Exodus 32

The Golden Calf

Moses has been on the mountain for forty days.

That is over a month.

Remember that no one had told the people how long Moses was going to be away.

It is perhaps not so surprising

that the people began to wonder if he was ever coming back.

Once they came to the conclusion that Moses was never coming back,

their response becomes quite understandable.

In the ancient world, a community was bound together by religion.

The way to hold a community together was through a common faith,

and perhaps even more strongly,

through a common ritual.

If you don't share the same beliefs and practices,

then it will be very difficult to live together.

Think about the various civil wars that have erupted in the last decades.

Civil wars are always about religion-at least in the broad sense.

Without a common set of religious beliefs and practices,

a community tends to fragment.

With Moses gone, the leaders of the Israelite community are concerned to preserve unity.

God has told them very clearly not to make any graven image (2^nd commandment)

so the action of making a golden calf

is a direct repudiation of Moses as the covenant mediator.

This, after all, does make sense.

If Moses has simply run off into the wilderness,

then he is a faithless covenant mediator,

and all that he taught them in Exodus 20-24 could be set aside.

So the people have consistently rejected Moses as covenant mediator,

and rejected the revelation of the Ten Commandments.

They come to Aaron and urge him to make gods for them.

He commands them to give him all their earrings of gold,

and he carefully fashions a golden calf.

Note the different responses of the people and of Aaron:

-These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt

-Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.

The people are intent upon worshiping new gods.

Aaron is trying to convince them to worship the same god through forbidden practices.

Aaron then leads the people in worship (v6)

through offering burnt offerings and peace offerings

-and after they shared the covenant meal together

they rose up to play (combining idolatry with adultery)

Notice the difference between the worship of Exodus 19-24 and that of Exodus 32.

In the first it is God who initiates the covenant with his people;

in the second it is the people who initiate the covenant with an idol.

In the first the Word of God (the book of the covenant) explains and interprets the sacrifices (the blood of the covenant;

in the second God is silent-man must interpret the ritual for himself.

In the first God commands his people to abstain from sexual intercourse for three days;

in the second the result is a shameful orgy.

In the first there is an overwhelming sense of the holiness of God;

in the second there is an overwhelming sense of the primacy of man.

In the first redemption takes center stage;

in the second human desire takes center stage.

This is a fair contrast between God's covenant, and all idol covenants;

between the worship of God and all idolatrous worship.

Verses 7-10 describe God's response to this sort of worship,

and in verse 10 God says:

God declares that he intends to destroy the Israelites

and then will make Moses into a great nation.

Why does Moses respond the way he does?

Why doesn't Moses submit to the will of God?

Why does Moses challenge God himself?

This passage has puzzled generations of scholars.

Is God simply testing Moses?

Does God really mean what he says?

Would he really have destroyed Israel and made a great nation out of Moses?

To help us understand what God is doing,

let us recall his visit to Abraham

where he reveals his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abraham also challenges God.

In that case there were not even ten righteous men in Sodom,

so the judgment on Sodom stood.

But Moses is simply following in the footsteps of his illustrious forebear

in challenging God's intentions.

But why?

Why do Abraham and Moses challenge God's intentions?

Doesn't this seem a bit preposterous?

But remember that Abraham and Moses are both covenant mediators.

A covenant mediator speaks to man on behalf of God,

but also speaks to God on behalf of man.

To put it another way,

the covenant mediator is a member of the divine council.

The scriptures frequently speak of God consulting with angels or with himself,

but also in these passages God consults with man.

Adam, after all, was created as the son of God.

It is not that God needs man's counsel (any more than he needs angelic councillors),

but rather, out of his pure grace,

God has chosen to give this honor to his creatures.

Moses, therefore, like Abraham before him,

has been given an opportunity to stand in the council of heaven and advise God.

This is no place for false modesty, and so Moses comes straight to the point:

(v11-13)

Moses believes the promises of God.

If God is to remain faithful to his promises, then he cannot act in this fashion.

Did God need Moses to remind him of this?

Of course not!

But God revealed his anger to Moses,

so that Moses (and we) might understand his wrath against sin.

Israel deserved to be stricken from the face of the earth.

Moses, as the only faithful Israelite, would take their place as the son of God.

But Moses desired no such blessing,

because if God would destroy all those who sinned against him,

then the descendants of Moses would fare no better than the descendants of Jacob

When we see our sin,

when we understand the righteousness of God,

and what we deserve from him,

then our only refuge is in the promise of God.

Because now Jesus Christ, the mediator of a better covenant,

is seated at the right hand of God for us!

Now, we have one who intercedes for us,

and pleads before the throne of grace, by the power of his own blood.

Now, there is a man who sits in the divine council forever!

And so brings eternal life to those who believe in him, and call upon his name.

V14

You might think that this would be the end.

God has relented from bringing disaster-isn't that all?

No.

God will preserve his people, Israel, but he must still deal with their sin.

And now Moses, the one who had interceded on their behalf,

speaking to God on behalf of man,

must now take the lead in speaking to man on behalf of God.

Moses came down the mountain and broke the two tablets on the ground.

The covenant was broken.

The ten commandments-which are the covenant of God with Israel-had been violated.

Not just by an individual (that could be covered by a sacrifice),

but by the whole community.

