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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS SO HE CAN LIVE WITH HUMANSEXODUS 32:30-33:6INTRODUCTION JI Packer in his classic book, “Knowing God,” writes, “What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? The knowledge of God… What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God… Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord… What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance; and this the Christian has, in a way that no other man has. For what higher, more exalted and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?” You want to know what the sad thing is about this quote? I was in a small group study in 1978, 3 years after I became a Christian, where we read and discussed this book. I knew that it was true that knowing God was the reason God made me. Yet, it was not until many years later, years spent teaching the Bible and sharing the gospel, I might add, that I really believed that my life had no greater purpose than knowing God. I was a Christian, yet my heart did not have as its chief goal, to grow in my delight in God. My heart was captured by good things, reaching the world for Christ, being a Christian husband and dad, enjoying my children, etc. but my heart was not captured by what God had made me for and saved me for, knowing him. I don’t think I am alone. In the modern church the gospel is not primarily about God but about how humans can use God to get what they really love. The gospel, as I preached it for years and as it is most commonly preached in our day, is more often about the benefits and blessings that God gives than about God himself. Whether it’s the benefit of gaining heaven and escaping hell or the benefit of being healthy and wealthy right now, the modern gospel has more to do with what God will give me if I’ll ask Jesus into my heart, than it is about gaining God through the work of Christ. In our study in the book of Exodus we have come to two chapters that are focused upon this great purpose. These two chapters are here because this is the point of the life, to live with God in unbroken fellowship. The restoration of fellowship between God and man is the goal to which God is working and these chapters make that so very clear. If you will remember, while Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights, receiving God’s instructions on how to build the tabernacle so that God could dwell in the midst of Israel and receiving the Ten Commandments written by God on two stone tablets, the nation Israel led by Aaron, Moses’ brother and the one who was going to become the chief priest, made and worshipped a golden calf. In spite of the fact that just one month prior to this they had promised God three times that they would not ever make an idol to worship, they did so anyway. I don’t doubt that the majority of us have promised God at least on one occasion that we would not commit a particular sin. And I don’t doubt that we have broken our promise, just like Israel. You and I should not make the mistake of viewing ourselves as if we are Moses in this story. We are not Moses, we are Aaron and the people dancing around the golden calf. At the end of v. 29, it would seem that the situation is under control. God isn’t going to destroy Israel, the golden calf is destroyed, the leaders of the community have repented, the ringleaders of the rebellion are dead and the people are no longer out of control. They are no longer a laughingstock to their enemies. However, Moses knows that things are still not where they should be. He knows that God, who still is visibly manifesting his presence on the top of Mt. Sinai in cloud and fire, is still mad at Israel. The covenant is shattered. The deal is off. God is not going to dwell with these people. Moses knows that something else has to happen in order for Israel to know God and for God to come to dwell with his people as he has promised. Moses knows the goal of life is not simply to be free from slavery and safe from God’s anger for the moment. He knows that knowing God, living in fellowship with God is the reason that God has saved Israel. You can imagine the restless night of sleep he had as he sought to figure out how he can get God to forgive the ones who rejected him. On what basis can God forgive and live with people who have so plainly despised and betrayed him? Answering that question is where the story begins today. MAIN POINT God made us to live with him but we’ve all rejected him, therefore…I. His wrath must be satisfied (32:30-32) In v. 30 we discover that Moses knows that something else must happen if God and Israel are going to belong to each other again. They have sinned a great sin and therefore atonement for sin must be made. Moses is not 100% confident that an adequate atonement can be made. He is not at all sure that anything can be done to move God to come live with people who have treated him as Israel has treated him. There are two key questions we need to understand at this point. First, what does Moses mean by this phrase, “make atonement”? Second, why would Moses even think that "making atonement" might persuade God to restore the covenant? To make atonement is