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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO PURIFY A PEOPLE FOR HIMSELFEXODUS 32:15-29INTRODUCTION Do you want to change? Do you want to be a different person? The honest answer that most of would give to those questions is, "I want to change, sometimes, sort of." All of us will admit, at least theoretically, that we need to change. Sometimes we really feel the need to eat less, exercise more, not be so quick to judge others, talk to our wives more, stop yelling at the kids so much, etc. We know in our heads that God wants us to change. However, while we sometimes feel that we need to change, we obviously don't really feel the need to change, because we don’t. What we have in Exodus 32:15-29 is a perfect description of how God works to change his forgiven people. In the first 14 verses of chapter 32 we saw that all of Israel, by their worshipping of the golden calf has broken God’s law and deserves to suffer God’s just wrath. Yet, God, through the intercession of Moses has pardoned their sin and promised to treat them as if they have not broken his law for the sake of his own name. In other words, vv. 1-14 show us God’s justification of Israel through the work of Moses as a type of Christ. Now, in vv. 15-29 we are observing the process God, through Moses the mediator, uses to change his justified sinful people into a holy people. We are observing the process God engages in through Christ, by grace, whereby he transforms us. MAIN POINT The God who graciously forgives sinners also graciously changes sinners by…I. Confirming the bitterness and futility of sin (vv. 15-20) In 32:11-14 we have witnessed Moses successfully persuade God that he should not destroy Israel as they deserve but that he should be gracious to them for the glory of his own name. But now Moses turns from that conversation and heads down the mountain. He goes down the mountain carrying the two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them by God himself. The text really emphasizes that this law that Moses the mediator is carrying has come directly from God. God gave this law as his covenant or agreement with Israel. He promised to be their God and to dwell with them on the condition that they obeyed his law. However, right now, as Moses walks down the mountain with this law, it is obvious that his law cannot save them. They know the law says not to worship any God but Yahweh and to not worship with the use of idols, but this knowledge did not stop them. Rather, the law condemns them and exposes them to God’s just anger. That is all the law can do for you. It cannot save you. It can only condemn you as a lawbreaker. They are saved not because they have kept this law, for they have not, but because Moses, their appointed mediator, pled with God on their behalf. We are forgiven not because we obey the law, not because we change, but because Christ has interceded for us with God. On the way down the mountain Moses meets Joshua, his aide, who has been camped on the side of the mountain for the past 40 days and nights waiting for Moses. As they walk down the mountain they begin to hear a loud noise coming out of the camp of Israel. Joshua, who has not been told about what is going on down in the camp, mistakenly identifies the noise as the sound of a ferocious battle. Moses however, knows what is going on and identifies the noise not as the sounds of war but as the sound of singing. What Moses is hearing is the congregation of Israel singing a song of praise to the golden calf. He is hearing the sound of a worship service such as the nation Israel conducted on the shores of the Red Sea after God destroyed the Egyptian army some six months earlier when they sang a song of praise to Yahweh. Then when the camp comes into sight he sees that they are not only worshipping the calf in song but also with dancing, just like Miriam led the women in a worship dance at the Red Sea. The nation Israel is performing all the rituals of worship but they are performing these acts of worship to the idol in the name of Yahweh, not to Yahweh himself. This is the greatest danger in being religious people, that we assume that because we’re showing up in church, singing songs to Jesus and saying prayers in Jesus' name, that we are truly worshipping the true God. The most difficult people in the world to convince that they need to repent and trust in Christ are those who think they are already trusting in Christ because they are using Christian forms and lingo even though their idea of God and Jesus does not conform to biblical revelation. Moses, when he sees the dancing and singing in front of the calf, “burns with anger” and he throws the stone tablets down from the mountain and they shatter into a thousand pieces. Moses, by this act, is communicating, as God’s prophet, God’s fury against them for their worship of the golden calf. He is demonstrating by shattering the tablets, which contain the conditions of the covenant that they have broken the agreement God has made with them. By their false worship they have broken God’s whole law