Sinai - out of bondage, or in?
By Jeff Ward
Bondage. It’s hard to imagine a situation in which that word would be anything but dreaded, right? The word itself invokes in us a visceral response similar to words like hunger or loneliness or helplessness. It’s not something desirable. It’s something to be avoided.
In Exodus 20:2, we find that very word in the first of the “Ten Commandments”:
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
This is that same commandment Jesus acknowledged greatest in Matthew 22:36-38.
We should love our God. Why? Because he RESCUED US from that dreadful thing called bondage.
Unfortunately, one of the central themes in modern Christianity includes the highly offensive claim that Yehovah brought his people into the middle of the desert to Mt. Sinai so he could put them IN BONDAGE under the Law. That’s right. The virtue that our God projects as the reason we should love him is effectively negated in modern Christian doctrine.
Christianity didn’t make this up. They get it from the “apostle Paul”, by esteeming his words as greater or more relevant than God’s words.
Let’s review for a moment the way David esteemed the laws of God:
- Is full of wondrous things - Psalm 119:18
- Added a framework of blessing to a person’s life - Psalm 119:9-17
- Called them “a delight and counsellors” - Psalm 119:24
- Leads to LIBERTY - Psalm 119:44-45
Does Paul agree? NO! In Romans 8:2, he slanders the laws given at Sinai calling them “the law of sin and death”. He follows up in Romans 8:15 referring to it as the “spirit of bondage to fear”. And no surprise, Paul’s “my gospel” is better. (Romans 2:11-16)
But it gets worse. As if Paul is targeting the first commandment directly, he makes it abundantly clear he links God’s gift at Sinai to bondage. In Galatians 4:21-31, Paul fallaciously supposes the descendants of Hagar were at Sinai, and the descendents of Isaac were not. Can you imagine that? This is a blatant reversal of the truth. This becomes his so-called “allegory” to “prove” the results of Sinai was “bondage”.
This is but tip of the iceburg. The contempt Paul has for the “lamp unto my feet and light unto my path” are never-ending as may come to light in other questions. For now…..