Exodus 32: Israel comes within 30 seconds of being obliterated. Wonderfully, one man’s prayer saves the day. How?
It’s astounding. God actually consults with Moses. Roger Forster puts this helpfully: sometimes we humans have the incredible privilege of being invited to verbalize (by the Spirit) one aspect of a conversation taking place within the Trinity, the different aspects of God’s eternal nature, eg holy justice and loving mercy. Thank you Lord!
Here we learn about prayer and the huge difference it makes, as Moses `stands in the gap’ for Israel, and God’s forgiveness is secured by his prayers (32:9-14,33:12-17). God is loving and God is in control; but He has given us genuine freedom, and so groups of God’s people, churches too, can wander and die. (See the warning to an apparently ok church in Rev 2:5, and to the over-`tolerant` one in Rev 2:20ff.) But we see here how prayer can save the future of a group of God’s people – so maybe our own church? `More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of` (Tennyson): indeed the way Exodus puts it is that Moses’ prayer actually changed God’s mind (32:14) – not in the sense that God didn’t want to have mercy on Israel and had to be persuaded, but rather this kind of prayer, prompted by God the Spirit, creates a situation where He will now do something different. The big practical question then is, how do we do this? How does Moses do it here?
(Let’s pause to clarify that: when 32:14 speaks of God `relenting`, God is being described with words from human relationships; described as seen by us, just as we talk of the sun rising although the sun hasn’t changed; and just as we have to use other words that describe human beings when we want to describe God – pictures like God’s hand, God’s arm, God’s heart. It’s a reversal of God’s previous approach to Israel, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t foreknown (even foreplanned) by God. Indeed Moses pleads here what God has already said (32:13), God’s unchangeable promises. But still it shows us the incredible significance of prayer; it’s clear that if Moses hadn’t prayed, the overall situation would have been radically different, and then Israel wouldn’t have survived. (Cf James 4:2.))
So it’s an astonishing moment when this little guy stands before the Creator of the galaxies, in all His fiery glory and revealed holiness, and pleads against what God is apparently going to do. As John White says in Daring to Draw Near (a marvellous, must-read book about old testament prayers), only one thing matters here to Moses: `Determining in his mind to give his life if need be [on behalf of Israel]… It is the boldness of a bear at bay with her whelps, of a lioness whose kittens are threatened.` Have I prayed like this when sin has become rampant in my country (indeed my country is exporting it)? Why not? White answers, `Is it because we have never visited Sinai? Never seen the burning holiness of the God whose laws express [what Exodus calls] the consuming fire of his being?` Or have I never prayed for God’s judgment not to fall because really, secretly, I’ve made an image of God like I prefer Him to be, a God who doesn’t take sin seriously, rather than how He truly is; an image that is actually just a golden cow?
So what does Moses do? He doesn’t pray that Israel are not so bad after all; nor that there are special circumstances; nor, most certainly not, that God shouldn’t be judgmental. Rather, Moses lays before God His purposes that must surely be brought to completion (32:11); His glory that must be honoured, not misunderstood or maligned as would be the case if public disaster came upon this group of His people (32:12); and God’s promises that will certainly be kept (32:13). So here’s the question: If our church, nationally or locally, is in a troubling mess, do we criticize and grumble – or do we pray like this?
Then there’s something else major in these chapters. Once Moses’ first goal has been achieved, and Israel’s destiny is secured, Moses has two other things that he desperately wants. We see his passionate desire, first, for God’s presence among them (33:15,34:9); then also, to have the vision of God’s glory (33:18); two longings that mark the true servant of God.
And God agrees (33:17). It’s amazing how much our companionship genuinely means to Him. But what’s fascinating is how God answers Moses’ prayer `Show me your glory`. God speaks of two things; and we need to grasp how they are related. First, there is God’s overwhelming, physically tangible glory; and of this He says, `No one may see Me and live’ (33:20). We need to grasp what that says about the unimaginable majesty of God. But God does in fact answer Moses’ yearning plea `Show me Your glory` (v18); His reply is ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my Name, the LORD, in your presence.’ (Look at 33:18-19 and 34:5-7.) What God does to show Moses His glory is to `proclaim His Name’, that is, His wonderfully glorious character. (`I will reveal to you what I am, not how I look`, to quote John Durham’s paraphrase.) The way these two are linked – that God `proclaiming His Name` really does reveal His glory in a way that meets our deepest longings – is underlined by the new testament. It’s what we need. And at the end of Exodus 34 Moses comes down the mountain with his face radiant, shining with the very glory of God from whom he’s been hearing (vv29-30). When God quotes that in 2 Corinthians, He presents it in terms of our encountering Him in reading His Word (2 Cor 3:13-15). And that passage concludes that, as we feed on the Word, with the presence now of the Spirit, we are being `transformed into His likeness, with ever-increasing glory’(v18)…
Feel the joy of that: each of us now has, right within our reach in the Bible, the transformational revelation of God’s glory; the thing Moses so desperately longed for!
