- Chad Werkhoven
Exodus 33:17-34:7 - God's Scary Comforting Goodness
Is God just, or is He merciful? Yes.
Read / Listen
Read Exodus 33:12–34:7
Context: After smashing the original stone tablets containing God's Law in anger after witnessing the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, Moses returns to the Lord.
12 Moses said to the LORD, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ 13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”
14 The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. 16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
17 And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”
19 And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
21 Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”
34 The LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”
4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Listen to passage & devotional:
Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 11
Q. [God won't permit sin to go unpunished...]
But isn’t God also merciful?
A. God is certainly merciful,
but he is also just.
His justice demands
that sin, committed against his supreme majesty,
be punished with the supreme penalty—
eternal punishment of body and soul.
Summary
We meet Moses in today's passage at a very low point in his life. After descending down from the ultimate mountaintop experience in which he'd been in God's presence for an extended time, he returns to find his fickle people dancing around hand made idols.
Moses speaks to God with amazing honesty, reminding God that the Israelites were His people, and almost demanding that God teach him God's ways, so that Moses might know God. Moses even flat out demands that God show Moses His glory!
Moses has already seen God unleash the plagues on Israel, open the Red Sea, speak like thunder from a mountain, along with all sorts of other miracles along the way. God would have been just in striking Moses with lightning for making such a demand asking for more glory.
But instead God lovingly complies, telling Moses that He will cause His goodness to pass in front of Moses.
What Moses learns is that God's goodness has two poles: grace, mercy and peace for those He's chosen, but justice & punishment for those who remain in their guilt.
Lest Moses (or us) thinks that somehow we're righteous enough to be in the presence of God's holy glory and goodness on our own, God places Moses in the cleft of a rock to shield him.
Who do you suppose that Rock of Ages was foreshadowing?
Dig Deeper
So many people have a warped, lopsided view of God. Some associate God as a genie in the sky dispensing goodness and blessing on anyone who asks, while others see Him only as a grouchy curmudgeon crushing people for the smallest infraction.
Yet at one of the lowest points of his life, Moses resists both of those extreme caricatures, and asks God for something very simple, yet life changingly profound. He ask God to "teach me your ways so that I may know you."
Of all the attributes God could have responded with, God shows Moses His goodness, and in His goodness God is fully merciful AND fully just.
No creature in heaven or earth can do this, but God can and did by pouring out His justice on His Son so that He could show you His amazing grace and mercy.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: The LORD, the LORD, compassionate and gracious, yet who punishes the guilty;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Ask God to display His glory and goodness to you (be careful, this is a dangerous thing to ask for if you're not prepared to align your life with it!!)
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year, a chapter a day - Acts 3
