Here we find man not in the position of _a doer_, but of _a worshiper_; and this, too, at the close of Exodus xx. How plainly this teaches us that the atmosphere of Mount Sinai is not that which God would have the sinner breathing,--that it is not the proper meeting-place between God and man! "In all places where I record _My name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee_." How unlike the terrors of the fiery mount is that spot where Jehovah records _His name_, whither He "comes" to "bless" His worshiping people!
But further, God will meet the sinner at an altar without a hewn stone or a step--a place of worship which requires no human workmanship to erect, or human effort to approach. The former could only pollute, and the latter could only display human "nakedness." Admirable type of the meeting-place where God meets the sinner now, even the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ, where all the claims of law, of justice, and of conscience are perfectly answered! Man has, in every age and in every clime, been prone, in one way or another, to "lift up his tool" in the erection of his altar, or to approach thereto by steps of his own making; but the issue of all such attempts has been "pollution" and "nakedness." "We all do fade as a leaf, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Who will presume to approach God clad in a garment of "filthy rags"? or who will stand to worship with a revealed "nakedness"? What can be more preposterous than to think of approaching God in a way which necessarily involves either pollution or nakedness? And yet thus it is in every case in which human effort is put forth to open the sinner's way to God. Not only is there no need of such effort, but defilement and nakedness are stamped upon it. God has come down so very near to the sinner, even in the very depths of his ruin, that there is no need for his lifting up the tool of legality, or ascending the steps of self-righteousness,--yea, to do so, is but to expose his uncleanness and his nakedness.
Such are the principles with which the Holy Ghost closes this most remarkable section of inspiration. May they be indelibly written upon our hearts, that so we may more clearly and fully understand the essential difference between LAW and GRACE.