Exodus 19 · a question people ask
Did Israel have to earn God's favor by obeying?
The chapter has a real "if": "if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession" (19:5). It also puts the rescue first: "I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself" (19:4). Deuteronomy gives the LORD's reason for choosing Israel: "because the LORD loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers" (Deuteronomy 7:8). Everyone agrees that God brought Israel out before he gave the covenant (19:4; 20:2), and that the New Testament calls Jesus "the mediator of a better covenant" (Hebrews 8:6). Christians describe how the Sinai covenant relates to grace in more than one way.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Obedience as the answer to grace
Those who hold this view read the "if" of 19:5 as the way a rescued people lives as God's own. The rescue came first (19:4), the commandments open with what God had already done (20:2), and God chose Israel because he loved them, not because they were many (Deuteronomy 7:7-8).
Exodus 19:4-5 · Exodus 20:2 · Deuteronomy 7:7-8
A covenant of law, beside the promise
Those who hold this view read Sinai as a different kind of covenant from the promise to Abraham. Paul says the law "came four hundred thirty years after" the promise, and "if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise" (Galatians 3:17-18); "The law is not of faith, but, ‘The man who does them will live by them’" (Galatians 3:12). Hebrews says, "if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second" (Hebrews 8:7).
Galatians 3:12 · Galatians 3:17-18 · Hebrews 8:7-9
The verses
“‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;”
““I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
“The LORD didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
“But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law.”