Good and Evil

Exodus 19.9-25

The passage noted above is confusing. God told Moses to set a boundary around Mount Sinai. There initially seems to me to be some confusion over whether God instructed Moses that the people could only come "up" or "up to" the mountain.

But, as the narrative unfolds, it would seem that the key mandate is that the people should not go "up" the mountain.

So, why is that so? Why couldn't the people come into God presence? Isn't God's presence a good thing?

Yes, God's presence is indeed a good thing, too good, in fact. One thing the Bible is very clear about, cover to cover, is that good and evil cannot, do not, and shall not mix.

God is good. There is NO evil in Him.

Man WAS, at one time, good (God actually said very good), however, a little incident in the Garden of Eden resulted in man's change of status from "good" to "evil." I am tempted to say man downgraded from "good" to "not so good" but to do so would imply that good could actually reside with a degree of evil. But, in agreement with the Bible, I will stay with man having fallen to the status of evil because good and evil have nothing to do with each other - by nature, they repel one another. 

This then, explains why the people of Israel could not come into God's presence - it would destroy them. So terrible the destruction would be that God told Moses to stone or shoot with arrows any offender, man or animal, who crossed the established boundaries! Imagine being stoned or shot with an arrow being a better fate than encountering God's holiness with an evil heart!

If Moses was a man, then, how could he come into God's presence and not be annihilated? Good question.

Perhaps we should go back and reflect on the life and calling of Moses to understand how he could come into God's presence. Perhaps something in the details of Moses' calling reveals a level of consecration allowing him, a fallen man, to come into the presence of Almighty God.

It started with Moses' being rescued as a baby by his mother putting him in a basket instead of just throwing him into the Nile River to drown. It continued then at the foot of Mount Sinai (where the story above would later occur). There, God called Moses.

Moses' calling started with God saying, "Do not come closer (to the burning bush)," and with God telling Moses' to remove his shoes because the ground was holy. So, why was Moses not destroyed by coming so close to God? I think we can conclude it was because he "removed his shoes" - he acknowledged God's holiness and submitted himself to God. 

We cannot underestimate the redeeming power of obedience. Moses evidently had enough obedience that he could at least have conversations with God without being consumed by God's holiness. And, this would explain why, at a later date, Moses only barely modified God's instructions to "speak" to a rock with his own rendition of striking it with his staff, and found out just how serious God was about obedience.

The point is, good and evil cannot co-exist. To be God, and to desire fellowship with His fallen creation, would be a difficult position to be in. Knowing His presence would annihilate His fallen man, God eventually formulated a set of laws by which man could at least "get a little closer" to Him and prevent man's total destruction until a remedy for his lawlessness could manifest.

How deep shall we go with this? Trust me, I am probably at the edge of what I personally understand! However, the more I meditate on these thoughts, the more I realize the magnitude of God's mercy and grace found in Jesus Christ Whose Advent "tore the veil" that separated God and man because of sin (evil). But we will never comprehend this magnitude unless we fully understand that good and evil cannot co-exist. As long as we think man is basically "good" we have missed the point altogether of how holy God is. And, that is a big miss!

Father, I know that in and of myself, there is nothing good in me. I understand that my heart is desperately wicked (by Your own description) and is beyond my comprehension how evil it is. However, I trust the work of Jesus on my behalf. I know my heart should not be trusted, but that Jesus must be trusted. I believe in Jesus and I believe that in constantly believing I am saved from the destruction my wicked heart has earned. I am grateful to You, my God, for Your Provision on my behalf!