Exodus 34:1-9 - Grace and Truth

Today's sermon will be from Exodus 34:1-9.

In John Bunyan's famous allegory of the Christian life, Pilgrim's Progress—a book I highly recommend every believer read—we are introduced to the main character, Pilgrim. From the very beginning of his journey, Pilgrim is weighed down by a massive, crushing burden strapped to his shoulders. This represents his sin and his guilt.

He hears the Gospel and begins a journey to find redemption and relief at the cross. But along the way, he runs into a character named Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Worldly Wiseman tells Pilgrim that he doesn't need to go all the way to the cross to deal with his burden. Instead, he points him toward the Village of Morality, which sits right at the base of Mount Sinai.

But as Pilgrim approaches the mountain, seeking relief through his own moral effort, something terrifying happens. The mountain begins to flash with fire. The ground shakes. The thunder rolls. And rather than his backpack getting lighter, the burden of his guilt actually grows heavier. The law, with all its demands, could not remove his burden of sin and guilt. It could only threaten to crush him under its weight.

That image of a terrifying, flashing mountain and a people crushed by guilt brings us right to the historical reality of our text today.

In Exodus chapters 32 and 33, the nation of Israel had just experienced a catastrophic failure. They weren't willing to wait for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai, so they took matters into their own hands and built a golden calf. They broke God’s covenant, disobeying His laws. When Moses came down and saw this idolatry, he took the two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments and shattered them on the ground—a physical picture of the broken relationship between God and His people.

The consequences were that Israel would still go to the Promised Land, but God would not go with them. They were going to lose His presence. Moses pleaded for God to stay with them, and then asked God to show him His glory.

Today’s passage In Exodus 34 is the continuation of this story. At God’s command, Moses is sent back up that terrifying, flashing mountain. He goes up with a fresh set of blank stone tablets to have God’s glory revealed and the broken covenant renewed.

The Ten Commandments, a set of commands and restrictions, tell both Israel and us exactly what God requires to be in His presence. But the law has a limitation: it cannot help us. It can only tell us whether we have succeeded or failed. And when we fail its demands, all we can hear and see is the thunder and flashing of judgment and separation from God.

This is the predicament of all mankind. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom feeling the weight of impatience, a software developer feeling the pressure to constantly perform, a student navigating the demands of school, or a retired person looking back with regret, we have all broken God’s covenant.

And because of this, we usually default to one of three strategies: we either ignore the law and live however we want, we presume on God’s grace and treat our sin lightly, or we hunker down, grit our teeth, and try to keep the commands as best we can. But all this does is make us feel exactly like Pilgrim standing at the base of Sinai. We are left exhausted, terrified, and weighed down by our guilt.

But what if I told you that rather than carrying the crushing weight of our guilt by trying to keep the rules or ignoring them or presuming on God’s grace, what if we could live freed from guilt, empowered by the Spirit to obey from a desire to reflect God's character represented in his commands?

This is the opportunity we have today as we gaze into the wonders of God’s grace and truth from Exodus 34:1-9.

Exodus 34:1–9 ESV

The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

One thing that sticks out clearly in this text is that…

God will not clear our guilt (Ex. 34:7)

The reason that we, and Pilgrim from Pilgrim’s Progress, are crushed by the law is because we know deep down that God will not clear our guilt. I often explain to those new to the faith that not only is it impossible for God, who is perfectly holy and just, to clear our guilt by sheer willpower—we actually wouldn’t want Him to. Imagine a judge sitting on the bench who simply lets a murderer go scot-free. Is that judge merciful? No, he is a monster! True justice demands a reckoning.

After telling Moses to cut out two fresh tablets of stone to renew Israel’s broken covenant at God’s initiative, we see in verses 2-3 that God is holy, and He alone sets the terms for anyone to approach Him.

Notice in verse 2 how God summons Moses, telling him exactly when to begin and where to go. And in verse 3, God explicitly says that Moses alone—not even an animal—can approach Him. Moses is God’s chosen mediator, and no one else is allowed to draw near. Why? God had already told Moses in the previous chapter that no man could see Him and live. God is completely set apart. He is a consuming fire, and without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Because of God’s absolute holiness, He alone sets the terms of approach, and He alone determines what guilt is.

After Moses did exactly what God said—cutting the tablets, going to bed, getting up early, and ascending Mount Sinai with the blank stones—we see in verse 5 that God alone has the authority to declare His own name and nature. No one has the authority to define God but God Himself.

The Lord, Yahweh, the eternal God, the Great I Am, descends in the cloud on top of the mountain. With Moses tucked safely in the cleft of the rock, God speaks, proclaiming His own name. He reveals to Moses exactly who He is and what He is like.

God declares that He is merciful (having a deep, internal, visceral compassion), gracious (showing favor to the undeserving), slow to anger (literally "long of nostrils," perfectly patient), and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (dependable and covenantally loyal).

