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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO DISPLAY THE GLORY OF HIS GRACEEXODUS 31:18-32:14INTRODUCTION The more I live with myself and talk with others the more convinced I have become that we have a hard time understanding the grace of God. I know that most who have had even a small amount of instruction in the gospel of Jesus can define the word. Most can explain that grace is that characteristic of God that moves him to save us not because of good things we have done but rather he saves us in spite of evil things we have done. He saves us by his free, unearned and undeserved favor, not as a reward for anything we have done. Yet, I find that we regularly live and talk as though God’s favor comes to us because of what we have done or because of who we are and, conversely, that God withholds his favor from us because of what we have done or not done. Our lack of understanding of grace causes us to vacillate back and forth between overly optimistic self-righteousness and overly pessimistic despair. We display our lack of understanding of grace in our criticism and lack of acceptance of others. We talk as though we cannot comprehend how other people could possibly do the evil things they do. We say things like, “I’d never act like that.” “How could they do that, say that?” As if we, by our own native ability are able to do better than they. We display our lack of comprehension of God’s grace whenever we complain about the circumstances of our lives or demand that God be nice to us or demand to know why God has done this bad thing to us. On the other hand we reveal our ignorance of grace when we despair of God loving us or accepting us. We despair of making it to heaven and often harbor hard feelings towards God for making it so hard to please him. We live in a perpetual state of self-pity, which often turns to indifference or contempt towards God, thus showing we don’t “get” grace. It is because of human misunderstanding of grace that stories like the one recorded in our text today are in the Bible. This story not only helps us to understand grace but also shows us why it is that salvation has to be by grace. God records this story of Israel’s sin and his reaction to it so that we can see why “it is by grace that you have been saved…” MAIN POINT Salvation cannot be earned but has to be a free gift of God’s grace because…I. All humans are traitors (vv. 1-6) This story of Israel’s betrayal of God and of Moses, led by Aaron is shocking. It comes out of the blue and is totally unexpected in the story line. It has the same jarring effect as when parents find out their compliant child has been lying to them and is doing drugs or your best friend tells you he’s having an affair and is going to leave his wife or the police come and arrest your co-worker for soliciting children on the internet. Your jaw drops open and you exclaim, “I can’t believe it. How did this happen? Why did they do this?” There is no way to anticipate this event from what has happened prior to this. Sure, the people grumbled against Moses when they found bitter water at an oasis and they grumbled when they were running low on food and another time when they couldn’t find any water, but this is way different than grumbling about a lack of physical necessities. Things have been going so well. Moses is on the mountain of God receiving God's instructions for how God will live with Israel in the tabernacle by means of the ministry of the priests. God's plan to save Israel and make them his people and take them to the Promised Land has been going so well. God has shown up in cloud and lightning and thunder and earthquake and he spoke to them from out of the cloud the Ten Commandments. They heard God speak and lived to tell about it. Moses, Aaron, his two oldest sons and seventy of the elders saw the glory of God and ate a meal in his presence. Moses told those same men that he was going up the mountain for an unknown period of time but that he would return. Most importantly, three times since arriving at Mt. Sinai , the people as a whole have declared that they would obey everything that the Lord has commanded them to do. But now, just over a month after their third promise to obey God they come to Aaron and demand that he make them gods they can see who will go before them. While the cloud and fire of God’s presence hangs over the top of Mt. Sinai they demand that Aaron help them to break the first two commandments, which they promised to keep on three different occasions. We are not told why they are doing this other than that they are tired of waiting for Moses to return. They want to get the show on the road. Even though God has told them repeatedly that Moses is his appointed leader and they have agreed to his leadership, they refuse to wait for God’s timing and treat Moses as if he were a nobody. Their contemptuous description of Moses as that "fellow who brought us up from Egypt" reveals the strongest disdain for Moses and an incredible lack of appreciation for the fact that they were slaves less than six months ago. Whatever else is going on here it is clear that these people are unwilling to wait for God to