We will never understand the unity of the Bible until we understand that the great covenant made with Israel at Mount Sinai was not a covenant of works. Here’s what I mean. There are many Bible teachers today who say that this covenant (Mosaic) pictures God as an employer, the covenant people as employees, the ten commandments as the job description, and the covenant blessings as the wages paid to those who earn them by obedience. In other words, they say, this is not a covenant based on God’s mercy but on Israel’s merit. The blessings promised are not freely given, they are earned.

The covenant made with Abraham, they say, and the new covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus are based on grace, and the blessings promised in those covenants are given freely to faith. But the covenant made on Mount Sinai is not based on grace, and its blessings were not to be received by faith. It is a covenant of works because God only pays its blessings to people who perform duties valuable enough to earn or merit God’s blessing.

Generation after generation of Bible believers have been trained to believe this view by the footnotes of the Scofield Reference Bible and now the Ryrie Study Bible. But I appeal to you to be your own careful, humble reader of the Scripture. Will this view stand up in Exodus 34? When God says in verse 10, “Behold, I make a covenant!” right after declaring himself to be a God who is merciful and who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, can we really believe that this covenant is not based on mercy? Can we really believe that the covenant has no merciful provision for forgiveness in it? And if it is based on mercy and does provide forgiveness, how can it be a covenant of works? If a person sins under this covenant and flees to God for mercy and finds forgiveness, how can we say the covenant is based on merit? Is it merit we offer to God when we plead his mercy and ask for forgiveness?

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