a concept that we can best understand in the context of our legal system. Imagine that I drive my car 75 miles per hour up Court St. outside the church here. One of Janesville’s finest is parked at the end of our driveway as they often are and he catches me on his radar doing 75 in a 40 mph speed zone. He flips on his lights and chases me down. He comes up to the side of my car and gives me a ticket for $350. How am I to atone for my sin of going 35 mph over the speed limit? The only way I can atone for my transgression is to pay the $350 or go to jail for some period of time. If I go to court and take a dozen chocolate chip cookies to the judge and tell him I’m really sorry for what I did and promise to not do it again and tell him I’ve contributed $50 to the police charity fund, will he let me not pay the $350? In other words, can I atone for my sin in any other way besides paying the $350 or going to jail? No. The only way to atone for my iniquity is to pay the fine. Does the court care whether I pay it or a friend of mine pays it? Not at all. What matters is that the speeding is atoned for by the paying of the ticket. What Moses knows is that in order for God to live with Israel and for Israel to know God, his just anger against their sin must be satisfied. Their sin must be atoned for. Why does Moses think atonement can be made for their sin? Remember that he just spent the past 40 days and nights receiving instructions from God on the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrificial system. These detailed instructions were given to Moses so that God, who is a consuming fire, could safely dwell with Israel. In those instructions he was told that a priest could approach God and offer an animal sacrifice to atone for the sins of Israel. There is no tabernacle and there is no priesthood and so Moses takes it upon himself to act as the priest who enters into the holy place, which, at the moment, is located on the top of Mt. Sinai and there offer atonement for sin. What he knows from the description of the sacrifices is that God is willing to accept a substitute for a guilty human. He knows that every sin deserves death and therefore blood must be shed to make atonement, either the blood of the guilty person or the blood of a substitute. He goes back up the mountain and first confesses how great the sin of Israel is. He acknowledges that they have deeply offended perfect justice and thereby they deserve to die. Then he asks God to forgive Israel, “but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” In the original it is a very hurried and terse statement, especially at the beginning. He knows that God cannot forgive just because Moses confesses their sin. Saying you’re sorry doesn’t pay the fine. He knows someone has to die and so he volunteers to have God kill him instead of killing the people. In essence he says, "take me instead." He knows that God is willing to accept a substitute sacrifice because of what God told him. So Moses acts as both the priest and the sacrifice that the priest offers in order to atone for Israel’s sin and thus gain for them forgiveness. The goal of the substitutionary atonement he offers to make is the restoration of the relationship between God and Israel. This is the implication behind the idea of forgiveness. I know I’ve told you this before, but it is so critical to understand this so that you understand the gospel. Forgiveness only matters when you care about having a relationship with the person you have offended. Let’s say I’m at one of my daughter’s volleyball games and I’m loudly cheering her and her team on. I’m not being bad or getting on the refs, I’m just being enthusiastic in my cheering. Let’s say a parent from the opposing team comes up to me at half time and tells me he is very offended at my loud cheering. I will most likely apologize and try to contain myself a little bit in the second half. However, do I really care if this person I’ve never met and never will meet again forgives me? Not really, because I don’t have a relationship with him nor do I care to. But, if my wife is sitting next to me and she tells me that I’ve offended her by my loud cheering, do I care if she forgives me when I apologize? Of course I do. I want her to forgive me because I care about her and about our relationship. The only reason to care whether or not God forgives your sins is because you care about God and your relationship to him. If the only reason you care if God forgives your sins is so you won't go to hell, then there is a good chance your sins aren't forgiven. My sins need to be atoned for so that God can forgive me and I can have a relationship with him, I can know him. It is not difficult to see that right here Moses is a “stand in” for, an illustration of Christ. What Moses offers to do for Israel is exactly what Jesus did for all who trust in him. He atoned for our sins by dying on the cross in our place and thus gaining forgiveness of our sins for us. He had to die because death is the penalty due to us for every sin we commit. He died the death we owe so God can justly forgive us and thus we can know God and God can live with us. God made us to live with him but we’ve all rejected him, therefore…