act but are going to take matters into their own hands. Aaron, for his part, does nothing to dissuade these people. I know this is not a friendly crowd. They aren’t asking Aaron what he thinks about their plan. They are demanding, not asking. However, shouldn’t the man who has had the responsibility to speak God’s words to God’s people since Moses came out of the desert to Egypt and who saw the glory of God and ate a meal in his presence do something to try and stop these people from their perverse course? He offers no word of protest but immediately asks the people to tear off their gold earrings and to bring them to him. These gold earrings were part of the plunder from Egypt that God gave to them when they left. God gave them this gold to be used in the construction of the tabernacle but now Aaron uses it to make an idol in the shape of a young bull. The bull was a very common idol in both Egyptian and Canaanite false religions. The golden calf was simply a common way among the surrounding people of symbolizing various gods. As soon as Aaron finishes making the calf from the gold earrings the people cry out, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” What is very interesting at this point is the way in which Israel seeks to incorporate their new religion into their old religion. While they are clearly bent on worshipping “gods” not the one and only God and performing that worship by means of an idol, which is forbidden, yet they want to claim that they are worshipping the gods who are responsible for bringing them up out of Egypt. The betrayal is astonishing. They are declaring that multiple gods who want to be worshipped through the use of idols are the ones who brought them out of slavery. Yahweh, the God who inhabits the top of Mt. Sinai at the moment and who gave them the 10 Commandments and the other laws is not the one who is responsible but rather these foreign gods. Aaron recognizes that the people are not worshipping Yahweh but leaving the true God behind and embracing an entirely different religion. Therefore, he tries to salvage something of Yahweh’s fame by making an altar in front of the calf and declaring that the nation will celebrate a festival to Yahweh on the following day. The next morning they get up early and they sacrifice burnt offerings and fellowship offerings and then eat a “covenant” meal together and then rise up to “indulge in revelry.” The word that is translated “indulge in revelry” is often used to refer to sexual behavior. The ironies are overwhelming at this point. The people, led by Aaron, who soon will be consecrated as the chief priest, performed all the sacred acts of the worship that Yahweh requires, just like Moses did back in chapter 24, but they did it all to a calf of gold. They committed their sin in the name of Yahweh. They did what God forbid but they did it claiming to be serving and obeying God. Israel breaks her promises to worship God alone in the way that God commands and lavishes her affections and her honor and her attention on an idol that looks like a young bull. This is the highest form of betrayal. They are not slaves but free because of Yahweh. They have livestock to offer in sacrifice because of Yahweh. They have gold earrings to use to make the golden calf because of Yahweh. Everything they have and are is because of Yahweh and yet they use all that they have and are to worship false gods while claiming to worship Yahweh. Ultimately these people worshipped this bull calf for the same reason that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. They wanted to be in control, they did not want to be controlled by God. R. C. Sproul comments: "The cow gave no law and demanded no obedience. It had no wrath or justice or holiness to be feared. It was deaf, dumb and impotent. But at least it could not intrude on their fun and call them to judgment. This was a religion designed by men, practiced by men, but ultimately useless to men." All humans, like these Israelites, want a god who will care about what they care about, not a God who demands that we care about what he cares about. When God does not give us what we want, then we are eager to trade him in for a more compliant God. Yet, even though we are living contrary to what God demands we want to claim he is on our side. So we find spread throughout the world churches and individuals who embrace unbiblical doctrine and sinful practices yet claim to be Christian. Whether it is one of the liberal denominations claiming that the Triune God is in favor of homosexual marriage or the individual who divorces his wife and marries his lover because he just knows God wouldn’t want him to be unhappy, people everywhere live contrary to God’s ways and yet claim his favor. As Philip Ryken says, “People often do this. They use God’s name to endorse their agenda.” Like the story of Adam and Eve in the original fall into sin, this story as well indicts all of humanity. These people are simply doing what comes natural. They love a happy life on earth on their timetable and they want a god who will cooperate with what they want. Therefore, they make a religion that will give them what they want. As is the case throughout the Bible, from beginning to end, when God wants to display the glory and greatness of his grace he first exposes the perversity and greatness of human sin. No one will ever understand grace who has not first understood the wickedness and corruption of their own heart and life. Salvation cannot be earned but must be a free gift of God’s grace because…