and forfeited their right to be called his people. The shattering of these tablets and then what follows is aimed to show Israel that right standing with God does not come about by obedience to God’s laws for they have not obeyed but have flagrantly disobeyed. What ought to happen as soon as those tablets are shattered is fire should come down from the top of Mt. Sinai and burn up the whole congregation of Israel. Moses and Joshua should be standing above a smoking plain with the charred corpses of Israel strewn in front of the mountain around their idol. But that is not what happens because God has listened to the mediator and for the glory of his own name he has forgiven these people and is going to treat them as if they are his treasured possession. Then Moses storms down into the camp, with the congregation parting before him and Joshua like the Red Sea parted for Israel. He goes straight to the golden calf and puts it in the fire to melt it into a blob of gold. Then he pounds this blob into a fine dust and throws it in the stream of water that runs down off from Mt. Sinai. He then makes the people of Israel, who have watched him dismantle the object of their affection, trust and worship, to drink the water contaminated by the gold dust that used to be the idol. What is going on here? We are not exactly sure what Moses putting the gold dust in the water and making Israel drink it is supposed to symbolize. It could point to the fact that just as the gold has become part of them, so their sin clings to them and is a part of them. It could point to the bitterness of sin by the bitter taste that the polluted water would have. It could point to the futility of sin because here they are drinking their idol down. The object about which they declared, “These are your gods, O Israel that brought you up out of the land of Egypt,” is now in their stomach and will soon be eliminated from their body with their excrement. Some powerful god you have there!! When we put all these things together: the anger of God as seen in Moses’ anger, the shattering of the tablets, the destruction of the idol and their drinking the tainted water—we see that God aims for them to feel how horrible their sin is. Their idol cannot save them and God has apparently abandoned them. They are a lost, hopeless and forlorn people. Their sin is both bitter and futile. It has gained them nothing and has only brought the bitterness of God’s rejection to them. Can’t you just picture the people of Israel standing around with their heads down, not daring to look at one another or at Moses as they feel the shame and guilt of their sin? They are like a bunch of teenagers partying at someone’s home without the parent’s permission and then the parents come home and walk into the middle of the party. God through Moses wants them to feel how horrendous their wicked act is. He wants his justified people who will not be condemned for their sins to yet know how serious their sin is. He wants us to say, with feeling, along with David in Psalm 51, “Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you are proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” The only way you will ever fight against your sin is when you know how much it displeases your Father and dishonors your Savior and grieves the gracious Holy Spirit. So God, by his Spirit and through his word and in various other ways seeks to impress upon us how offensive is our sin, even though he will never condemn us for our sins. One evening many years ago, while Jane and I were working with Campus Crusade for Christ, I was home alone with the children while Jane was gone to a women’s retreat. I had put the kids to bed and didn’t have anything else pressing to do and so sat down on the couch to do some reading. It was in the fall and I had been working long hours and had not had much time to myself for quite some time. I was flipping through a magazine when I was suddenly overcome with a deep sense of my own sinfulness. I had been a Christian for many years and knew that my sins were forgiven by the life and death of Christ. However, I was overwhelmed with a great sense of my hypocrisy. I spent all my time teaching the Bible and talking with others about God. I was regularly in prayer meetings talking with God in a group. Yet, I rarely read the Bible so that I could know God. I rarely prayed personally. I knew that many of the things I was telling others to do, I was not doing. I began to weep as my guilt weighed down upon me. I felt what David expresses in Psalm 32:4, “day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” I found myself pouring forth confession of my many sins as I felt his displeasure against my forgiven sins. I’ve had only a few experiences of that sort of intensity in my life but I do regularly find myself sad about my sin. There are too many places in the Bible where God expresses the need of believing, forgiven sinners to mourn over and lament their sins for us to act as though we should never feel bad about our sins. I am convinced that God wants all of his forgiven, justified people to regularly taste his displeasure with our sin and to feel the bitterness and futility of sin so that we will confess and flee and fight against sin. The same Bible that tells us to “Rejoice in the Lord, always,” also says, “Grieve, mourn and wail. Turn your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.” The God who graciously forgives sinners also graciously changes sinners by…
