God's Pinned Post (Exodus 34:1–9)

Introduction

The world of news media has a long-standing practice of highlighting its most important content by placing it front and centre.

Even though newspapers are somewhat outmoded today, we still speak of something being “front-page news.”

As the news world transitioned from newspapers to news websites, the principle of consistently updating the website’s front page with the most important news remained.

As we then transitioned into social media, the concept of “pinned” content became important.

Pinned content is media that is saved to the top of your page or profile to highlight its importance.

You can pin what you deem to be your most important content

so that visitors to your page can quickly and easily access it.

Sam Allberry has referred to Exodus 34:6–7,

where God reveals to Moses who he is,

as God’s “pinned tweet” because it is a text that is quoted or alluded to dozens of times in the Old Testament

(see Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalms 86:15; 103:6–14; 145:8; Joel 2:13–14; Jonah 4:2; Nahum 1:3).

If repetition highlights importance, this may be the most important thing that God has revealed about himself.

This formula teaches us, in summary form, everything we need to know about the God of the Bible.

This morning, we want to consider God’s “pinned tweet,”

in its immediate context,

to discover why it is so important and what we must glean from it.

We will do so by following Exodus 34:1–9 under four broad headings:

1. The Law We Need (v. 1)

2. The Mediator We Need (vv. 2–4)

3. The God We Need (vv. 5–7)

4. The Response We Need (vv. 8–9)

I. The Law We Need (v. 1)

The chapter opens by reminding us of the law Israel needed—and of the law we need:

Read v. 1

If you were entirely unfamiliar with the story until this point, you might wonder what “the first tablets” were that Moses “broke.”

If you are familiar with biblical timeline, you will remember that,

some forty days prior to these events, the Lord had summoned Moses to ascend Mount Sinai,

where he had given him various laws and instructions concerning the construction of a tabernacle for worship.

At the end of this time, the Lord “gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God” (31:18).

These two copies of the law were tangible representations of the covenant between God and the Israelites.

But while Moses was on the mountain, the people below were growing impatient.

Seeing that “Moses delayed to come down from the mountain,”

the people demanded that Aaron construct them a visible representation of the God who had delivered them from Egypt (32:1).

Aaron agreed and constructed a golden calf from the offerings that the people brought to him (32:2–6).

The Lord knew what was happening and instructed Moses to go back down to camp “for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves” (32:7).

God told Moses that he intended to destroy the people and build a new nation through his descendants, but Moses interceded for the people (32:8–14).

When he arrived back at camp, and saw the people’s idolatrous worship service with his own eyes,

he angrily threw the tablets on the ground, smashing them to pieces.

This was not an act of uncontrolled rage but an intentional, symbolic act to show the people that they had broken the covenant.

He destroyed the idol and restored worship, but at the cost of some three thousand lives (vv. 15–29).

The next day, Moses went back up the mountain to intercede for the people (vv. 30–35).

Chapter 33 records the people leaving Sinai

and Moses’ ongoing intercession for the people,

which brings us to the text before us.

It may be worth noting that,

while God had provided the earlier tablets, which Moses had broken,

Moses was required to provide these tablets.

If there is any significance to this fact, it is not revealed in the text.

The emphasis of the text is that God was not done with Israel.

He was prepared to pick up the broken pieces of the covenant.

The instruction for Moses to cut two new tablets was therefore a sign of hope.

The written covenant stipulations—

i.e. the Ten Commandments—

were a necessary component of that covenant.

They were the same stipulations made earlier.

Their sin had not altered God’s law in any way.

His law stood firm.

If the people were going to renew their covenant, they still needed to live by his law,

worshipping him exclusively and as he commanded;

honouring his holy name and his holy day;

respecting authority;

honouring life;

practising sexual purity;

respecting private property;

speaking with integrity;

and being satisfied with what God had given them.

Interestingly, while God said he would write on the tablets (v. 1),

ultimately Moses was required to do so (vv. 27–28).

This shows us that the divine and human authorship of Scripture are not mutually exclusive.

Is the Bible God’s word?

Yes.

Was it written by human authors?

Yes.

That’s how inspiration works.

There is a segment of Christianity today that tries to separate divine and human authorship.

They believe that the words of Jesus somehow carry greater authority than the words of Paul, Peter, or James.

We must remember that God’s word—all of it—is inspired and authoritative.

But the primary point here is that God’s people needed his word if they were going to live in covenant with him.

God’s law—as contained in the Scriptures—are not an optional extra for Christians.

God’s word is essential to faithful Christian living.

If we will be equipped for every good work, it will only happen through God’s word.

Paul tells us that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

To borrow from Warren Wiersbe, the Bible shows us

what is right (“teaching”),

what is wrong (“reproof”),

how to get right (“correction”),

and how to stay right (“training in righteousness”).

We need God’s law if we will live faithfully before him.

II. The Mediator We Need (vv. 2–4)

We see, next, something about the mediator that Israel needed—

and are thereby reminded of the mediator we need:

Read vv. 2–4

As with the first giving of the law (Exodus 19–20), the people were not allowed to approach the mountain.