And yet, as verse 7 shows us, His justice is absolute and unyielding. Though He forgives—literally lifts up and carries away—iniquity (the distortion of what is right), transgression (rebellious defiance against authority), and sin (falling short of God’s standard), He does not do so without bringing His justice upon the guilty. He will by no means clear the guilty. The weight of our sin is so great that its destruction often outlives the sinner. We see this in the brokenness passed down through families and seasons. This shows us not only the weight of our rebellion, but our desperate need for someone to stand in the gap, a mediator who can break the cycle that we are powerless to stop ourselves.

Here lies the tension in this text: how can God forgive and yet not clear the guilty? Under this tension we stand, just like Pilgrim beneath the flashing fire of Mount Sinai.

If God cannot simply clear the guilty, what do we do when we incur guilt in our everyday lives?

What do we do when we, as children, have dishonored our parents by telling them "no" or refusing to clean our room as they asked?

What do we do when we have committed murder in our hearts, burning with anger toward a co-worker who failed to turn their part of the project in on time, making us look bad to the boss?

What do we do when we have worshiped our finances, consumed with anxiety and despair over the failure of our retirement portfolio?

The law cannot help us in these moments; it only exposes our failure. The mountain flashes with fire because our guilt is real, and the perfectly just Judge of the universe will not sweep it under the rug. God will not clear our guilt. And because of this, like Pilgrim…

We stand in our guilt (Ex. 32-33; 34:1, 3, 7)

When we realize that God will not clear our guilt as we try to keep the law in our own power and fail, like Pilgrim under Mt. Sinai, we find ourselves afraid to venture further, lest the hill should fall on our head. We freeze and don’t know what to do. And in this moment, the burden of our guilt seems even more heavier than it was before. We see the flashes of fire out of the mountain and become terrified of being burnt, sweating and quaking for fear. At least we should.

We saw the guilt of Israel in chapter 32:1-5 when they wanted God on their terms. We are the same. We want God to give us the comforts and pleasures of the flesh instead of first and foremost his presence. We are often unwilling to wait upon him. Those who live the way they want see God as someone who keeps them from the pleasures they long for, so they ignore him. Those who treat God’s grace as cheap ignore his commands thinking he will simply forgive them even if they ignore him. Those who strive in their own power to obey twist God’s laws into things that are manageable and often ignore the heart level, or are crushed when they look at their heart. All of these approaches seek to approach God on their terms.

The result of this is that, like Israel, in chapter 32:6, we give ourselves to idolatry and self-indulgence. Those who ignore God live in dishonesty, self-centeredness, and sexual immorality. Those who treat God’s grace as cheap, dip their toes in these same things while often just trying to get “right with God” once a week on Sunday. Those like Mr. Worldly Wise Man set up a god that doesn’t align with the name of the Lord that God declared. All of these people give themselves over to a god of their own making and live for the flesh, for themselves.

The ultimate reality here is that as we see in verses 1, 3, and 7, 9, like Israel, we are guilty and God will not clear us. It is easy to think to ourselves, oh, God will just forgive us, but when we look at Israel’s state in verse 1, the tablets related the broken covenant and their guilt. The prohibition of the people not going on the mountain showed their guilt in verse 3, and the reality of Moses’ request for God to go in their midst, shows their guilt. All this coupled with God’s declaration in verse 7, Israel stands guilty, and on their own, their guilt could not be cleared. They, like Pilgrim, and we ourselves, stand under the crushing weight of guilt and need it lifted off of us by another.

The secular worldview believes that there is no guilt toward God, only whatever guilt they feel, and if they forgive themselves, then everything will be ok. The problem with this approach is that there is true guilt before God, and internally, the soul knows this and all of these things that you forgive yourself for keep stacking up over time.

But there is Good News…

Jesus bore our guilt under God’s justice (Ex. 34:2, 6-7)

When Pilgrim, now called Christian, made it to the cross, his burden loosed from his shoulders, fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and he saw it no more. Then Christian was glad and lightsome, and said with a merry heart, "He hath given me rest by his sorrow, and life by his death."

The person and work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection from the grave is the absolute answer to the terrifying problem of standing in our guilt. Because God’s unyielding justice demands that He will by no means clear the guilty, the only way for the guilty to be cleared is if an innocent substitute takes the blow. On the cross, Jesus bore our guilt under God's justice. The innocent was made guilty so the guilty might be declared innocent.

Look back at verse 2. God told Moses to present himself on top of the mountain. Moses was God's chosen mediator for the people, but Moses was not a perfect mediator. He, too, had to be covered. It is Jesus who is the perfect and final mediator. Jesus lived the perfect life and had not a single ounce of guilt before God. Thus, He alone could present Himself as the spotless mediator who would bear our iniquity, transgressions, and sin upon Himself, paying the ultimate penalty on the cross.

