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Introduction Chapters 1 and 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapters 5 to 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapters 16 and 17 Chapter 18 Chapters 19 to 23 Chapters 24 and 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapters 30 and 31 Chapter 32 Chapters 33 and 34 Chapters 35 to 40 |
The people completely abandon Jehovah
Whilst God was thus preparing the precious things connected with His
relationship with His people,* the people, only thinking of what
they saw in the human instrument of their deliverance, completely
abandon Jehovah: a sad and early, but sure fruit of having undertaken
obedience to the law as a condition, in order to the enjoyment of the
promises. Aaron falls with them. Moses as Mediator pleads God's glory and unconditional promises
Such being the state of the people, God tells Moses to go down; and
now everything begins to be put on another footing. God, in His
counsels of grace, has not only seen the people when they were in
affliction, but in their ways. They were a stiff-necked people. He
tells Moses to let Him alone, and that He would destroy them, and make
of Moses a great nation. Moses takes the place of mediator, and, true
to his love for the people as God's people, and to the glory of God in
them, with a self-denial which cared only for this glory, sacrificing
every thought of self, intercedes in that magnificent pleading which
appeals to what that glory necessitates, and to the unconditional
promises made to the fathers.* And Jehovah repented. The
character of Moses shines in all its beauty here, and is remarkable
amongst those which the Holy Ghost has taken pleasure in delineating,
according to the precious grace of God, who loves to describe the
exploits of His people, and the fruit they have borne, though He
Himself is the source of them. The golden calf: the covenant of the law broken, Moses breaks the tables of the covenantBut it was all over with the covenant of the law; the first and fundamental link — that of having no other gods — was broken on the part of the people. The tables of the covenant never even came into the camp on the simple ground of law. The people had made a complete separation between themselves and God. Moses, who had not asked God what was to be done with the law, comes down. His exercised ear, quick to discern how matters stood with the people, hears their light and profane joy. Soon after he sees the golden calf, which had even preceded the tabernacle of God in the camp, and he breaks the tables at the foot of the mount; and, zealous on high for the people towards God because of His glory, he is below on earth zealous for God towards the people because of that same glory. For faith does more than see that God is glorious (every reasonable person would own that); it connects the glory of God and His people, and hence counts on God to bless them in every state of things, as in the interest of His glory, and insists on holiness in them, at all cost, in conformity with that glory, that it may not be blasphemed in those who are identified with it. Levi's consecration to Jehovah: individual responsibility to God under the lawLevi, responding to Moses's call, says to his brethren, the children of his mother, "I have not known you;" and consecrates himself to Jehovah. Moses now, full of zeal though not according to knowledge, but which was permitted of God for our instruction, proposes to the people his going up, and "peradventure" he shall make an atonement for this sin. And he asks God to blot him out of His book rather than that the people should not be forgiven. God refuses him; and, while sparing them through his mediation, and placing them under the government of His patience and long-suffering, puts each one of them under responsibility to Himself — that is, under the law, declaring that the soul that sinned He would blot out of His book. Contrast between the mediation of Moses and the work of our Saviour
Thus the mediation of Moses was available for forgiveness, as regards
government, and to put them under a government, the principles of
which we shall see by-and-by; but it was useless as regards any
atonement which would protect them from the final effect of their sin
(its effect as regarded their eternal relationship with God), and
withdraw them from under the judgment of the law.* God spares them and commands Moses to lead the people to the place
of which He had spoken, and His angel should go before him. What a contrast do we here remark, in passing, with the work of our precious Saviour! He comes down from above — from His dwelling-place in the glory of the Father — to do His will, and did it perfectly; and (instead of destroying the tables, the signs of this covenant, the requirements of which man was unable to meet), He Himself bears the penalty of its infringement, bearing its curse; and, having accomplished the atonement before returning above, instead of going up with a cheerless "peradventure" in His mouth, which the holiness of God instantly nullified, He ascends, with the sign of the accomplishment of the atonement, and of the confirmation of the new covenant, with His precious blood, the value of which was anything but doubtful to that God before whom He presented it. Alas! the church has but too faithfully reflected the conduct of Israel during the absence of the true Moses, and attributed to providence what she had fashioned with her own hands, because she would see something. |
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