In the covenant at Sinai, individual covenant breaking could be dealt with,

but if the whole community broke the covenant together,

there was no redress.

Israel was the son of God.

As long as the community was faithful,

Individual faithlessness could be dealt with.

But what happens when the community itself was faithless?

First Moses burnt the calf,

ground it to powder,

scattered it on the water,

and made the Israelites drink it

The bitter waters are to be a reminder of the results of idolatry

-and a foretaste of judgment to come.

Then Moses turns to Aaron: 21-24

Aaron's response is pitiful.

He sounds like a child trying to convince his parents that it was an accident.

A high priest who allows the people to convince him to make a graven image

less than six weeks after the commandment was given,

is not the sort of high priest that we need!

Then Moses calls out (v26-28)

The Levites come and slaughter 3,000 of their neighbors out of zeal for the Lord.

This is their corporate ordination to the priesthood (not individual consecration).

Their faithfulness to Yahweh, in the midst of the idolatry,

results in the blessing that they will now serve in the tabernacle and temple

as long as Israel exists as a covenant people.

Finally, Moses returns to the mountain and seeks to make atonement for the people.

Notice how he does this: v31-4

Moses pleads with God to forgive Israel,

and note the way he puts it:

"If not, please blot me out of the book that you have written."

If you will not forgive Israel, then blot me out of the Book of Life as well.

God's response makes it clear that this approach is not possible:

"Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book."

What does this mean?

What is this "book" that God has?

Ps 56:8-David says that "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" Every action of God's people is included in God's book.

Ps. 139:16-echoes this language speaking of being knit together in the womb where "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them." This demonstrates that the future is contained in God's book.

Ps. 69:28-speaks of the wicked, saying "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; let them not be enrolled among the righteous," which suggests that God's book has something to do with life, and only the righteous should be enrolled on it. BUT, there may be some wicked in God's book for a time. They will be blotted out-but while they live, they may temporarily have their name in God's book. (See also Ezek 13:9)

Dan. 12:1-speaks of the future deliverance of Israel, where "your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book." In other words, those covenant breakers whose names have been blotted out, will have no place in the final deliverance of the people of God. Those who remain a part of the covenant people, faithful even unto death-they will see the deliverance.

Mal 3:16-"The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name. 'They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him." The point of this book, therefore, is eschatological. In the end, it will only contain the names of the righteous.

Luke 10:20-Jesus speaks of this book, saying, "rejoice that your names are written in heaven"

Phil 4:3-Paul speaks of his fellow laborers in Colosse, "whose names are in the book of life."

Rev. 3:5-"The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life." The implication is plain. There are those who are blotted out of the book of life-namely, the apostates who turn against God and rebel. So far it may not sound too comforting. But here this:

Rev. 13:8-speaks of the authority of the beast over "everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain." In other words, the elect have had their names written in the book of life from before the foundation of the world. Rev. 17:8 makes the same sort of statement.

Rev. 20:12-15 explains the purpose of this book.

God has books that contain everything that everyone has done.

If your name is found in the book of life, then you will live forever.

If your name is not found there, you will be thrown into the lake of fire.

Here is the simple way to understand all this:

Before the foundation of the world, God wrote all the names of the elect in his book.

Then in the course of history,

God writes all the names of all those who become members of his covenant.

All of the elect are included-since all of the elect do, in fact, come to faith.

But there are also some members of the covenant who are not elect.

Their names are also written down in God's book.

But because they do not have the grace of perseverence,

they fall away.

They rebel against God, break his covenant,

and are blotted out of the book of life.

They go out from us, because they never really were a part of us.

Their names were not inscribed in the book of life

from the foundation of the world;

They were temporarily inscribed-for the purpose of being blotted out.

As Paul puts it in Romans 11:7-8

What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking.

The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, as it is written,

"God gave them a spirit of stupor,

eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear,

down to this very day."

Or as he says in 1 Cor 10:11-12

Now these things happened to them as an example,

but they were written down for our instruction,

on whom the end of the ages has come.

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall."

Or to put it simply, as Revelation 13:10 puts it in the context of the book of life:

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

The promise that the elect will endure to the end

ought to encourage us to believe God's promises, and endure.

For no temptation has seized you except that which is common to man,

and God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability,

but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape,

that you may be able to endure it.

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.

Yes, our Savior has been bodily absent for 2,000 years (much longer than Moses 40 days!)

But he has left us the promise of his return in his Word,

and the token of that promise is found in the Lord's Supper.

Because after exhorting the Corinthians to avoid the pattern of Israel's rebellion,

Paul turns their eyes to the Table.

If you are going to avoid the idolatry of Israel in the wilderness,

then you need a better covenant meal than they had.

"The cup of blessings that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?"

"The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?"

"Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body,

for we all partake of the one bread."

You see, it is a common faith and a common ritual that hold the community together.

If the people of God are to escape the temptation to idolatry,

then we must be united around God's Word and the Lord's Supper.

If we are to live as a faithful covenant community,

then we must find our identity in Christ,

as he is communicated to us in the Word and in the sacraments.

Acts 2:42 describes the central focus of the apostolic church:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and the prayers."

Let us devote ourselves to these things as a body,

encouraging one another as long as it is called today.