Schoolmaster to Christ
EXODUS CHAPTER 32

Scripture Reading: Exodus 32 (KJV)

We now briefly contemplate something different from what has hitherto engaged our attention. "The pattern of things in the heavens," has been before us – Christ in His glorious Person, gracious offices, and perfect work as set forth in the Tabernacle and all its mystic furniture. In spirit, we have been on the mount, hearkening to God's own words – utterances of Heaven's thoughts, affections, and counsels; of which Jesus is "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last."

However, now our brief study brings us down to earth, where we behold the melancholy wreck man makes of everything to which he puts his hand.

"And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron and said unto him, Up, make us gods which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him."

Abandoning Jehovah, they were placing themselves under the conduct of manufactured gods – gods of man's making. Dark clouds and heavy mists had gathered round the mount. They grew weary of waiting for the absent one, and of hanging on God's unseen but real arm. They imagined that a god formed by "graving tool" was better than Jehovah; that a calf they could see was better than the invisible, yet everywhere present, God; a visible counterfeit, than an invisible reality.

It has always been this way in man's history. The human heart loves something that can be seen; that meets and gratifies the senses. Only faith can "endure, as seeing him who is invisible." In every age, men have set up and leaned on human imitations of divine realities. Thus, we see the counterfeits of corrupt religion multiplied before our eyes. Those things revealed by the authority of God's Word, to be divine and heavenly realities, man transforms into human and earthly imitations. Having become weary of hanging on an invisible arm, of trusting in an invisible sacrifice, of having recourse to an invisible priest, of committing herself to the guidance of an invisible head, she has set about "making" these things; and thus, from age to age, she has been busily at work with "graving tool" in hand, graving and fashioning one thing after another, until we can recognize as much similarity between what we see around us and what we read in the Word, as between "a molten calf" and the God of Israel.

"Make us gods!" What a thought. Let us look within, and look around, and see if we can detect something in all this. In reference to Israel's history, we read in 1 Corinthians 10 that "all these things happened unto them for ensamples [i.e., types], and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come" (v 11; emphasis added). Let us seek to profit by the "admonition." Let us remember that although we may not form and bow down before “a molten calf," Israel's sin was a "type" of something into which we are in danger of falling. Whenever we turn away from leaning exclusively on God, whether in the matter of salvation, the church, or the necessities of the path, we are, in principle, saying, "up, make us gods." We are no better than Aaron or the children of Israel; and since they acknowledged a calf instead of Jehovah, then we are in danger of acting on the same principle, manifesting the same spirit. Our only safeguard is to stay in the presence of God. Moses knew that the molten calf was not Jehovah, and therefore he did not acknowledge it. But when we leave God's presence there is no accounting for the gross errors and evils into which we may be betrayed.

We are called to live by faith; we can see nothing with the eye of sense. Jesus has gone up on high, and we are told to wait patiently for His appearing. God's Word carried home to the heart in the energy of the Holy Spirit is our ground of confidence in all things, temporal and spiritual, present and future. He tells us of Christ's completed sacrifice; of a great High Priest passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God whose intercession is all-prevailing; of the living Head to whom we are linked in the power of the Holy Spirit, and from whom we can never be severed by any influence, angelic, human, or diabolical; of the glorious appearing of the Son from heaven; of "an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God," for entrance thereinto in due time. He tells us the hairs of our head are numbered, and that we shall never want any good thing; that through grace, we believe and enjoy a tranquillized heart.

This is the way our God would have it. But the enemy is always active; seeking to make us cast aside these divine realities, take up the "graving tool" of unbelief, and "make gods" for ourselves. Let us watch against him, pray against him, believe against him, testify against him, and act against him: so that he will be confounded, God glorified, and we ourselves abundantly blessed.

In the chapter before us, Israel's rejection of God was most complete. "And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me . . . And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow is a feast unto the Lord."

This was entirely setting God aside, putting a calf in His stead. When they could say that a calf had brought them up out of Egypt, they had evidently abandoned all idea of the presence and character of the true God. To make such a gross and terrible mistake, they surely must have "quickly" "turned aside out of the Way," And Aaron, the brother and yoke-fellow of Moses, led them on, and with a calf before him, he said, "Tomorrow is a feast unto Jehovah." How sad and humbling – displacing God with an idol. A thing, "graven by art and man's device," was set in the place of "the Lord of all the earth."

All this involved a deliberate abandonment of Israel's connection with Jehovah. They had given Him up; and, accordingly, we find Him taking them on their own ground. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them . . . I have seen this people, it is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a greater nation."

Here was an open door for Moses; and here he displays uncommon grace and similarity of spirit to that Prophet whom the Lord was to raise up like unto him. He refuses to be or to have anything without the people. He pleads with God on the ground of His own glory, and puts the people back on Him in these touching words, "Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth. Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever."

This was powerful pleading – the glory of God; the vindication of His holy name; and the accomplishment of His oath. These are the grounds on which Moses entreats the Lord to turn from His fierce wrath. In Israel's conduct or character, Moses could not find any plea or ground to go on. He found it all in God Himself.

The Lord had said unto Moses, "Thy people which thou broughtest up;" but Moses replies to the Lord, "Thy people which thou hast brought up." They were the Lord's people; His name, His glory, His oath were involved in their destiny. The moment the Lord links Himself with a people, His character is involved and faith will always look at Him on this solid ground. Moses loses sight of himself entirely. His soul is engrossed with thoughts of the Lord's glory and the Lord's people. How few are like him. And yet when we contemplate Moses in this scene, we perceive how infinitely he is below the blessed Master. He came down from the mount and when he saw the calf and the dancing, "his anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands and brake them beneath the mount." The covenant was broken and the memorials thereof shattered to pieces. Then, having executed judgment in righteous indignation, "he said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin."

How different is this from what we see in Christ. He came down from the bosom of the Father, not with the tables in His hands, but with the law in His heart. He came down, not to be made acquainted with the condition of the people, but with a perfect knowledge of what that condition was. Moreover, instead of destroying the memorials of the covenant and executing judgment, He magnified the law, making it honorable, and on the cross bore the judgment of His people in His own blessed Person. Then, having done all, He went back to heaven, not with a "peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin," but to lay the imperishable memorials of an atonement already accomplished on the throne of the Majesty in the highest. This makes a vast and glorious difference. Thank God, we need not anxiously gaze after our Mediator to know if He will accomplish redemption for us, and reconcile offended Justice. No; He has done it all. His presence on high declares that the whole work is finished. He could stand on the confines of this world, ready to take His departure, and, in all the calmness of a conscious victor say, "I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gravest me to do" (Jn. 17). Blessed Savior – we may well adore You, and exalt in the place of dignity and glory in which eternal justice has set You. The highest place in heaven belongs to You; and Your saints wait for the time when "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." May that time speedily arrive.

At the close of this chapter, Jehovah asserts His rights in moral government in the following words: "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore, now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine angel shall go before thee: nevertheless, in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them."

This is God in government, not God in the Gospel. Here He speaks of blotting out the sinner; in the Gospel He is seen blotting out sin – a wide difference.

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