Editor's note: Dr. Matt Lynch is Dean of Studies and Old Testament Lecturer at Westminster Theological Centre in the UK (wtctheology.org.uk)

10 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day,because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. 13 They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long blast may they approach the mountain.”

The command to stone or shoot an animal that touches Mt. Sinai borders on the melodramatic (Exod 19:10-13). God had called his people to come close to Mt. Sinai, but then warns them (and their animals) not to get too close, lest they ‘touch the edge of it.’ If anyone touched the mountain, they were to be put to death via stoning or arrows. The fact that animals would receive the death penalty is odd. The whole scene is odd. God had just delivered his people from Egypt, and then he brings the beleaguered ex-slaves to his mountain for what? to frighten them?

The clue to this strange scene is found in the way that ‘mountain touching’ was to be enforced. Exodus 19:13 states that any who touched the mountain had to be ‘stoned or shot with arrows.’ Behind this strange and in many ways repulsive law lies a profound conception of divine presence. In the Old Testament, God’s holy presence was highly dangerous and highly contagious. As Exodus 19:20 states, ‘Yahweh descended down upon Mt. Sinai, to the top of the mountain.’ His physical presence on top of the mountain was so intense that contact with the bottom of the mountain was deadly. Unless authorized by Yahweh, touching the mountain was the ancient equivalent to making contact with sticky radioactive material that sat within a nuclear power plant; or perhaps more accurately, it was the equivalent of nuclear waste leaking into the drinking water of a neighbouring community. Uncontained holiness was a threat to the life of the community.

So, if the holiness of God is like the radioactive material in a nuclear power plant, that radioactive material is good for surrounding communities because it provides electricity. However, it is highly dangerous and requires careful management. Even though it serves a good purpose, it is not something that should be brought into schools so that kids can see, touch, taste, and feel its benefits first-hand. It is not something to treat lightly. Nuclear contamination needs to be absolutely contained.

Seen this way, stoning and shooting were not punishments. They were means of disaster prevention. They provided ways of downing a now-threatening person or animal without making human contact. It’s like using anti-ballistic missiles to shoot down a missile headed for a large city. God’s presence was so terrifyingly powerful, it would destroy the people if it escaped the bounds of Mt. Sinai.

Understandably, when confronted with this God, ‘All the people in the camp trembled’ (Exod 19:16). If they hadn’t already learned it in Egypt, Israel learned at Sinai that God was wholly other, utterly unapproachable, and beyond power.

Then this wholly other, utterly unapproachable, God-beyond-power makes two extraordinary announcements.

First, ‘I’m moving into your neighbourhood! Build me a house’ (Exod 25-30; 35-40; Lev 26:12). It may have been an impressive display of divine power at Sinai, but having the divine in your back yard was quite another matter. Boundaries needed to be erected around Yahweh’s house (the Tabernacle) so that the people didn’t ‘approach’ God and die. Mediating professionals (priests) had to facilitate the relationship so that the people didn’t misstep when near God’s presence. For instance, the High Priest had to change his clothes and wash before going back out among the people (Lev 16:23-24). He had been in the Holy of Holies and would put the people at risk if they ‘contracted’ God’s holiness. God’s presence had to be carefully guarded and managed so that it did not harm the people.

Second, God calls the people to ‘Be holy as I am holy’ (Lev 11:44-45).  In other words, that which most distinguishes God (his holiness) is what he wants Israel to embody. Against all human odds, God gives Israel a gift to make them holy. He gives Israel rituals by which they can consecrate themselves to God and reflect his character, joining him in his holiness. In sum, God helps Israel become holy so that he can be near them. That which is holy can at least approach God’s holy presence.

It is easy to treat the New Testament as a watershed in the history divine holiness. Whereas before God was unapproachable, in Jesus, God became approachable. Whereas before he was dangerous, threatening to ‘break out’ against any who encroached upon his territory (Exod 19:22-24), in Jesus, God ‘went out’ among those not in his territory.

Well, sort of.

For one thing, the OT/NT dichotomy posits a fairly radical division between the nature of divine presence in God the father and God the son. More precisely, while affirming that Jesus reveals God’s nature, this approach does little to affirm that Jesus reveals the God of Israel. 

But even more, the dichotomy misrepresents the powerfully present God-in-Jesus. To take one example, when the soldiers come to arrest Jesus in John 18, we read that a Roman ‘cohort,’ or tenth-part of a legion, along with some chief priests and Pharisees, came out to arrest Jesus. They were armed (18:2-3). In other words, one-tenth of a legion (roughly 200-600 soldiers) came to arrest Jesus, fully armed and expecting a riot.

But John let’s us in on a little secret about this soon-to-be-crucified Galilean preacher. John tells us that Jesus, ‘knowing all things that would happen to him’ asks whom they sought. When they say, ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ Jesus unveils his fuller identity. Ego eimi. ‘I am.’ This is no innocuous claim, as many translations suggest (translating ‘I am he’). This is an identification with the ‘I am’ of the Old Testament. The one who revealed himself to Moses at Mt. Sinai as ‘I am who I am’ (Exod 3:14), was present in Jesus. John calls this to our attention: ‘When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground’ (18:6). In other words, one-tenth of a legion of Roman soldiers were laid out at the mere mention of Jesus name. This is a divine theophany, a brief revelation of the power at work in Jesus’ that he willingly laid down on his journey toward the cross.

I recall here the quite legitimate question of a student: ‘If God is so dangerous and holy, how can Jesus live in my heart?’

To feel the weight of this question, we need to hear an additional extraordinary claim concerning God’s presence: According to the New Testament, God will come live among his people, unmediated and fully present, with all the dials turned up.Jesus would send the HolySpirit. So now we can reframe my student’s question: ‘If the Holy God is so dangerous, how can the Holy Spirit dwell among us?’

Here’s what I told her. God’s Holy Presence cannot dwell among us as we are. The message of the New Testament is not that God wants to be near us as long as we stay true to who we are. Instead, the New Testament claims that when God-in-Christ comes and dwells among us, ‘there is a New Creation. Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!’ (2 Cor 5:17). This leads to the final claim about divine presence. God remakes us in order to dwell among us and then calls us to partake in his holiness (1 Pet 1:15-16). He reconciles us to himself by effecting New Creation now. God’s Holy Presence is no less dangerous, powerful, or awe-inspiring that it was in the Old Testament, but he has chosen to transform us to be near us, making us a priestly people entrusted with the task priestly ministry.