Why Our Only Hope Is Christ (Exodus 32-34)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

Why do we put our hope in the wrong things?

Exodus 32-34 gives us some answers with two stories: the golden calf and the radiant face of Moses. After Moses is gone for longer than the people like, Exodus 32:1-2 tells us, “they gathered around Aaron and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’” Notice the dismissive phrase “this Moses” that shows their contempt.

Peter Enns writes, “This amounts to an attempt to undo what has just taken place in the preceding thirty-one chapters: the Exodus, the covenant, and the initiation of God’s presence in the tabernacle.”^[1] Calves were a common form of idolatry in the ancient Near East. Enns notes, "It is commonly accepted by Old Testament scholars today that the ancients did not equate an idol with the god, but it was some sort of earthly representation of that god. Specifically, it was thought that calves or bulls functioned as pedestals for the gods seated or standing over them.”^[2]

It wasn’t as though the Israelites were saying the golden calf was God. Instead, they were saying that “Yahweh’s presence is now associated with this piece of gold,”^[3] breaking the second commandment in the process, which forbids making idols. Moses responds by breaking the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. As Enns notes, “The breaking of the tablets is more than just a graphic, even impulsive, depiction of intense anger. Like so much of this narrative, it is symbolic. By smashing the tablets on which is written the law—by God’s finger, no less—the law is symbolically undone. Moses’ act says to the Israelites that if they are not prepared to obey the law, they do not deserve to have it.”^[4]

On one hand, God did so much to reveal who he is and that he chose Moses to lead his people. But his people still rejected him, and if not for Moses’ mediation, the people would have gotten their wish. After expressing his anger, Moses interceded to God on behalf of the people and had this remarkable exchange recorded in Exodus 33:12-18:

¹² Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you have told me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor with me.’ ¹³ Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people.” ¹⁴ And he replied, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ¹⁵ “If your presence does not go,” Moses responded to him, “don’t make us go up from here. ¹⁶ How will it be known that I and your people have found favor with you unless you go with us? I and your people will be distinguished by this from all the other people on the face of the earth.” ¹⁷ The Lord answered Moses, “I will do this very thing you have asked, for you have found favor with me, and I know you by name.” ¹⁸ Then Moses said, “Please, let me see your glory.”

 God then responds to Moses and says:

 ¹⁹ “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name ‘the Lord’ before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” ²⁰ But he added, “You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live.” ²¹ The Lord said, “Here is a place near me. You are to stand on the rock, ²² and when my glory passes by, I will put you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.”

As a result of this exchange, rather than starting over with a new people who will fulfill God’s covenant with Abraham, God hears Moses’ prayer and grants his request. In contrast, when the Israelites’ backs were up against the wall, they sought to make God in their image.

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | I praise you for being the true God who is high above all.

Release | I cannot make you in man’s image. Nothing I try to add to you to make your presence more tangible will work. Only you are enough for me.

Ask | Help me, like Moses, to seek your true presence, not manmade fabrications.

Yield | I commit to doing things your way, not my own. Thank you for being the perfect sacrifice for my sin.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

The exchange Moses had with God was a foreshadowing of Jesus and the perfect substitute he would be for sin. Enns writes, “Moses’ offer is not simply a flash forward to the time of Christ. Rather, at the very inception of the sacrificial system, it is a glimpse into the heart of the heavenly reality to which the earthly sacrificial system points.” Enns goes on to make this powerful point:

Christ fulfills the sacrificial system, to be sure, but there is so much more to it than that. We think too quickly of the Old Testament sacrifices as being imperfect, partial representations, temporary measures, if you will, of what eventually comes to completion in Christ. There is, of course, truth to this. This section, however, gives us another angle: The manner in which the Old Testament is to be fulfilled—personal sacrifice—is something already embedded in the Old Testament sacrificial system itself. In other words, the atoning death of Christ did not undo the law but brought it to its final and ultimate expression.^[5]

While Moses offers to be a substitute for the people’s sins, God rejects this invitation. (32:32-34) There was a difference between Moses and Jesus. Hebrews 1:3 says Jesus “is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” He alone can make purification for sins. In 2 Corinthians 3:7-18, the Apostle Paul helps put everything in perspective when he writes:

⁷ Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory, so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses’s face because of its glory, which was set aside, ⁸ how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. ¹⁰ In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it. ¹¹ For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious. ¹² Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end of the glory of what was being set aside, ¹⁴ but their minds were hardened. For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains; it is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ. ¹⁵ Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts,

Because of the Israelites' unbelief, they could not even look at the face of Moses, who had just glimpsed the back of God. But according to Paul ¹⁶ “whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

^[1]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 568.

^[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 569-570.

^[3]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 569-570.

^[4]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 574.

^[5]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 590.