II. Confronting us personally with our sins (vv. 21-24) Moses deals first with the idol and through the shattered law and the polluted drink confronts the whole people of God with the perversity of their sin. But next he turns his attention to his older brother, Aaron. Moses does two things in his initial question to Aaron. First, Moses acknowledges that dealing with the people of Israel is no easy task. He begins his rebuke with a compassionate recognition of the difficult circumstances that Aaron was in. He recognizes that the people of Israel had to have engaged in some form of intimidation for Aaron to lead them in the worship of a golden calf. However, he also tells Aaron that this entire debacle was his fault. He, by his acquiescence to the will of the people, led them into this great sin. Moses tells Aaron that regardless of what pressure the people put upon him, he should have stood up to them. He ought to have sought to protect the people from themselves. He was the leader of God’s people and was responsible to serve the people’s best interest regardless of what it cost him, even if it meant he die. There is a sense of surprise in Moses’ question. He is expressing disbelief that Aaron would do such a thing. He is not surprised that Israel would propose such a thing, he is shocked by Aaron’s willingness to lead them in this false worship. Why is Moses expressing this shock? Turn back in your Bible a page or two and look at Exodus 28:1. Just days before Moses has discovered Aaron leading a pagan worship service God told him that he was going to choose Aaron and his sons out of all the Israelites to be his priests. There are three chapters describing what Aaron will wear and how he and his sons will be consecrated to the Lord and how Aaron will represent the people to Yahweh. God has promised that Aaron will be the most significant person in Israel. Only he will be able to enter the Most Holy Place. Only he will wear the breast piece and the linen ephod and the turban into the Lord’s presence. You can almost imagine Moses’ weeping when he asks Aaron this question. He has no idea what he has just done or how he has endangered his own life and the life of all Israel. Moses deeply feels how Aaron's sin has jeopardized God's whole program to dwell with Israel. What sort of response is Moses looking for in his asking of this question? Moses is looking for a full and open confession of sin from Aaron. He is looking for Aaron to say something like this, “You are right, I am wrong. I have sinned a great sin against Yahweh. I do not deserve to live. I feared the people, not God. I cared about my own reputation, not the Lord’s reputation. I was unwilling to trust you when you said you would return. Please forgive my sin and ask the Lord to forgive my sins also. I have endangered God’s people and dishonored the Lord himself. I have been a hypocrite of the worst kind because I told the people we were worshipping Yahweh when we were worshipping the calf.” That is what Aaron ought to have said. But what did he say? The first thing Aaron does is command his little brother to chill out, to not be so angry. It’s not as clear in the English but in Hebrew the first word out of Aaron’s mouth is a word of command to Moses. Don’t be angry. Philip Ryken says, “By telling his brother not to be angry, Aaron made it sound like Moses was the one who had the problem.” This is often how people who sin respond to those who are trying to help them overcome their sin. Often, the first act of the guilty is to blame the messenger, to accuse their accuser. The second thing that Aaron does is seek to shift the blame. He reminds Moses how evil these people are. They demanded that Aaron make gods to go before them and he had not choice but to comply. In other words, Aaron says, “The people made me do it.” If this sounds familiar, it should. This sounds just like Adam when confronted by God about eating the forbidden fruit. What was the first thing that Adam said when God confronted him? “The woman, whom you gave to me, she picked the fruit, gave some to me and I ate.” This is what sinners, from the very beginning have always done when confronted with their sin. I don’t know what your house is like but in my house, we hear this sort of thing all the time. I often ask my children the same question Moses did to Aaron, why did you commit that sin? Like Aaron, my children always have an answer as to why they did it and the answer is rarely a full and free confession. The answer usually is about a sibling and not about them. "She took the last cookie so of course I yelled at her." But I also notice that when my wife or children point out some fault or sinful attitude I have and ask me why I’m acting like this or saying that, I