Show Me Your Glory!

It’s a special joy and privilege to be with you here today opening God’s Word.  Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte wouldn’t be here without this congregation, without it’s elders, without it’s former pastor Harry Reader who asked Doug Kelly and me and a few others to come start teaching in Charlotte in 1991-1992 and that became Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte so we love this partnership and it’s especially wonderful to have Kevin DeYoung, Blair Smith, many other faculty members that worship in this congregation connected with us in that ministry. 

Now, if you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with me to Exodus 34.  We’re going to read verse 5 to 8 and before we read God’s Word let’s ask for his help and blessing in understanding it.  Let’s pray.

O Lord God, open our eyes to behold wonderful things in your law.  We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The passage we are about to read is God’s answer to a prayer, a request, a question.  Moses asks God in Exodus 33, “Show me your glory”, and this is God’s answer to that prayer of Moses.  Hear the Word of God in Exodus chapter 34 beginning in verse 5.  “And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon 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.”  Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.  Amen.  And thus ends this reading of God’s holy inspired and inerrant Word.  May He write its eternal truth upon all our hearts.

This is an amazing passage.  It is a foundational passage for understanding the doctrine of God as he reveals himself in the Old Testament.  It is so important it becomes virtually a creedal statement in the rest of the Old Testament.  So for instance, when the children of Israel get scared by the report of some of the spies that there are giants in the land of Canaan and they start crying and saying, oh Lord give us another leader and take us back to Egypt, and Moses intercedes for them in Numbers chapter 14 in verse 18, one of the things that he says to God in his prayer of asking God to spare the sinful people of Israel is, “The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children of the third and the fourth generations.”  Heard that somewhere before?  He’s praying Exodus 34 back to God.  Or, in psalm 86 verse 15, “You O Lord are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth.”  The psalmist in psalm 86 is praying Exodus 34 back to God, or you’ve already heard this quoted this morning, you participated in a call to worship that came from psalm 103 and what is psalm 103, but a meditation on Exodus 34.  How does it go, psalm 103 beginning in verse 8, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.”  Heard that somewhere before?  The psalmist is mediating on Exodus 34 or all the way at the end of the Old Testament period, after the people had been in exile in Babylon, after they have come back into the land Nehemiah in Nehemiah 9:17 says, “You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and you did not forsake us.”  And even Jonah, you remember when God sends Jonah to those nasty Ninevites, those Godless gentiles and Jonah is pouting.  Jonah wants to go to Israel, he wants Israel to repent, but God sends him to gentiles and when he is gripping about the fact that God forgave the Ninevites when they repented, what does he say in Jonah 4:2, “I knew that you would do this, I knew it because you are a gracious and compassionate God slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and one who relents concerning calamity.” 

The passage we’re looking at today is fundamental for the revelation of God in the Old Testament.  And so, I want us to consider it today because this is a passage about God’s character, God is revealing something about himself that we need to know, and it’s a passage about our communion with God.  It teaches us something about how we relate to God, how we walk with God, as believers how we live with God in this world.  And before we dive into the passage itself, I do want you to see a couple of things.  Number one is this passage proves that the Mosaic Covenant is not a covenant of works, but from time to time you’ll hear theologians, even good ones argue that the Mosaic Covenant is the covenant of works, it’s a covenant where our obedience is the basis of our relationship to God.  It founds our relationship to God.  Sometimes it’s expressed this way that in the Mosaic Covenant we get in by grace, but we stay in by works.  Or we get in by election, but we stay in by obedience and this passage completely gives the lie to that.

Turn with me to Exodus chapter 19 and notice something that God says, Exodus 19 verse 4 and 5. “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”  “Now, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant then you shall be my own possession among all peoples.”  Now a lot of people will point to that, see God saved Israel, but they’ve got to be obedient if they’re going to be His treasured possession.  Well just feast your eyes on Exodus 34 verse 9.  Because when Moses prays to God to forgive Israel look at what he prays.  “O Lord I pray let the Lord go along in our midst even though the people are so obstinate and do pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as thine own possession.”  Did you hear what Moses just prayed, in Exodus 19 it’s “If you obey me, you’ll be own treasured possession.”  In Exodus 34:9 Moses says, “We didn’t obey you, but still take us to be your treasured possession.”  This whole section of Exodus is teaching something very important.  It’s not teaching that obedience isn’t important in the Christian life, but it is teaching us this, repentance is necessary in the Christian life and forgiveness is necessary in the Christian life and God’s mercy is necessary in the Christian life.  Israel doesn’t stay in by their obedience; they stay in by mercy.  The rule of the Mosaic Covenant is not in by grace, stay in by your obedience, it’s in by grace, stay in by God’s forgiveness, stay in by God’s mercy, stay in by God’s compassion, stay in by sacrifice offered for your sins, stay in by repentance.  Israel is not finally sent into exile in 586 B.C. because they sinned once.  No, they had been sinning for 800 years.  You remember that language, God is slow to anger, 800 years they’ve been sinning and what got them was their unrepentance. 