II. God is perfect in his justice (vv. 7-10) While the people of Israel, led by Aaron, engage in their pagan worship, acting as though God does not see; up on the mountain, God does see and he reacts to what he sees. He informs Moses of what has happened while he has been away. God’s response to Israel’s betrayal is an expression of God’s perfect justice. He does not play favorites. He demands perfect obedience and threatens eternal punishment when people do not obey. Israel is completely oblivious to the threat that is now hanging over them. They are having a party in the name of Yahweh. They would be shocked to find out that God is displeased with them in any way. This is exactly the condition of the majority of human beings. We live our lives, worshipping our idols, acting as if God is smiling on us while not aware that we have kindled God’s just wrath by our false worship. The first thing that God does to express his displeasure is disown the people of Israel. He tells Moses they are his people whom he, Moses, brought up out of Egypt. Dozens of times prior to this God has said that Israel was his people, whom he brought up from Egypt. He called Israel his "firstborn son." However, just as Israel has disowned God by claiming that it was Moses who brought them up from Egypt, so he returns the favor, he disowns them. God tells Moses that Israel has "corrupted themselves." This is the same word that is used about 4 times in Genesis 6 to describe the corruption that was in the world during the days of Noah and for which God destroyed the earth by flood. This is not an accidental use of this word. Israel’s worshipping the golden calf is of the same sort of corruption that existed on the earth at the time of Noah and deserves the same kind of response from God. Just because they are the descendants of Abraham does not mean they can act like this and get away with it. God does not show partiality. If he judged the world for corrupting themselves in the days of Noah he will certainly judge these Israelites for doing the same. Next, God identifies what it is they have done. They have quickly turned away from God’s commands that he gave to them. They turned away by making the golden calf in violation of the second commandment, "you shall not make an idol or bow down to it." Then by declaring that this golden calf is representative of the gods who brought them out of Egypt, they have broken the first commandment, "you shall have no other gods before me." Just 40 days prior to this Moses had read all of God’s commands to them, not once but twice, including the first two commandments and they had promised to obey. Forty days before this they had the blood of the covenant sprinkled upon them. Forty days before this Aaron, his sons and seventy of the elders had seen the glory of God and shared a meal in his presence. Forty days is not a long time. Even I can remember what happened to me forty days ago. These are not ignorant people who have done this. They have been given every incentive to obey and every opportunity to do so. There is no reason for them to behave in this fashion. All they are being asked to do is wait until Moses returns and yet they turn to this gross and perverse false worship after barely a month has gone by. God’s conclusion is that these people are a stiff-necked people. This is the first time this phrase is used in the Bible to describe the nation Israel. It becomes one of the most common adjectives to describe them throughout their entire history. To be stiff necked is to be like the ox that refuses to bend his neck to submit to the yoke of the farmer. They have bowed their necks to the golden calf but they refuse to bend their neck in submission to the God who has given them everything. There is only one thing to do with people who refuse to submit to God, who refuse to do what he commands. He tells Moses that he is going to wipe out all of Israel and start over by making Moses into a great nation. God says he is going to perform perfect ethnic cleansing of a magnitude that not even the most rabid anti-Semite could imagine. Is God’s reaction to Israel’s traitorous behavior unjustified? Is it wrong for God to be so angry with Israel and to threaten such awful punishment? God's reaction is not wrong. He is perfectly just in responding in this way to Israel. We all know this. If strangers break into your house and murder your family while you are gone and they are caught, you know it is perfectly just and right for these criminals to be punished. It would be wrong for the judge to let them go free. How much more horrific is it when children who have been raised in a loving home and given every kindness by their parents rise up in the middle of the night and murder their parents? We all know that the offense of a crime is magnified when the one who is injured has been kind to the one who does the injury. Thus it is an infinitely high offense when humans, who owe everything to God, rise up in rebellion against him, disobeying his commands and despising him by worshipping gods of their own making. This is perfect justice. The condition of Israel in vv. 1-10 is, according to Paul in Romans 1:18-32, the condition of all humanity. All of us, rather than thanking and glorifying the God who has made us and the world we live in and who sustains our lives every day have exchanged his glory for the glory of creation. We trust and love and worship God's gifts, not God himself. Like Israel we all justly stand under his condemnation. Salvation cannot be earned but must be a free gift of God’s grace because…