usually have an explanation for my sin that does not involve me. Like Aaron and like Adam and like everyone else in my house I tend to leave myself out of the stories I tell that explain my behavior. If there is one sentence I have repeated in my house more than any other it is this one: “Just because someone else does evil to you does not give you the right to do evil to them.” It doesn’t matter what others do, I can never excuse my sin by the sins of others. I am always responsible for what I do. No one can do anything to me that requires that I sin as a result. No one ever made me mad. I get mad because I want to get mad. This doesn’t mean that other people don’t sin against me. It simply means that I can never excuse my sin by the sins of others. Notice how in v. 23 Aaron exactly quotes what the people said to him but then in v. 24 he says basically nothing about what he did. The only thing he admits to doing is telling the people to take off their gold ornaments. He acts like he made vague suggestion and they brought all the gold to him. Then he says that he threw the gold in the fire and out came the golden calf. What kind of lame story is that? He leaves himself entirely out of the story of the golden calf and takes no responsibility for what happened. You can clearly see how he has altered the story when you look back at vv. 2-6. He commanded them to take off the gold and give it to him. Then he melted it down and formed a golden calf and smoothed it out with a carving tool then set it up and organized and led a worship service. Aaron is engaging in the most common of tactics available to sinners. He is minimizing his responsibility and rationalizing his behavior so that he is put in the best possible light and his sin is not exposed. He has no need to confess to anything because he didn’t do anything wrong and if he did it was the fault of the people. What can you expect when you have to deal with such people? God has put people in your life that he wants to use to help you to see your sin as it really is. Some of these people will point out your sins because they love you and want to help you. Others will point out these sins because you irritate them. In either case, God’s aim is to help you to be honest about your sins and to confess them and to forsake them. All of us have blind spots that we need others to see and then to expose so that we can get better. We all need to be approachable so that when others see something wrong, they know they can come talk with us and we won’t give them the runaround, like Aaron did to Moses. We are not the people we pretend to be. God knows it and most of the people around us know it and so we should just be honest and admit it. It is only by taking the blame and acknowledging our sins that we have any hope of changing. The God who graciously forgives sinners also graciously changes sinners by…
III. Curing us of sin through discipline (vv. 25-29) Notice that in v. 25, even after Moses has smashed the tablets displaying the anger of God against idolatry, ground up the idol and made Israel drink it and rebuked Aaron, the people are still out of control. We aren’t told exactly what he saw but it was evident that the people were yet in a state of anarchy and rebellion against God and Moses. This state of disarray had become known beyond the borders of the camp and the enemies of Israel were laughing behind their backs. They, through their idolatry had become a self-indulgent, undisciplined group unable to deal with the threats that surrounded them and their enemies knew it. The fault lay with Aaron. It was the fault of the leadership that the congregation was in such disarray. It was because Aaron had failed to exercise godly, courageous leadership that the congregation was now in trouble. Here is a warning to every dad sitting in here and to every elder, pastor and small group leader. An orderly, godly congregation and an orderly, godly family is not an accident. Both require intentional, disciplined spiritual leadership if the members of the family or congregation are going to follow Christ. How does Moses go about restoring order in the camp? First, he issues a call to the entire out of control congregation. He stands at the gate of the camp and says, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” There was no one, including Aaron, the one who was about to be ordained as the high priest, who was for the Lord. All were for themselves and the pleasures of sin. However, by the grace of God, the Levites, the members of Moses’ own family came out of the running amok camp and came to his side. By the way, "all the Levites" would include Aaron. What had to happen to these Levites in order for them to rally to the side of Moses? They had to repent of their idolatry and believe that being with Moses outside the camp was better than being part of the camp. Their reformation required that they confess their sin, turn from it and trust in the mediator. The thing to note about this is that the Levites are the ones who are given the task of teaching God's word in the future. The reformation of the entire