The Sh’ma: Sin & Grace

The Sh’ma has a solemn tone. It is dominated by law. That should not surprise us. A few years earlier, God wrote The Ten Commandments to test the love of his people and to make their rebellious will align with his will.

But in verse three, at the heart of the Sh’ma’s message, a full-throated burst of good-news gospel wraps itself around God’s relationship with his stubborn people.

In spite of their disobedience over the last 40 years, God reveals that he is giving them the land flowing with milk and honey anyway. All of God’s promises are rooted in his goodness and love. A promise made by God cannot be broken. It must be kept; he must keep it. 

There are inferences, too. Moses—the man God chose to deliver his people from Egyptian slavery, the same individual whom God selected as the writer of five history books about his love for his people, the broken person God called to be the shepherd of his flock—that leader was as much concerned about the welfare of the Israelites’ faith as he was concerned for their physical wellbeing. 

Are you hearing echoes of the Commission again? 

Moses and Jesus have a lot in common. Listen, as Jesus reveals his credentials: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). 

Now hear Moses seeking God’s divine authority when he asks God: “If the Israelites ask me who is sending me, what should I tell them” (Exodus 3:13-15)?

God responds by giving Moses his calling card: I am I AM—the God of full and free grace.

Moses and Jesus both had the Father’s authority to move forward with God’s eternal plan to save mankind. 

Soon after proclaiming the Sh’ma to the Israelites, Moses climbed to the top of a nearby mountain. His work was finished. God blessed him with a spectacular view of the Promised Land. But Moses came to the mountaintop with a purpose. He had come there to die; he had committed the sins of arrogance and pride, forgetting that God was God, and he was God’s servant. The Lord’s justice prevailed. Yet, Moses died with the knowledge that God promised that a messiah was coming to forgive his sins and he was still loved by God. 

Fifteen-hundred years later, God’s messiah, a baby named Jesus, came to fulfill that promise. As an adult, Jesus also climbed to the top of a mountain. He, too, had purpose in his stumbling walk up The Skull’s gentle slope. The sins he bore belonged to all of humankind—past, present, and future, though Jesus was himself not guilty of ever having committed a single sin. God’s plan was reaching its inevitable climax. The moment in history when God’s innocent Lamb would shed his own lifeblood to redeem sinful mankind had finally come.

GROUP DISCUSSION

• Why do you think God wrote his moral law (The Ten Commandments) for his people? 
• What hidden truth does the gospel reveal to God’s people? 
• How/Where do we learn about this hidden truth that saves people from everlasting destruction? 
  

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