An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shall sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings …” and “If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve …” Exodus 20:24; 21:2 KJV
You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings…” and “If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; Exodus 20:24, 21:2 NASB
It is common and perhaps “normal” for us to separate law from grace. The writer of Hebrews would seem to give some justification for this in his contrast of Sinai and Mt. Zion in Hebrews 12. But a reading of the chapters in Exodus which concern the giving of the law would show that Christ and the cross were never absent from the mind of God.
Exodus 20 is the chapter in which God delivered to Moses His “ten words,” or what we call the ten commandments. Here is the basis and essence of the law. Everything which follows in the way of precepts and commandments flows from these basic commandments.
But notice the first three matters which immediately follow the giving of these commandments: an altar, a sacrifice, and a devoted servant. The cross was never far from the mind of God. We get a faint picture of what it meant to a father’s heart when we read of Abraham when he saw the place “afar off” (Gen 22:4).
The Altar
You cannot help but wonder what thoughts filled the mind of the Godhead when, on creation’s morn, the very place where the Lord Jesus would die was formed by the Word of God. There would be an alteration in the geography caused by the flood two millennia later, but the place was still there. And what emotion did it cause to rise in the heart of the Savior as, year by year as an obedient Jew, He went up to Jerusalem at the feasts, His eyes scanning the horizon and taking in Golgotha?
The Sacrifice
Burnt offerings and peace offerings are mentioned by God. Here were the sweet savour offerings which rose and brought delight to God. The sin and trespass offerings would follow in Leviticus, but here, when the law was being given, God was thinking of the One Who alone could fulfill the burnt and meal offering typology: to love the Lord His God with all His heart and His neighbour as Himself. God was already enjoying the truth that there would be One Man Who would be able to fulfill the Law in all its perfection.
The Servant
It is delightful to think that immediately upon issuing the ten commandments, God takes up the case of the devoted servant. The law made its demands upon men. But here is a servant who goes beyond the law due to his love. “I love my master, my wife, my children. I will not go out free” (Ex 21:5). Love not only fulfilled the law but exceeded it in its energy and results. The law could not demand more than six years of indentured service. But love would give its all.
The scene, the sacrifice, and the Servant were all before the mind and eye of God at Sinai. In truth, they were in His heart from a past eternity.
Leslie Jordan Sang about Heaven the Day before He Died Unexpectedly
Consider:
Israel had enforced slavery status in Egypt. Now, in the enjoyment of redemption, if circumstances led to a need to enslave themselves for six years, they had the option of freedom at the seventh. The master, who had once been a slave himself in Egypt, must now learn to show mercy and kindness to his own slaves. Redemption was to change his heart toward others.