were dirty too. We also need washing from defiling habits.

They might wash their clothes as carefully as they liked. They might make them so clean that no human eye could see a stain. But there was a deeper question for their consciences, if only they had understood it. Could they cleanse themselves well enough to bear the inspection of a holy God? … Man cannot cleanse himself for God. This is the lesson of the whole of Scripture.

The third day is often significant and typical; and so here it seems to speak in figure of death. It was on the morning of the third day that the Lord came down on Mount Sinai, with all that goes with His awe-inspiring majesty… Every possible solemnity surrounded His steps. All the people in the camp trembled, despite the preparations they had gone through. If they had confidence in themselves before, it must now have been badly shaken, if not destroyed. If they were prepared to meet God, why should they fear?

This must have sounded striking to anyone who remembered the command given to Israel at Sinai: do not go up the mountain, do not even touch its edge, on pain of death (Ex. 19:12). For believers are now urged to draw near to God, into His very presence. Why this difference in divine directions? Men are no better. God is unchanged. But Christ has died for sinners. That is the difference.

Notice that everything now has to be done from their side. Moses was to sanctify them, and they were to wash their clothes. The moment they undertook to obey as the condition of blessing, they in reality accepted the responsibility of fitting themselves for God's presence. No doubt they gained in this way a kind of ceremonial qualification to meet with God. But God kept them at a distance, and that distance proved at once how short their efforts fell.

In other words, in their natural condition they were not fit to meet a God of absolute holiness. Sanctifying is setting them apart from the evil natural to them. Their clothes stood for their habits, and those clothes were defiled. We too need washing from defiling habits. On the third day God Himself would come down on Mount Sinai to reveal Himself in a certain way. That revelation was not in grace, however, as it is today in the person of Christ, "God manifest in flesh."

The people had to be sanctified to meet God, and sanctified in His own way. As God said when some came near to offer strange fire before Him, "Among those who are near Me I will be sanctified" (Lev. 10:3).

For the same reason that He gave them the law — to test what was in their hearts, to bring out fully what was hidden there, to expose the corruption of their nature, and so to teach them their ruined and guilty condition. To some extent they learned how useless their own efforts were. Despite all their "sanctifying" and "washing" they could not draw near to God, and His voice terrified them. It is often like this in the experience of sinners… the only way to cleanse his robes from every spot and stain is in the blood of the Lamb. Only that makes them white enough to satisfy even the requirements of God's holiness.

The third day is often significant and typical; and so here it would seem to speak in figure of death. So on the morning of the third day the Lord came down on Mount Sinai, with all the marks of His awesome and terrible majesty. There were thunders and lightnings. They expressed judicial power — the attitude God's holiness must take when He comes into contact with sinners.

Look at that. "Draw near to me," says God, "and you die." And that is why the apostle says it was the "ministration of death" (2 Cor. 3:7).

As they were, and as Sinai was, they could not help shrinking back from God. There God was in His majesty of judgment — not in the love that comes down, puts itself under the burden, and takes it away. That could not happen at Sinai. There it was a just God in the presence of sinners only, so He could do nothing but overawe them and fill everyone with terror and the dread of judgment. Boundaries had to be set around the mountain… "But you have come," says the Spirit, "to Mount Zion." That is the mountain of God's intervention in grace, as Sinai was of man's responsibility.