II. His justice will be executed (32:33-35) Based on what has happened every other time that Moses has prayed on behalf of Israel, we would expect that God would accept Moses’ offer. However, he does not accept it. Rather he curtly replies to Moses that he cannot die in the place of Israel but rather “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.” In other words, “Moses, you didn’t sin against me with the golden calf and so you cannot die as if you did. The only people who will die for worshipping the golden calf are those who worshipped the calf.” God is stating here something that is said scores of times throughout the Bible: every individual is responsible for his or her own sins. God will not punish you for the sins of others but will only punish you for the sins you commit. There are two things to think about at this point. First, why did he not accept Moses’ offer? Moses could not do what he offered to do. One thing that Moses didn’t pay attention to in God’s instructions on substitutionary atonement: the substitute must be perfect, without any defect. Moses is not perfect. He has his own sins for which he owes God death. He cannot die for Israel’s sins because he has his own sins for which he must die. God’s rejection of Moses’ offer is another pointer to Christ. We know from chapters 25-31 that God is willing to accept the death of a perfect substitute in place of a guilty sinner. Therefore, the problem with Moses’ offer cannot be the idea of substitution, it must be the fact he is not innocent. The second thing to think about is this: how do we reconcile God’s statement that "whoever sins will be blotted out of his book" with Paul saying in the book of Romans, “…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us?” Jesus didn’t sin at all so how can he die for sins I’ve committed when God says only those who commit the sins can die for them? Understanding this is part of the wonder of the gospel of Jesus. Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:21, “God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us…” Peter says in 1 Peter 2:24, “He bore our sins in his body on the tree…” The fact is that God made Christ to be sin, he placed our sins upon Jesus so that Jesus became the one who committed the sins we commit. This is beyond our full comprehension. The wonder of it is that Jesus did not just die in our place, which is amazing all by itself, but he took upon himself the guilt of our sins. He, in a sense stood before his perfect Father and said, “I am the guilty one. I have committed these horrible sins. I deserve to die.” It’s one thing to die saving the life of your friend. Then you are a hero. It’s another thing to go to the electric chair as a convicted murderer when you are truly innocent, so that your friend who committed the murder can go free. God’s rejection of Moses’ offer points us to the amazing love of Jesus for criminals like us. He was considered a transgressor by God and man and died a criminal's death for us. In the context of this story v. 33 is very bad news. Essentially God says that all of Israel is blotted out of his book, in other words, they will all die for what they have done. Back in 32:14 we were told that God was not going to destroy Israel but now he says he is going to destroy Israel. What is going on here? Let’s just keep reading. The next thing (v. 34) he tells Moses is that he should go back down the mountain and lead the people of Israel to the Promised Land. God says he will send an angel with them, just like he promised back in chapter 23 before the golden calf incident. That’s good news. God is obviously not planning on wiping out these people, but fulfilling his promise to them. But then look at what he says, “when the time comes for me to punish, then I will punish them for their sins.” In other words there is a time in the future when he will punish these people for their sins. What is not so obvious in the English translation just jumps out from the original Hebrew text. Literally it says, “In the day of my visitation I will visit upon them their sins.” If you are at all familiar with the OT prophets you will immediately recognize “the day of my visitation” as being a reference to the final day of God’s judgment. This language appears all over the prophets. Listen to Isaiah 10:1-3, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do in the day of visitation, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?” The prophets regularly use God’s destruction of a nation or of certain disobedient people in the present time as a symbol of that final and great day of judgment that is coming on the whole earth. He proves that he will execute his justice in the end by partially executing justice in the present, which is what he does in v. 35. He sends a plague upon Israel, which is something he does regularly during the ensuing 40 years of their history. The word translated “strike with a plague” actually means to strike or smite or give a blow to. This is the same word used for what the angel of death did on the night of the Passover when he stuck all the firstborn sons in Egypt so that they died. We are not told in v. 35 what God did or even if anyone in Israel died. We only know