congregation began with the reformation of the leaders of the congregation. The reformation of families and churches always begins with the reformation of pastors and elders, moms and dads. You will never have godly children without godly parents and you will not have godly Christians without godly elders and pastors. These Levites did not know before hand what God, through Moses, would require of them. In vv. 27-28 Moses reveals God’s will to them. God’s plan for restoring order in the congregation was to have the leaders of the congregation, the Levites, go throughout the congregation with their swords and slaughter their brothers, friends and neighbors. The Levites did exactly what was asked of them and that day they killed about 3000 men in the camp of Israel. Then in v. 29 Moses tells them that by their unwavering loyalty to God as shown in their killing their sons and brothers for God that they are now set apart to God and blessed by him. Thus their leadership in the congregation is sealed by their obedience to God in carrying out his judgment against the congregation. What are we to make of this slaughter? First, the fact that God through Moses commanded that some of the Israelites be executed is not unjust. Every Israelite deserved to be killed. The fact that only 3000 were killed is enormous grace. The people of Israel ought not to think of how cruel God is but of why they were not killed. Second, who did the Levites kill? We are not told in the text but, while this is the first time that God executes some of the Israelites, yet it is not the only time. In Numbers 14, about six months after this event, when Israel is on the border of southern Canaan and God tells them to go into the land and conquer it, 10 men rise up and lead a mutiny against Moses, Aaron and the Lord. All of Israel rebels at that time and Moses once again by his intercession gains God’s forgiveness. However, while God spares the congregation, he kills the ten men who led the mutiny. While we don’t know this for sure it seems to me most likely that the Levites killed the men who were most responsible for leading the rebellion against God. We all know that when groups of people do evil there are always individuals within the group who lead the way. Third, what does this have to do with us? I made the point several months ago when talking about another part of Exodus that the NT treats God’s killing of sinners in the OT as both a warning about hell and when done in Israel as an example of excommunication. We saw that clearly in 1 Corinthians 5 when a church member is openly committing sexual immorality which in the OT would have been met with death and Paul simply says that the man who was doing this was to be put out of the church so that he might feel what it is really like to be a non-Christian. What we are witnessing here is how the church, under the leadership of Christ, remains pure by the members confronting one another and helping one another repent. Then, when professing Christians refuse to repent, the church puts them out so they will come to their senses and repent and come back to Christ. The Levites don’t have the right to execute others because they did not sin but because they repented of their sins and were following the Lord by following Moses. In the same way, we do not have the right to confront others with their sins because we have never sinned. Paul says in Galatians 6:1, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.” We are witnessing in the slaughter of the Levites the way in which the Lord Christ purifies his church through the faithful confrontation and then discipline of professing Christians by other Christians who are not currently trapped in a sin. Just as this slaughter terrified the Israelites so the biblical discipline of unrepentant professing Christians is meant to terrify all of us and thereby call us into a more fervent fight against sin. Finally, notice that this severe discipline by the Levites was to be impartial. They were to kill even if the one they killed was a brother, friend, neighbor or son. To be a follower of Christ means that loyalty to him precedes loyalty to any other human being. As Jesus said, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…” The Levites, in order to be agents of God had to be firmly committed to God and his purposes beyond all other earthly loyalties. It is the same with us if we are going to be used by God in each other’s lives. We must not play favorites or wink at sin in another’s life because we fear the loss of their friendship. Parents often have to face this reality. You cannot be your child’s friend and be their parent at the same time. Your child will not like you or your decisions at times but you must be loyal to Christ, not to your child if you are going to be of any use to your child. It is the same in our relationships with one another. We are to fear God more than we fear the displeasure of others. The God who graciously forgives sinners also graciously changes sinners by…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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