Thus it is, or, at least, thus our God would have it. But then the enemy is ever active in seeking to make us cast away these divine realities, take up the "graving tool" of unbelief, and "make gods" for ourselves. Let us watch against him, pray against him, believe against him, testify against him, act against him: thus he shall be confounded, God glorified, and we ourselves abundantly blessed.
As to Israel, in the chapter before us, their rejection of God was most complete. "And Aaron said unto them, 'Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.'... And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf; and they said, 'These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, 'To-morrow is a feast unto the Lord.'" This was entirely setting aside God, and putting a calf in His stead. When they could say that a calf had brought them up out of Egypt, they had evidently abandoned all idea of the presence and character of the true God. How "quickly" they must "have turned aside out of the way," to have made such a gross and terrible mistake! And Aaron, the brother and yoke-fellow of Moses, led them on in this; and, with a calf before him, he could say, "To-morrow is a feast unto Jehovah"! How sad! How deeply humbling! God was displaced by an idol. A thing "graven by art and man's device" was set in the place of "the Lord of all the earth."
All this involved, on Israel's part, a deliberate abandonment of their connection with Jehovah. They had given Him up; and, accordingly, we find Him, as it were, taking them on their own ground. "And the Lord said unto Moses, 'Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.... I have seen this people, it is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.'" Here was an open door for Moses; and here he displays uncommon grace, and similarity of spirit to that Prophet whom the Lord was to raise up like unto him. He refuses to be or to have any thing without the people. He pleads with God on the ground of His own glory, and puts the people back upon Him in these touching words, "Lord, why doth Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people, which Thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did He bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against Thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Thy servants, to whom Thou swarest by Thine own self, and saidst unto them, 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.'" This was powerful pleading. The glory of God, the vindication of His holy name, the accomplishment of His oath,—these are the grounds on which Moses entreats the Lord to turn from His fierce wrath. He could not find in Israel's conduct or character any plea or ground to go upon; he found it all in God Himself.
The Lord hath said unto Moses, "Thy people which thou broughtest up;" but Moses replies to the Lord, "Thy people which Thou hast brought up." They were the Lord's people notwithstanding all; and His name, His glory, His oath, were all involved in their destiny. The moment the Lord links Himself with a people, His character is involved, and faith will ever look at Him upon this solid ground. Moses loses sight of himself entirely His whole soul is engrossed with thoughts of the Lord's glory and the Lord's people. Blessed servant! How few like him! And yet when we contemplate him in all this scene, we perceive how infinitely he is below the blessed Master. He came down from the mount, and when he saw the calf and the dancing, his "anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and break them beneath the mount." The covenant was broken, and the memorials thereof shattered to pieces; and then, having executed judgment in righteous indignation, he "said unto the people, 'Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.'"
How different is this from what we see in Christ! He came down from the bosom of the Father, not with the tables in His hands, but with the law in His heart. He came down, not to be made acquainted with the condition of the people, but with a perfect knowledge of what that condition was. Moreover, instead of destroying the memorials of the covenant and executing judgment, He magnified the law and made it honorable, and bore the judgment of His people, in His own blessed Person, on the cross; and, having done all, He went back to heaven, not with a "peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin," but to lay upon the throne of the Majesty in the highest the imperishable memorials of an atonement already accomplished. This makes a vast and truly glorious difference. Thank God, we need not anxiously gaze after our Mediator, to know if haply He shall accomplish redemption for us, and reconcile offended Justice. No; He has done it all. His presence on high declares that the whole work is finished. He could stand upon the confines of this world, ready to take His departure, and, in all the calmness of a conscious Victor (though He had yet to encounter the darkest scene of all), say, "I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." (John xvii.) Blessed Saviour! we may well adore Thee, and well exult in the place of dignity and glory in which eternal justice has set Thee. The highest place in heaven belongs to Thee; and Thy saints only wait for the time when "every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." May that time speedily arrive!
At the close of this chapter, Jehovah asserts His rights, in moral government, in the following words: "Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, Mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless, in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them." This is God in government, not God in the gospel. Here He speaks of blotting out the sinner; in the gospel He is seen blotting out sin. A wide difference!
The people are to be sent forward, under the mediatorship of Moses, by the hand of an angel. This was very unlike the condition of things which obtained from Egypt to Sinai. They had forfeited all claim on the ground of law, and hence it only remained for God to fall back upon His own sovereignty and say, "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy."
CHAPTERS XXXIII. & XXXIV.
Jehovah refuses to accompany Israel to the land of promise.—"I will not go up in the midst of thee, (for thou art a stiff-necked people,) lest I consume thee in the way." At the opening of this book, when the people were in the furnace of Egypt, the Lord could say, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows." But now He has to say, "I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people." An afflicted people is an object of grace; but a stiff-necked people must be humbled. The cry of oppressed Israel had been answered by the exhibition of grace; but the song of idolatrous Israel must be answered by the voice of stern rebuke.