III. God does everything for the sake of his own reputation (vv. 11-14) It would appear, just like when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, that God's plan to live with his people in a perfect creation has been thwarted. It would appear that this is the end of the line for God's aim to redeem a people for himself because, like with Adam and Eve, the people prefer a different god to the true God. How in the world can God reward people like this with his presence when they have made it so clear they despise him? What possible reason can God have for not destroying these people but rewarding them with his presence? The full answer to that question is the theme of chapters 32-34. However, the beginning of the answer, indeed, the foundation of the answer is to be found here in vv. 11-14. We find out two things about grace in these verses. First, we find out the ultimate reason that God does not kill these people but rewards them with his presence. Second, we also see the means through which God is gracious to them. I want to look at the means by which God is gracious first. The means of God's grace is the intercession of Moses, the God ordained and humanly accepted mediator between God and Israel. We can see, even in God's declaration of judgment that he wants Moses to intercede for Israel. Look at the numerous ways that God indicates his expectation that Moses will intercede. First, he commands Moses to go down to Israel because they have corrupted themselves. Why would God command Moses to go down if his plan was to simply wipe out Israel? What did he expect Moses to do? He expected Moses to act in his capacity of mediator. Second, even while he rejects Israel by calling them the people of Moses, yet it is indeed the case that Israel is Moses' people whom he has brought up from Egypt. Moses has been the leader and mediator for Israel since the burning bush. God fully expects Moses to do something about the situation because they are his people. Third and most importantly, God tells Moses to "leave him alone," so that he can destroy Israel. In other words, God tells Moses that the only way that his justice can be executed against Israel is for Moses, the mediator to get out of the way. God is telling Moses that he will be gracious to Israel if Moses will intercede on behalf of Israel. God will execute justice only if Moses doesn't pray. Finally, notice that last line of v. 10. God tells Moses that after he has wiped out Israel that he will make Moses into a great nation. That is exactly what God told Abraham back in Genesis 12 when he chose Abraham and promised that he would make him into a great nation. By using this language God is letting Moses know what line of argument to use with God. What we are witnessing in this "debate" between God and Moses is a picture of the intercession of the eternal Son of God become man, Jesus Christ. The connections between Moses and Jesus in this text are numerous. Consider just a few. Just as Israel rejects Moses so Israel rejected Jesus. Just as only the rejected Moses can save Israel, so only the rejected Jesus can save Israel. Just as Moses by his intercession stays God's wrath, so Jesus by his intercession gains God's favor for his people as Paul says in Romans 8:34, "Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died, more that, who was raised to life, is seated at God's right hand and is also interceding for us." We are observing one of the clearest OT "types" that points to the way the Son of God has intervened on behalf of his people to get a stay of execution. There is a sense in which God is giving us a glimpse at the conversation the Father and the Son had in eternity past when they determined together to save a people out of sinful humanity. Let's look at how Moses makes his case as to why God should not destroy Israel. Philip Ryken sets the stage so well when he writes about Moses' intercession: “Notice what Moses did not do. He did not try to minimize Israel’s sin. He did not offer any excuses. He did not try to defend his people on the basis of their own merits… He was not on the mountain to intercede for the innocent but for the guilty. Moses was a new kind of mediator, a man who asked God to save the ungodly… The people were guilty, why should God save them?” There are at least three reasons Moses gives to God for why he should not destroy but live with Israel as their God. First, Moses says to Yahweh, you should not destroy them because you have already saved