So, a really important thing is being taught in this passage.  The Christian life is in by grace, stay in by God’s mercy, by God’s mediation, by God’s sacrifice, by God’s forgiveness and that means that the Christian life will be a life of repentance.  We’re never going to keep God’s Word perfectly.  By the way, have you ever thought about it, a third of the Mosaic law is about what you do when you break it.  Have you ever thought about that?  A third of the Mosaic law is about what you do when you break, a third of it is the sacrificial system where you go to the Lord with a sacrifice because you have sinned.  Yes, the Mosaic law expects God’s people to obey His voice, to heed His Word, to walk after His commandments.  The blessed man lives that way.  Remember psalm 1, but the Mosaic law also knows you won’t do that perfectly and so for you to stay in fellowship with God, He’s got to do something else for you and that’s forgive you.  So that’s the first thing that I want you to see.

The second thing, and we’re not even into the sermon yet so just hang with me.  The second thing I want you to see is this, notice how back in Exodus chapter 20, in the first commandments God says, “Don’t worship other Gods and don’t worship me by images or idols.”  And then in Exodus 32, just take a peek, Exodus 32:1-7, what do the people of God do, they worship Him by idols, they say, “We want to see God and we want to see him by an idol, so Aaron make us a God.”  And Moses is still up on the mountain.  Now just take this in for a second.  The 10 Commandments have just been given, it’s been days since God said, “Don’t worship other Gods, don’t worship me with graven images.”  Days later while Moses is up on the mountain getting more laws, they are worshipping God by images and God says to Moses, “Moses I think you’d better go back down”, and when he gets there it’s just a free for all and isn’t it interesting that whereas they wanted to see God’s glory through an idol in this passage God is going to reveal His glory through His Word.  “You’re not going to see an idol, you’re going to hear my word, that’s how you’re gonna see my glory by hearing my Word about me.”  That is why what you do when you gather here Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day is so important.  We’re not here to worship an idol, we’re here to hear God’s Word.  That’s how you see His glory now.  So, the contrast, they wanted to see God’s glory through an idol, God reveals His glory through is Word. 

Now we’re finally to the sermon.  So here are just two or three things that I want you to see in the passage and the first one is this, in this passage God reveals to Moses and to Israel and to you and me something very, very important about Him.  He makes a disclosure about Himself that is absolutely central, and you see it in verse 6, 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.”  This is God preaching God and God announcing that He is compassionate.  Now that’s so important in the wake of their gross failure in the sin of the golden calf.  God, he preaches Himself, he reveals Himself as glorious by showing his compassion.  It’s very interesting, B.B. Warfield, one of our hero theologians of the late 19^th and early 20^th century wrote an article about 125 years ago called, The Emotional Life of our Lord, and it’s a study of the affective aspects of Jesus’ life and character in the Gospels.  How did the Gospels reveal Jesus’ emotional life and it’s an amazing study, but here’s the fundamental point that he makes, he says, when you look at the picture of the Gospels as a whole, Jesus is depicted fundamentally as compassion. Oh, he’s just like His Father who’s compassionate and gracious and slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness.  This fundamental character of God as compassionate here is the center of this declaration.  God wants you to understand this about himself, it’s vital for your relationship to Him because all of us, if we’re honest with ourselves are going to admit that what we deserve is his judgement, and what is surprising is that despite our deserved judgement, because He is compassionate, He shows us mercy and what a time for Him to reveal this.  In the wake of a fundamental and cataclysmic betrayal by His people in the sin of the golden calf, and that’s the second thing that I want you to see here.

In the story of the Exodus there are two different metaphors that are used for Israel.  One metaphor is that Israel is God’s son.  So, you remember when God sends Moses to Pharoh to say let my people go, one of the things that he says to him is, “Let my son go”, speaking of Israel collectively, “So that he may go to the mountain and worship me.”  So that’s one image, Israel is God’s son.  The other image is that Israel is God’s wife.  You see this by the way in that passage in Exodus 19.  In Exodus 19 one of the things that God says in verse 4 is, “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”  Now where have you heard that language before in Moses’ writings, you’ve heard it in Genesis 2.  The first marriage in the Bible is in Genesis 2 and what does God do, he creates Eve and then he does what, he brings her to Adam, which is why, by the way, that fathers bring their brides to the bridegroom in weddings even to this day.  God, the first father of the bride brings the bride to Adam.  But in Exodus 19 God says, “I bring you to myself.  This is a marriage.  I am your God, you are my people, I am your husband, you are my wife.”  And what happens in Exodus 32 is Israel commits spiritual adultery.  Having been redeemed by God’s grace, Israel goes after other Gods, spiritual adultery.  This is a big theme across the whole Old Testament and you think in that wake how can God forgive that kind of violation and you have Moses praying in Exodus 34 just, “Lord remember your promises to Abraham and then remember who you are, your compassion and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness for Lord we don’t deserve forgiveness, but could you forgive us anyway.”  That’s the prayer of Exodus 34 and the amazing forgiveness of God is on display here. 

