What do I have to do to gain divine approval? This question lies at the heart of most of the world’s religions, and virtually all of them believe the answer is doing certain good things or leaving certain bad things undone.

How different is the situation in the book of Exodus. For what actions did the people take to gain their release from Egypt? Well, when Pharaoh’s army threatened to destroy them by the banks of the Red Sea, they accused Moses of trying to kill them, and reminded him that they would have preferred to remain as slaves in Egypt (14:12). Far from doing anything that brought about their own salvation, they resisted their deliverance every step of the way out of Egypt.

In contrast, what did God do? He sent devastating plagues on the Egyptians. He parted the Red Sea for them to walk through on dry ground (14:29). He showered bread from Heaven down on them (16:14). He gave them water to drink in the desert (17:6). Or, as God summarizes the situation in 19:4, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” The salvation of the people was solely due to God’s determined action, not anything they did or didn’t do.

That’s why God says in 19:5 that He was making a covenant with His people, for at the heart of a covenant is an unconditional promise. God told Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that they would have many descendants and that those descendants would return to the Promised Land. And by bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt, God was keeping His promises.

So, in 19:5 and 6, and really in all the Law of Moses that follows, God was telling the people, not how they were to earn their salvation by their obedience, but how they could respond to the grace He had already given them. They were to obey God’s voice and keep the stipulations of His covenant as a way of expressing their gratitude for a deliverance they had already received.

Now, to be sure, obedience to the rules of God’s covenant would indeed lead to even greater blessings – the joy of being God’s treasured possession, the privilege of being a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (19:5-6). And it was certainly the case that the people’s failure to trust God caused them to wander forty extra years in the desert (Numbers 14). The fact is that either blessings or curses can flow from the covenant relationship.

But make no mistake – just as it wasn’t the people’s obedience that caused God to make a covenant with them, their disobedience couldn’t get them out of the covenant that God had made. For better or worse, they were God’s people because of God’s promise and because of God’s determined, sovereign grace.

Just so, by His determined, sovereign grace, God continues to bring all who trust in Christ out of bondage to sin and death. Doesn’t the One Who gave His Son for us deserve our loving trust and obedience in return?

Exodus 19:1-6 (NASB)

In the third month after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that very day they came into the wilderness of Sinai.
2 When they set out from Rephidim, they came to the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; and there Israel camped in front of the mountain.
3 And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel:
4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.
5 ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”