them out of Egypt. You have begun the work of their redemption and you did not do it because of them but because of the freedom of your own choice. Therefore, you must finish what you began. You obviously have always planned on saving them by your own power and for your own reasons, so do not let their persistent rebellion turn you aside from your great eternal purpose which you have already begun to accomplish. Second, he tells God that if he wipes out Israel, his enemies will mock him. Egypt will be able to say he is a weak and impotent God who could not fulfill what he promised. In addition, Egypt will accuse him of being an evil and capricious God who merely saved Israel from their clutches so he could kill them himself. While Moses doesn't quote God's statement in Exodus 9:16 where God says to Pharaoh, "I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth," yet this is the ground of his argument. If you wipe out Israel, rather than your name being made great in the earth through Egypt, Egypt will mock and diminish your name in all the earth. Third, and probably most importantly, Moses reminds God that he made an unconditional promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make their descendants as numerous as the stars in the heaven and to give the land of Canaan to their descendants forever. The promise was made before the law was given and so God's commitment is not based upon their performance but on his gracious promise. While he, Moses, is a descendant of Abraham, he is representative of only one clan from one tribe of Abraham's descendants. Therefore, God would be breaking his promise that he made to these men if he were to wipe out Israel and make Moses into a great nation. The fact is there is only one reason that ties all of these reasons together. God should not wipe out Israel but come live with them as his people because any other course of action will bring dishonor to his name and this is the only course of action that will bring glory and honor to his name. In other words, Moses says that God should be gracious to Israel because he cares about his own reputation more than anything else. Moses knows that God does all that he does for the glory of his own name and so he tells God that the only course of action is the course of grace because only by grace will his glory be known and delighted in throughout the universe. To put it bluntly, God should love his people because he loves himself first. If God was not supreme in his own affections he would have no reason to save anyone. God is gracious to us because he delights to show off his faithfulness and kindness and mercy and power to save sinners in addition to delighting to show off his justice and his wrath. Listen to me. God does not have concern for you because of you but because of his concern for the glory of his own name. This is the ultimate reason for why God sent his Son into the world to suffer and to die. It is the reason the Son came into the world, to glorify the name of his Father. Salvation through Christ, by grace, as Paul says three times in Ephesians 1:3-14, is for the praise of his glory. What we need to always remember is that the work of Christ is motivated by God's love for God first and foremost. That means that if I am a Christian then I cannot take any credit for being a Christian. There is nothing in me that caused God to save me. It also means that if I am a Christian I do not need to fear the future because God's commitment to me is not based upon me and my performance but upon God's eternal commitment to the glory of his own name. He cannot let me fail because my failure would bring shame to his name. Therefore, God is determined to complete the work that he began in me. The doctrine of God's delight in God is the foundation of all my hope and happiness. God's commitment to the glory of his own name is the only safe ground upon which to stand because it is the reason that God has decided to be gracious to me through the intercession of Christ. If you are here this morning and you are not a Christian or perhaps you are not sure you are a Christian, you have in Moses' prayer the way to approach God. On what ground will you argue with God that he should not send you to hell? How should you pray to this God whom you have so deeply offended? We should ask God to be merciful to us, to forgive our sins for the sake of his own name, not for any other reason. God is under no obligation to forgive anyone and so if he is going to forgive you it will be because he has determined that by doing so, he will honor his own name. He delights to show forth his glory in being gracious to undeserving sinners. So join the psalmist who cries out to God in Psalm 25:8, "For the sake of your name, O Lord, forgive my iniquity, though it is great." Ask God to forgive you for the sake of his name, not because you are so worthy of being forgiven, because you are so sorry for what you have done, because you have prayed so many prayers or have gotten your life all straightened up. Salvation cannot be earned but must be a free gift of God’s grace because…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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