Now we are able to see that Mount Sinai, which is a synonym for law, and which at the giving of the law was really the embodiment of the awful majesty of the law, is also a type of God’s throne. Indeed, for the time being it was actually God’s throne. God was present upon it with all His holy angels.
Moreover, the awful terror of Sinai is only the terror of God’s throne in the heavens. John had a vision of the temple of God in heaven, and of the throne, with God seated in it; “and out of the throne proceeded lightning’s and thundering and voices.” “And the temple of God was opened in heaven; and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament; and there were lightning’s, and voices, and thundering, and an earthquake and great hail.” “A fire goeth before Him.”
The terror of God’s throne is the same terror that was at Sinai—the terror of the law. Yet that same throne is “the throne of grace,” to which we are exhorted to come with boldness. Even so “Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” on Sinai. Exodus 20.21. Not only Moses, but “Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel” went up into the mount; “and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of Israel He laid not His hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink.” Exodus 24.9-11. If it had not been so, then we should not have had a positive demonstration of the fact that we may indeed come with boldness to the throne of grace—that awful throne whence comes lightning’s and thundering and voices—and find mercy there. The law makes sin to abound, “but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” The cross was at Sinai, so that even there was God’s throne of grace.