A LAW WITHOUT FEAR

The thunder and lightning, the cloud and the earthquake were daunting, but the commandments that God gave to the people when He appeared to them at the mountain were both daunting and comforting. The God who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt also wanted the best for them as a new nation. If they remembered their trembling at the appearance of God, if they remembered their redemption and lived by the laws He had given them, they would live in a society that had no use for fear. Their relationship with God would be different from that of the surrounding nations and their gods. These gods competed with each other and demanded elaborate idols, and their religious festivals, feasts, and rest days were often only for the powerful and wealthy. Taking a step back toward God’s original intention for His relationship with humanity, this was not to be a relationship in which the Israelite people would be perpetually afraid of their God. Similarly, their relationships with each other would also be restored and recalibrated every Sabbath with a new reminder of the equality and sufficiency of what God provided. This would mean that they did not need to lie and steal and kill to survive.

They would have no need to envy their neighbors’ well-being, and their most intimate relationships would be respected and protected—as God had intended. It was a seemingly simple pattern for living without fear. As Jesus would later summarize it: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40).