that God harmed Israel in some way. However, in v. 33 God said that whoever sinned against him would die. All Israel did not die so what is the point of the striking with a plague? What we see here is what is going on in all the world all the time. Right now, God is revealing his wrath against human sin in a myriad of ways. Sickness, war, earthquakes, famine, accidents, drought, hurricanes, tornadoes, crime, shattered relationships, etc. are all expressions of God’s judgment, of his curse for sin. These are all temporary and limited expressions of his perfect justice. All deserve to die. That is what he says in v. 33. But not all die at once, yet. The war in Iraq, West Nile virus, AIDS, hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Dec. 2004, these are all rumblings of that great future judgment that is going to come upon the whole world. God is warning us and seeking to arouse us to the danger we are in so that we will recognize what really matters in life, knowing him through Christ. God graciously promises to take Israel to the land of Canaan and to provide for them on the way while at the same time he sends a plague to bear witness to his anger against them for their betrayal. We live in the same condition. We experience every day enormous gifts from God. Yet at the same time we also experience the fringes of his wrath as we personally experience tragedy or are simply aware of and frightened by the great troubles that have come upon the world in other places. We are in this condition so that we will wake up, repent of our sins and flee to Christ for forgiveness through his atoning death. God made us to live with him but we’ve all rejected him, therefore…
III. He alone decides what to do with us (33:1-6) Up to this point in the story the focus has been almost exclusively on Moses' actions as the mediator between God and Israel. We've seen him both interceding with God and confronting Israel in order to restore order. Apart from the Levites who responded to Moses' challenge, "Whoever is on the Lord's side come to me," we have not seen any response from Israel. In order for the relationship between God and Israel to be restored both parties have to be reconciled. This is true in every relationship. Whenever a relationship is destroyed by the betrayal or sin of one party something has to happen to both partners in the relationship in order for reconciliation to occur. Forgiveness must be asked for and forgiveness must be given. At this point we are not really sure if God is truly willing to forgive and be reconciled. He is not going to destroy them, but will he forgive them? Atonement must be made and it's not clear yet how that is going to happen. But also, Israel must be sorry and ask to be forgiven. What we witness in these six verses is how God makes Israel willing to be reconciled. The first thing that happens is God restates the promise he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and has repeated to Moses on at least two other occasions. However, if you look closely you can see that while he still promises that Israel will enter the land of Canaan and defeat the wicked peoples who are currently there, yet there are significant differences. He calls Israel, "the" people, not "my" people and says again that Moses brought them out of Egypt, not he. Then he says that he will send "an" angel, not "the" angel or "my" angel as before. Then at the end of v. 3 he drops the bomb, "But I will not go with you." God tells Israel that while he will make sure that he fulfills his promise to give the land of Canaan to them as he promised Abraham, that he, himself will not go with them. In the context, what this means is that there will be no tabernacle, no priesthood, no sacrificial system. He will not dwell in the Most Holy Place. He tells them that he will fulfill his promise to give them the land of Canaan, but he will not go with them. At this point the covenant, the contract God made with Israel is shattered. The reason he says he cannot go with them is because they are a stiff necked people and if he were to go with them and live in close proximity to them he would most certainly destroy them. He is not saying that he has a temper problem. He is saying that because he is perfectly just and cannot even look upon sin and they are clearly a people bent on sinning, that he knows what will happen if he lives with them. They will sin and he will consume them in his anger, thus bringing dishonor to his name by not fulfilling his promise. The only way God can honor his own name by fulfilling his promise to give them the land is for him to send an angel in his place and not go with them. Here again we are confronted with how difficult it is for God to live with sinful humans. This view is so foreign to how most people think about God and his relationship to us. Having God as your counselor and friend is viewed by most people in our culture as the easiest thing in the world. People flippantly believe that there is no reason at all why God shouldn't be glad to be in their company. Most people when they hear the phrase, "God loves you" are not surprised but believe that is the most natural thing in the universe. There is nothing more shocking in the