Picture a scene and pastors in this room will have been here before.  You have a Christian couple and there has been a cataclysmic betrayal of the marriage vows.  One has betrayed the other.  One is wracked with guilt because of that betrayal, one is wracked with confusion and heartbreak because of that betrayal, but because they’re Christians they come to their pastor and they say, “Pastor we want to stay together, we want to be man and wife, would you help us walk through the most horrible thing that we’ve ever faced together”, and the pastor hangs with them and day after day goes by and week after week and month after month goes by and pastor begins to think, you know what this marriage has a shot of making it.  Then one day they’re in counseling and the one who had betrayed the other says, “You know I wish that you could love me like you did before any of this happened, before I did what I did” and the pastor’s breath is almost taken away, what an audacious prayer.  Now I want you to understand that is exactly what Moses asks God here, “Lord, could you love us like you loved us before we betrayed you” and God’s answer is emphatically, “Yes, yes, I can do that.  I can take you as my treasured possession.”  Husbands have you ever said that to your wife, you’re my treasure.  And here’s Moses saying to God, “Could you take us again as your treasure even though we’ve betrayed you” and God’s answer is, “Yes, yes I can do that.”  And I wanna say friends, you may be here today, and you think, yeah but look, you don’t know what I’ve done.  And you’re right, I don’t know what you’ve done, but I know this, God is more willing to forgive you than you are to repent.  He is more willing to forgive you than you are to repent.  You see, you come to the Lord in your repentance, and you just wait, you’ll find the God of Exodus 34 waiting with you in open arms of compassion and forgiveness if you’ll come to Him.  Just come to Him.

Now here’s the last thing that I want you to see, because this is so baffling to me, I had to go to my Old Testament professors and say, “Am I reading this right, am I missing something here.”  Look at verse 7.  The lord, look at the last phrase of that sentence, keeping steadfast love for thousands and then listen to this phrase, “Forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.”  So, God forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.  That’s amazing.  And then, but who will by no means clear the guilty.  And I’m going, help me here, ha, ha, if you committed iniquity, transgression and sin, what are you?  Guilty.  So, He forgives the guilty of iniquity, transgression and sin, but he will by no means clear the guilty.  Which is it?  And the answer is, yes.  So, what’s the difference here, what’s the difference between God forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty.  The short answer is repentance.  Go back and read the story.  What will be the difference between the Israelites who are spared and the Israelites who are judged?  Repentance.  Now even then we’ve gotta ask the question, how can my repentance of sin save me from the just judgement of sin and good question, glad you asked it, here’s the word, it can’t.  Your repentance can’t save you from that sin.  It’s the instrument by which God begins to work his wondrous forgiveness, but you’ve got to have a sacrifice, you’ve got to have a mediator for the just God to forgive your sin even in light of your repentance.  Remember how Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus that Moses wrote about Him.  Well Moses is writing about Him right now because the only way God can forgive sin like this is through the mediator Jesus Christ.  I mean that’s, you wanna see the glory of God, you see it in Jesus Christ and by the way your pastor just read John 1:14-18 to you didn’t he, “No one can see God, but we beheld his glory, the glorious of the ill begotten, full of grace and truth.”  The law was given by Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ.  His glory is, He is the mediator, He takes upon our sin, He bears our judgement, He pays a penalty that is due to us, and we receive His imputed righteousness and thus our sins are forgiven.  The mediator is the basis of our forgiveness, our repentance doesn’t atone for sin, His mediation, His life and death and resurrection are what we need for the forgiveness of sins and I think it’s so wonderful here, you know, Moses says, “Lord I want to see your glory”, Exodus 33, and God says, “Moses you can’t see my glory, you’ll die.”  And then He says, “Here’s my glory, I’m a god that’s merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.  I forgive iniquity, transgression and sin and then the next time you see Moses in the Bible after his death is in Luke chapter 9 on the Mountain of Transfiguration and he’s there with Elijah and Jesus and they’re talking about what the Exodus that Jesus is about to accomplish in Jerusalem, the redemption that Jesus is about to accomplish in Jerusalem and Luke tells us “Jesus’ face was shining with glory.”  No wonder the apostle Paul says that we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

I’ve got even better news for you.  According to John in Revelation 22, God the Holy Spirit authorized him to say to you that you will see Him face to face.  If you’re resting and trusting in Christ alone for salvation as He has offered in the gospel, you will see His glory face to face.  John says it in Revelation 22, it’s true, but until then, by the say as we’ve already heard from 1 Peter, “Until then we haven’t seen Him, but we love Him and we do not see Him but we believe in Him.”  But when we come to this table we’re getting a foretaste of the marriage supper of the lamb when He himself, how will you see Him, you will see Him when He himself, and I couldn’t say this except Luke says it in the Gospel of Luke, He himself will gird himself like a servant once again just like he did in the upper room and He will serve you in the marriage supper of the lamb.  You’re gonna see His glory and you’re gonna say, Lord I couldn’t have seen your glory if you hadn’t forgiven me, if you hadn’t shown me mercy because I’m not here because I obeyed, I’m here because Jesus obeyed and I’m not righteous because I’m righteous, I’m righteous because He is righteous.  That’s a glorious truth.  Let’s pray.

Lord God, as we come now to your table, show us your glory in Jesus’ name.  Amen.