Passage: Joshua 8:30-35
The Big Idea
Before conquering more land, God has Israel stop between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal to build an altar and hear the whole Law read, blessings and curses. Under the Old Covenant, life meant “do this and live; fail and be cursed.” No one could do it. But Jesus became the curse for us, so that we no longer stand between two mountains. We’re seated with Christ, fully blessed.
Living on the Edge
In the TV series Battlestar Galactica, humanity is running for its life. Every episode feels like standing between annihilation and survival. One wrong calculation, one bad jump, and the fleet is finished. Their faster-than-light jump drive is their only hope, and it has to work. Every time. Perfectly.
Do this and live. Fail and die.
That’s Israel in Joshua 8. They enter the promised land, and instead of charging forward, God stops them: go to the mountains, build an altar, read the Law, and stand between blessing and curse.
Obey perfectly, and blessing overtakes you. Miss even one command, and the curse overtakes you. No partial credit. No “mostly righteous.” All or nothing.
And here’s the problem: our “jump drive” is human obedience, and it’s already malfunctioning.
Remember the Relationship (Joshua 8:30-31)
Joshua builds an altar on Mount Ebal, just as Moses commanded in Deuteronomy 27-28: when you enter the land, go to these mountains, build an altar, sacrifice, and read the Law.
Instead of rushing off to take more land, God tells them to remember their relationship with Him. That relationship is called a covenant. Every relationship has terms. A marriage requires faithfulness. No commitment to the covenant means no relationship.
Israel was under the Old Covenant of Law: the Ten Commandments plus hundreds of other commands. That defined their relationship with God. We’re going to see how different ours is.
An altar of uncut stones
The altar had to be built of whole stones no iron tool had touched (Exodus 20:25).
The altar was where the relationship became real. God loved Israel and wanted a relationship with them, but they weren’t holy. So animals had to be sacrificed and blood poured out to cover their sin, over and over again.
Uncut stones meant access to God isn’t dressed up by human effort. Even under the Law, the way to God pointed beyond human achievement. You didn’t make the rock. You bring nothing but your sin that needs washing away.
We love to make everything fancy and impressive. Pagan altars were covered with elaborate carvings, like smoke and lasers at a concert. God wanted the sacrifice to be the only focus. Look at the lamb. Look at the blood. Let nothing distract.
Sacrifice and Celebration (Joshua 8:31)
They offered burnt offerings (for forgiveness) and peace offerings (for fellowship and celebration).
They pause before conquering to drink deeply of their relationship with God. Worship was their national identity. If they’d had a flag, it would have pictured a lamb being sacrificed, a symbol of the death their sins deserved, and of the forgiveness God provided.
Then they celebrated: we’re at peace with God! Worship is my life! Until I sin again…
The Law Read Aloud (Joshua 8:32-35)
Joshua writes a copy of the Law on the stones. Then all Israel stands on either side of the Ark, half in front of Mount Gerizim (blessing) and half in front of Mount Ebal (curse). And Joshua reads every word of the Law, blessings and curses, to everyone: men, women, children and foreigners.
He may have read the whole Torah. That could have taken many hours.
Living in the land under that covenant meant obeying all God’s commandments in order to be blessed (Deuteronomy 27:1). Not some. Not most. All.
The curses (Deuteronomy 27:15-26)
The Levites called out curses on anyone who made idols, dishonored parents, moved a neighbor’s boundary stone, misled the blind, perverted justice for the foreigner or orphan or widow, committed various sexual sins, attacked a neighbor secretly, or took a bribe to kill the innocent. And after each one, all the people said, “Amen!”
The last one sums it up: cursed is anyone who doesn’t keep all the words of this law.
The blessings (Deuteronomy 28:1-14)
If you fully obey, you’ll be blessed in the city and the country, in your children, crops and herds, in your basket and kneading bowl, coming in and going out. Enemies will flee seven ways. You’ll be the head and not the tail.
And then Deuteronomy 28 goes on to list an overwhelming number of curses for disobedience.
Makes sense, right?
Do good, get good. Do bad, get bad. That’s how the whole world seems to work. It’s called justice.
But God actually set this Old Covenant aside. Why? Because no one could keep it. And that kind of relationship wasn’t what God was really after. He always wanted to be our God and for us to be His people, and law-obedience kept getting in the way.
The New Covenant works by faith.
How This Points to Jesus
The Law was a tutor to bring us to Christ. It was added because of transgressions, until the promised Seed came. It led us to Christ so we could be justified by faith, and now that faith has come, we’re no longer under the tutor (Galatians 3:19, 24-25). Standing between blessing and curse was meant to drive us to grace.
Jesus became the curse for us. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us, since anyone hanged on a tree is cursed, so that the blessing of Abraham might come to us and we might receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14). Mount Ebal finds its resolution at the cross.
One sacrifice, not made by human hands. The altar of uncut stones pointed to a salvation we didn’t craft. We have been sanctified through the offering of Jesus’ body once for all, and by one offering He has perfected forever those being sanctified (Hebrews 10:10, 14).
Every blessing is already ours. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). And there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Nothing can put us back under the curse.
What This Means Today
- The Law is holy and good, but it can only diagnose, not heal. The cure is Jesus.
- You’re not standing between two mountains hoping to land on “blessing” this week. You’re seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6), fully blessed, fully forgiven, the record against you nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).
- God’s way with you is grace that teaches and empowers from the inside, not fear of curses from the outside. It’s grace that teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly (Titus 2:11-12). Not law. Grace.
Jesus said He didn’t come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it, and that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, we won’t enter the kingdom (Matthew 5:17-20). By faith, we receive that exceeding righteousness: the life of Jesus Himself.
Grace Takeaway
The fleet kept jumping, hoping to survive. Israel kept trying, hoping to be blessed. But Jesus didn’t jump to escape judgment. He jumped into it. And because He did, you don’t live between the mountains anymore. You’re seated with Christ.