When we look at the breathtaking declaration of the name of God in verses 6 and 7, and then look closely at John 1:14, the connection is glorious: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Jesus reveals the name of God fully. God is merciful to us by providing Christ to atone for our sins. God is gracious to us by sending Jesus to die for us while we were still enemies. God is slow to anger, perfectly demonstrated when Jesus, while being mocked and tortured on the cross, cried out, "Father, forgive them." God gives us His favor and kindness freely, keeping steadfast love and faithfulness by fulfilling the covenant promised all the way back in the garden of Eden. The glory that God revealed to Moses in the cleft of the rock is seen in its absolute fullness in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When we look at the terrifying tension of verse 7—that God forgives sin but will not clear the guilty—we see the resolution at Calvary. Jesus, the perfect Passover Lamb, takes away the sins of the world. He bore our iniquity, transgression, and sin, perfectly satisfying God’s absolute justice. When Jesus cried out, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit," the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom. The access was opened because the penalty was paid.

Jesus, the innocent One, bore our sins on the cross so that we, the guilty ones, could be cleared. He had our iniquity visited upon Him, being cut off in His generation, so that we would be seen as righteous in God's sight. The righteous for the wicked. God did not simply overlook your sin. Every ounce of guilt, every act of rebellion, every failure was laid on Christ and judged fully. That is why you can be free.

And in case we ever wonder how we can be sure, the picture of Christian's heavy backpack rolling into the empty tomb reminds us that our iniquity, transgression, and sin were buried with Christ in His death, never to be seen again. And as Paul says, he became sin so that we might become God’s righteousness, represented by Pilgrim losing his pack, being renamed to Christian, and being given new spotless garments. He was clean before God dressed in the robes of righteousness of Christ, as all those who trust in Christ are. God is perfectly just, and a just God will never make someone pay for sins that have already been paid for by a substitute. This is summed up beautifully in 1 Peter 3:18: "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit."

It is by Christ's resurrection and the giving of the Spirit to us that…

Freed from guilt, we worship God as His people (Ex. 34:9)

Because Christ lives in us by his Spirit and has given us new hearts at regeneration, our hearts are completely rewired. Because Christ has redeemed us from bondage and given us His Spirit, we are fundamentally changed. We no longer use freedom to indulge the flesh, like Israel dancing around the golden calf when God seemed too slow. Nor do we view the law as a crushing burden of rules we must perfectly follow to earn God's love or clear our own name.

Instead, because the crushing weight of our guilt has been removed, we see the law for what it truly is: a beautiful reflection of our Father's compassionate character. We are no longer striving for approval; we are resting in the finished work of our Substitute.

We see in verse 8, that like Moses, knowing that he and the people were freed from their iniquity, transgression and sin we bow our head to the earth and worship our glorious God.

And, as we see in verse 9, because Jesus is our perfect mediator who took our sin, knowing that we our pardoned from our iniquity and sin we live as God’s people. And as God’s people we live in freedom to righteousness not freedom to sin (Jer. 31:33; Rom. 6:22; 8:29; Gal. 5:1).

And so, instead of using our freedom from slavery to sin to indulge in the flesh, going our own way in our own power, whether that be by refusing to wait upon God’s guidance by praying and seeking his word’s guidance, and instead doing whatever we want, dancing and playing like Israel while Moses was on the mountain too long for them, we are reminded by the Spirit that for freedom Christ has set us free. He didn’t set us free to live as a law unto ourselves, but to live with his law written on our hearts, freed to love God and love others. He didn’t set us free to be in bondage to sin, but to be a slave to righteousness, imaging Christ in all that we say and do. And so, we wait upon God’s guidance, we seek him as his children in prayer and his word, and we do whatever we do, whether eating or drinking all to the glory of God.

And so, instead of looking at God’s law as a set of rules to follow, thinking that God is pleased with us only when we are following them, getting burdened down by what we can and can’t do, we see God’s law as the representation of his compassionate, merciful, loving, kind, and just character, seeing ourselves, by the Spirit, as children of this living God who are enabled and empowered to each and every day look more and more like Christ.

If you don’t know what it is to live a life free from guilt—if you feel crushed by the weight of what you have done and left undone, or what others have done to you—Jesus offers you freedom today.

He offers freedom from the guilt of your iniquity, transgression, and sin, for He justly laid it upon Himself for all who believe and trust in Him. He offers freedom from the shame of the iniquity, transgression, and sin that others have done to you, for He bore that shame on the cross.

Simply trust in Him. Believe He died for you. Believe He was raised for you. Believe He reigns as Lord, and rest in Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and you will find rest for your soul.

And so, like Pilgrim, though we will have our ups and downs on our journey to the Celestial City, and though we will be tempted to live in the wicked city of Vanity Fair—tempted to turn away from God for comfort and ease, to live in immorality, dancing, and rising up to play—we now walk a different path. By the Spirit, because Christ lives in us, the crushing backpack of the law is gone. Freed from our guilt, we now worship God as His people, living lives of righteousness and love toward both God and others.