Expository Summary - Exodus 34:6-7

The following is a concise and expository summary of Exodus 34:6-7 by Rob Smythe on Pilgrim's Toolbox. For more scripture summaries and spiritual growth resources visit www.pilgrimstoolbox.com.

What do you think people need most today? We live in an age with billboards and internet ads that tell us, ‘This is the way to be cool. This is the way to have fun.’ Those two words, ‘cool’ and ‘fun,’ seem to be the words that encapsulate the aspirations of many in the West these days. So, the big question for me as a Christian is, ‘How can we ever compete?’ Our message is old, and seems to be worn out, out-of-date, and worst of all, irrelevant. Who needs religion, when you can have the world at your fingertips?

My goal in this brief study is to talk about something better than all the world offers. My desire is that we would be dazzled again, anew, afresh by the only thing that never wears out and never gets old, but always gets more and more attractive with time, more and more satisfying to the thirsty soul. And I pray that by the end of our study, we won’t have to worry about competing with the world, because we have found something far better, namely, God himself. As C.H. Spurgeon, a 19th century preacher put it:

The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father…. No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God…. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity (Packer, Knowing God, 18).

So, who is God? And what is his glory? And why is he better than all our world can offer? These are some of the questions addressed in our passage in Exodus 34.

Exodus 32 through 34 show both the utter failure of Israel as God’s chosen people and also one of the deepest expressions of God’s glory in all of Scripture. In chapter 32, the people of Israel create a golden calf to worship and say, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” They’ve just seen the plagues that God brought on Pharaoh. They’ve seen the Red Sea part in two. They’ve known God’s provision in the wilderness. And so they know that this golden calf isn’t their God. And yet, much like us today, they want something tangible; they want something new, something now. Something that they can create with their own hands, instead of worshipping the Creator of all.

However, it’s in the midst of this rebellion that God chooses to reveal his glory to Moses in Exodus 34. In the face of such blatant disregard, God shows his glory to Moses on Mount Sinai, by revealing to him his name. And there, I want us to look at two reasons why I say God is better than all the world can offer. One, his love. And two, his justice.

God’s Love
It goes without saying that love is a deep word. And I don’t mean love when we say, ‘I love ice-cream’ or ‘I love shopping.’ But the love between people. ‘Love’, the word, resonates with our hearts. I haven’t heard of anyone who hasn’t desired love in some way. And usually when we think of love between human beings, one person’s attracts another. So, the circle is never complete without a mutual attraction and desire. But, where does this desire come from?

We learn from our passage that love originates with God. That’s why we desire it. God created us in his image, to reflect him. That’s why in each of our hearts there is at least a residue of desire to love and to be loved. However, we learn from these verses that God’s love isn’t like ours. Whereas we are drawn into love by being loved by another, God contains love in himself. God is not drawn to love by how much we love him. Just think about Israel’s golden calf in chapter 32! No, God’s love is who he is. Look at the words that describe God here. Merciful. A word in the Hebrew which has a similar idea to the warmth of a mother to a child. Gracious. A word that connotes favor and undeserved generosity. Slow to anger. God is not a capricious, but patient. Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This refers to God’s trustworthy covenant love. Keeping steadfast love for thousands. There’s more than enough to go around. Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. God is ready to forgive our ‘crookedness and rebellion and failure’ (Ellison).

This is a love like no other! The world has nothing to offer compared to this! So, why look to anything else, when you can have the God who created love and loves those who are unlovable? He is more satisfying than the greatest of relationships we can have in this world. Why? Because he never changes. Our moods may go up and down. Our love may feel cold. We may fail him. But God’s love is always burning bright for those who trust in him, even in the face of our sin.

God’s Justice
However, to stop with God’s love would be incomplete. We must speak of God’s justice as well as his love. The passage goes on, that God “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.” This is the part that most people want to leave out, and by doing so, have completely missed God in his glory. You cannot take God in his love without taking God in his justice. To worship a God of love without justice or justice without love is to do what the Israelites did in creating the golden calf. You are making him the way you want him to be instead of worshipping him for who he is.

Now it’s understandable that one might question the justice of God. What I haven’t mentioned about Exodus 32 yet is how at the end of that chapter, God commands for three thousand of the men to be killed and then he sends a plague on Israel, because of their idolatry. So, you might say, ‘All they did was make a golden calf! Why would God punish them? And why would he do it even to the third and the fourth generation?’ While we don’t have all the answers for why God does the things he does, we can know that he is just. What makes ‘sin’ sin is that we seek to dethrone God. We don’t want him in charge. We want to be in charge. And this spreads from generation to generation.

So think about this: when we sin, we’re messing with the God of the universe! Not just another human-being, but God himself. But what makes this God so good is how much he is willing to give. On the cross, we see both the love of God and the justice of God meet. And we learn that God is heavy-handed with his love. When we look at what Jesus the eternal Son of God did on the cross, there is no question of God’s love and justice. To the contrary, Jesus exposes our lack of love and our injustice. It was our sin that put him there, not his. And yet, he shows us God’s perfect love and justice by taking the justice we deserve for our sins so that we can know God’s everlasting love. God is not a cheapskate. He is giving. Therefore, trust in him. Call upon him. Know him. Look upon Jesus and say, ‘My Lord, my love, my life!’ This God of love and justice is far better than anything that this world can offer. He may not be ‘cool.’ He may not be ‘fun.’ But, he satisfies the deepest of our longings. Therefore, God himself is what people need most today.

- Books
o Once again, the first two I recommend are: The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal (160 pp.) and Knowing God by J.I. Packer (270 pp.).
o For Theology (which in essence ought to be a pursuit of God) read Salvation Belongs to the LORD by John Frame (342 pp.).
- Songs
o How Deep the Father’s Love for Us by Stuart Townend
o Alas, And Did My Savior Bleed by Isaac Watts (modern version by Bob Kauflin)

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