The text today from Exodus 33 lays out the forces and key dynamics that serve as the DNA of the Bible. We can think about it in terms of our human bodies: if we were to take a sample of tissue, of flesh, of blood, we will see the same DNA within these cells. Similarly, if we dive deep into all parts of the Bible, if we "take the DNA" from all parts of the Scripture, we will see the Gospel. The DNA of the Bible is the Gospel: the Good News.
What is this Gospel about? Broadly speaking, it is about how God solves the problem of this world, this universe we live in, cannot solve ourselves. The DNA of the Bible is about God solving the problem that we cannot solve ourselves.
When we understand that this is the biggest problem of all the Scriptures, then we see how Jesus Christ is truly central. That specific answer to the question appears in its fullest form in the New Testament. His Cross-work, and resurrection, is the answer that solves the problem.
In light of this, we realize that we must learn to read Scripture, in all of its parts, as Christian Scripture. We do not read the Bible as Jews, Mormons, and Muslims, or mere academic scholars. We read the Scriptures as followers of Christ. He is the answer of the problem we cannot solve for ourselves. And as we read this passage from Exodus, we want to consider it prayerfully and carefully: but also linking it to the larger storyline of Scripture, and examining how this passage exalts Christ.
(A) The Good Promises of God (Exo 33:12-14)
In this passage, we see Moses speaking with God after the Israelites have built a golden calf, rejecting and turning away from Him. One thing to note is in Exo 33:12. In many of our English translations, we see the word 'LORD' in all capital letters. That speaks of God's covenantal, personal name, springing forth from Exodus 3:5, where God reveals His personal name to Moses: the Great I Am, "Yahweh".
And Moses approaches God, after the Israelites are What is the problem that Moses presents to God? We learn about that in Exo 33:12: "You have not let me know who you would send to me". We see in this a tension: God proclaims to Moses that he is favoured, and yet that Moses does not know whom will be sent with him.
The 'problem' or tension that we see here reminds us of the issues that we have seen so far. Long ago, God has promised that they will have the promised land. What is the significance of this promise? It is a promise that defines and identifies the Israelites: as a people set apart from other nations, for God. The Promised Land is about the fulfillment and culmination of whether God is faithful, and tells us whether or not God has truly rescued his people. In a certain sense, it serves as a dim representation of heaven.
What is the problem? We learn from the preceding verses that the people make a golden calf. This happens more than once in Scripture. While God has shown Himself to His people, as great and high and mighty, the Israelites make something else, and call that thing their God. It appears more "nice", more "audience friendly". In essence, the people reject God the Saviour, for God the idol.
In all these instances, cataclysmic events that happen. In both instances, people die. We see that at the end of Exodus 32, where the people are killed, and struck with a plague. This leads Moses, their leader, to question: "is God with us, or not? For we have done something so foul, that he has destroyed us!"
Exo 33:12 shows us Moses’ doubts. He says, "You say you will go because us..." We can hear the problem that Moses grapples with: an angel will go with them, but God Himself will not go with them. And this verse does pose the question: "Will God keep His promise?"
So Moses asks something of God, in Exo 33:13-14. We see the intensity of this in Exo 33:13: "Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” In the verse, we can see Moses pleads with God for help: for help to lead a broken, sinful people. We can hear his questioning in Exo 33:13-14, and his need for God. Where Moses shows his need for God's strength and courage, where everything else that he has experienced is contrary.
How is this relevant to us? Especially for those of us who lead and serve other brothers and sisters in Christ in our local churches, maybe some of us may echo the same cry and desperation of Moses. Some of us may experience deep burdens about our churches, deep burdens for God's people. We see that we need God to speak: we need Him to work in us, and that apart from Him we are helpless, and unable to go.
How did God respond? Look at Exo 33:14. "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest". God reaches for the ideas and words that He has always said. If we look at Exodus 4 and 32, we see that God continues to mantain that He will be faithful, He will keep to His covenant. God, in very brief terms, says "Yes". He will go with Moses, and He will give Moses rest.
Note over here that God does not address the people. I will go with you (Moses), and I will give you (Moses) rest. With that in mind, we want to study the sequence between God and Moses more closely, looking at verses 15 to 20. The table below will be helpful:
What do we learn from studying this exchange, between Moses and God?
We see, firstly, the depth of darkness and sin that the people experienced, leading Moses into a state of doubt. And we struggle with that too. We struggle with whether God promises to love us are actually true. Moses understands that when we sin against the holy God, there is a rip, a tear in the universe. We have rebelled against God, and cannot stand before His presence.
