Idols, Anger, and God's presence

Today's reading was a lot to take in. Not only was it three long chapters, but there was a lot going on. The golden calf, God wanting to wipe out the Israelites, breaking tablets, new tablets, Moses' glowing face, and something about boiling goats in milk. It was a lot to take in. So, I'm not going to attempt to elaborate on all of that here. What I want to do is point to just a couple of places where I see foreshadowing of the Gospel. These are two of many places, that for me, break apart any of the theories that somehow the character of God (or perhaps God himself) is different in the Hebrew Scriptures than in the Gospels. Take a look first in chapter 33.

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

This reminds me of Jesus telling his disciples that the world will know them by their love. Moses understands that unless they carry the presence of God with him, unless they reflect his character, unless they live a life that is defined by and empowered by a continually deepening relationship with God, they will be no different than any other human on the planet. It is impossible to live into the covenant without living in the presence of God.

Now jump ahead to chapter 34.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord,the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.

This doesn't sound like the "god of the old testament" does it? It's because God is God. He always has been, always is, and always will be. He is no different today than he was when he spoke to Moses on the mountain. Now if you read on, you see that he reminds Moses that there are consequences for our rebellion. When we sin, there are punishments. But, that does not mean that we are not forgiven. It does not mean that his love does not continue to abound. Just as much in this moment with Moses as today, God desires that all of humanity would come to repentance and choose to live in proper relationship with him.

In closing, I admit that I dove into the parts of the text that are encouraging. However, there is lots of difficult stuff in these chapters. God wanting to wipe out the Israelites, the Levites slaughtering 3,000 of their own people, Moses sprinkling the ashes of the golden calf on the water and making the people drink it. What did you think? What part of the text are you wrestling with? Let's discuss.