whole universe than for a sinner to be able to truly say, "God is with me." There is something to note here before we look at Israel's response to this word from God. I got this idea from John Piper. If God were to promise you that he was going to assign an angel to you and your family who would make sure that you always had enough money to enjoy life in the U.S., who would always protect you from accident and illness and the wickedness of others and who would also escort you to heaven where you would get to enjoy perfect health, no guilt, perfect relationships with all your favorite people and opportunity to do your favorite activities forever BUT God would not be with you, not here or in heaven, would you be happy about that? Would you sign on to that deal? Before you answer too quickly, you should go home and think about that. This is the gospel that has been preached in the U.S. Christ came to give you all the things you love, guilt free. This is the offer God makes to Israel. Look at how Israel responds to this offer. They mourned. They wept tears of sorrow as people do at the loss of their dearest friends and family members. They were overcome with despair. This is astonishing. They did not want safe passage into the Promised Land, if God did not go with them. They did not want life in the land that gushes milk and honey, without God. Then they repented. That is what the stripping off of ornaments demonstrates. This is the visible and outward sign of an invisible, inward change of heart. They knew that their rebellion had destroyed their relationship with God and they freely acknowledge it. They weep over their sin and over the absence of God. When Moses repeats God's rejection of them and tells them to take off their ornaments they respond by stripping them off and, contrary to what the NIV says, they didn't put them back on again from that time onward. In other words the point of v. 6 is that this repentance was not just a fleeting thing but a permanent change. They continued to acknowledge their sin by not wearing any ornaments from Mt. Horeb onward. One of the most difficult things for a human being is to be sad about the right things. In my own life and in the lives of those with whom I talk it is an easy thing to be sad about the negative effects of our sins on our life here. It is an entirely different thing to be sad about the effect of our sins upon our relationship with God. It is a gift of God when people can say about their sins what David said after committing adultery and then engaging in a massive cover up of his sin, which included murder. He said to the Lord, "Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your eyes." Then later in that Psalm he asks God, "Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me." Israel, like King David, by an act of God's grace knows that their biggest problem is their sin and its consequence, God's rejection of them, being separated from God. They know that if you have the world but don't have God, you have nothing; whereas if you have God and lose the whole world, you've lost nothing. But do not miss that while they now have expressed their desire to be reconciled to God, God has not yet decided what to do with them. Saying you’re sorry and repenting of your sins does not obligate God to forgive you of your sins. God's justice must be satisfied in order for him to forgive. After his justice is satisfied he is not under any constraint from human beings to accept Christ's satisfaction for sin in behalf of any individual. God is not like the gods of other religions who can be manipulated by human behavior. God is free and sovereign in his salvation. We are obligated to mourn for our sins and to do what God requires and then to wait upon God for him to decide what he will do with us. He is not unjust if he ignores your half-hearted cries for mercy. What this text wants us to feel is how astonishing it is if you are a Christian. If God has accepted Christ's death in your place, has forgiven your sins, has given you his Holy Spirit and promised to take you to heaven it is a miracle. You will never experience a greater miracle. This is where the story ends with Israel in v. 6. They wait in the sorrow of repentance to see what God will do with them. As we continue the story and watch in the coming weeks as God reestablishes his covenant with them, we are to be amazed and shocked at the love of God. This is what I want for you and me and my family and your families is that we will be overwhelmed that God would choose to know us and to be known by us. I want us to be overcome with wonder at this amazing love as we understand and feel how much an act of free grace his love actually is. It is really true, as Dr. Packer said in that opening quote, when you discover the wonder of being known by God and knowing God than all the problems of life fall into place. Everything makes sense and nothing can harm you. May God grant us the gift of repentance and of faith in Christ so we can know God and his great love for every believing sinner. God made us to live with him but we’ve all rejected him, therefore…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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