Sometimes, we can study these verses and groan at how 'needy' Moses is. But if we place ourselves in Moses's shoes, we see that we also experience that same rupture. For Moses, he has seen that God’s people has just sinned against God, turning away from Him in vileness and wickedness. Can they really be saved? And similarly, in our struggle against sin, we are sometimes led to ask: Am I really going to make it? Will I truly see Christ at the end? Is this really true? And the source of that is a rip between a holy God and sinful people, that we can't believe that this is Good News. Instead, We come to believe that we must come to achieve some level of maturity, some level of moral perfection, in order to be with God.
What then is our response? Like Moses, we need reassurance, we need to know this God who saves us, once again. In our hearts, we must also seek to ask: "Show me your glory".
What does God say, in Exo 33:21-23? We see God prescribing, and setting instructions, in these 2 verses. The key thing to note here is that everything in this drama of how Moses gets this is done by God. God makes it all happen, and gives Moses what He really wants. He hides Moses in a "cleft". We should note here that a cleft is a small hole beneath a path. God promises to walk over Moses, hiding Him in the cleft, that Moses may look up and see His back as His passes. In that way, God’s utte power and righteousness will not destroy Moses, and He will see God's back as He passes.
This action of hiding Moses in the cleft the central dilemma of the text. The great dilemma posed to us is this: how can a sinful people have close communion with God, and not die? Moses, as the leader of God's people, is still not enough to see God. In that light, how can a sinful people know a holy God? How can we know Him? How can we experience His love for us, when all tells us that we are unworthy of such a kind of love?
The answer that this text gives us is that God Himself must do what we cannot do. God Himself must act, design, create, and direct. He must work in us, that we may stand rightly before Him. He must truly be our “Rock of Ages”, as we sing in that old hymn:
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure:
Saved from wrath, made me pure.
In writing this hymn, Augustus Toplady references this passage we have just studied. Notice how he also references the “cleft”. In this mention of the cleft, we learn that we cannot rightly stand before our holy God. He must construct a "safe place" for us to hide. And is we scan down the lines, what is this "double cure"? It is this glorious truth: that in Christ, we are “saved from wrath, made pure”.
Knowing that, we must see that the only place that we can stand before our just and holy God, is in front of the Cross, where Jesus Christ shed His blood. In Him, we are saved from wrath, and made pure.
With this in mind, we can consider more about the nature of this solution that God provides. We see this in John 1:14-18. It tells us: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." God's grand solution to the dilemma is that God must make everything possible, that we can experience and taste God Himself.
God must send His only Son, to make His invisible self visible to sinful men like us. Incidentally, as we consider this glorious truth of what God has done, we also see the foulness of the golden calf, where the people make an unauthorized image of God, calling that thing their God. It is foul and wicked, because God has planned an image for Himself all along, in Jesus Christ! But when we take this Son of God, twisting Him, fashioning Him into a God of our own making, that stirs up God's wrath. God Himself must make it possible for us to know Him.
What does this mean for us? Today, as a Christian: we might think that we have heard of such truths before, that we have “gotten” the Gospel already. But we must ask ourselves: has the Gospel gotten us? In our younger days, many of us would have started the school day with singing the national anthem, mumbling words we think we know, but not actually comprehending and appreciating what they mean. Is that our attitude towards the Gospel, today? Hear again the Gospel: that Jesus Christ, made himself nothing, to make us a safe place to dwell before God. Does that no longer astound us, and make us go "this is so amazing"?
One thing we must see is that the same solution for our sin is a present reality, and present fact. Christ is objectively real and true; not just a myth and legend; but He has indeed lived, died and rose again. And now, we live in the 'in-between' : where we first knew the Gospel, and that final reality: where all our hearts desires are fulfilled. All our lives now is in-between these two events.
Sometimes we lose sight of the Gospel. That is the story of Exodus. Like the Israelites, we are on the way, we are journeying with God, but we make idols. We repent, Jesus Christ gives us a safe place to stand. We are of the same heart as the Israelites we read about. We are as the same heart as Moses, in his fear and disappointment and insecurity. Regardless of how strong we think we are, we all need Christ.
Knowing that, we must ask ourselves: do we truly know the Gospel? Or do we brush past it, ignoring its power and might? We must also ask ourselves: what do I really desire? May this be our heart’s cry: "Show me Christ: the One who lives and intercedes for me, that right now I am not forsaken. He abides with me, right here and right now."