It was dangerous to approach God, and so God prepared a mediator to approach him on the people’s behalf.

Only Moses was permitted to approach God, and he would do so on behalf of his people.

While it is not stated explicitly in this text,

the implication is that the warning from the previous encounter remained:

“Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death … whether beast or man, he shall not live” (19:12–13).

The penalty for approaching God without a mediator was straightforward: death.

That penalty remains today.

The Bible tells us quite plainly that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

Again, Scripture affirms, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Scripture plainly teaches that, at the day of final judgement, those who do not have a mediator to represent them “will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength” (2 Thessalonians 1:9, CSB).

God is utterly holy, and his law demands utter holiness.

He cannot allow sin to go unpunished, which puts humans in a precarious situation because “there is no one who does not sin” (1 Kings 8:46).

If we approach God in our sin, the certain result is death.

How, then, can we possibly approach God?

As Israel needed a mediator, so do we.

Moses went to God on Israel’s behalf,

and we need someone to go to God on our behalf.

But the mediator that Israel needed—Moses—is not the mediator we need,

because Moses was, like us, a sinner.

If we will have hope of eternal fellowship with God, we need a mediator who never sinned.

God provided that mediator in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is truly God, who truly became a man,

to live a perfect life on our behalf,

to die a sacrificial death on our behalf,

and to rise a victorious resurrection on our behalf.

Forty days later, he ascended to heaven where he took his throne at the right hand of his Father,

and where he “always lives to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25).

Moses was a sufficient mediator for this moment in time,

but Moses died and remains dead today.

Jesus became God’s appointed mediator who still lives today to intercede for all who come to God through him.

In our sin, we face certain and eternal death.

In Jesus Christ, we may embrace the hope of eternal life.

If we will confess our sin and embrace Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we can be confident that he will intercede on our behalf to his Father.

III. The God We Need (vv. 5–7)

Third, the text draws attention to the God we need:

Read vv. 5–7

God reveals himself as “The LORD, the LORD” or “Yahweh, Yahweh.”

This was the name by which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14),

though it was evidently known by the Patriarchs before him.

It was God’s covenant name, which reminded Israel of the covenant that he had established with them.

The name bears witness to his self-existence and self-sufficiency.

Who is God?

He is who he is.

He is not who we imagine him to be.

He does not change according to what we want him to be.

He is who he is and those who come to him must come to him as he is.

A. Defining God

But who, exactly, is he?

In what follows, God reveals seven characteristics that highlight his graciousness

and then reminds his people that he is also a holy, sin-punishing God.

It may be worth noting that there is a particular structure to this revelation of God’s character.

Some interpreters have noticed what is called a chiasm,

where a sequence of ideas is stated and then presented in reverse order,

with the central idea being the main emphasis.

We can picture it something like this:

Yahweh is:

A. merciful and gracious,

B. slow to anger,

C. abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,

B. keeping steadfast love for thousands,

A. forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

I believe it was John Piper who said that,

picturing this a different way,

we might imagine it as a volcano,

with a pair of characteristics on either side of the base of the volcano,

a pair on either side halfway up the volcano,

and then the central affirmation erupting from the top of the volcano.

REFER TO VOLCANO PICTURE ON OVERHEAD

The central, erupting thesis is that God is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

God is “merciful and gracious”

and therefore “forgiv[es] iniquity and transgression and sin”

because he is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

He is “slow to anger”

and therefore “keep[s] steadfast love for thousands”

because he is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

So, who is God?

God is “merciful.”

“Merciful” speaks of compassion or sympathy.

It shows that God’s heart is for his people

and he yearns to reach out to them when they are in need.

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him” (Psalm 103:13).

God is “gracious.”

This word speaks of undeserved favour.

No one wants what they deserve from God, however much they may demand it.

We should be deeply grateful that God does not give us what we deserve.

In his grace, God gives us what we don’t deserve:

forgiveness of sins and eternal life through Jesus Christ.

“The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

That is grace.

And grace is deeply necessary because no one can earn God’s favour by his own merit.

We need God to be gracious if we will have any hope of forgiveness and eternal life.

God is “slow to anger.”

There are certainly times when God gets angry, as the Scriptures testify.

But we are told here that he is slow to anger.

He does not fly off the handle with uncontrolled rage.

When he does get angry, it is controlled, because righteous, anger.

John Mackay says it well:

“Slow to anger” does not present the LORD as a frustrated deity who eventually loses patience and strikes out against those who have thwarted him. It rather acknowledges that the LORD is reluctant to act against his creation, even when it is in rebellion against him. He waits long to give the sinner opportunity to return in repentance. But he is not forgetful and will not condone sin. At a time of his choosing he will act decisively against it.

God’s patience has a very particular purpose:

“The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Isaiah 28:21 describes judgement as God’s “strange … deed” and “alien … work.”

He will judge, but his heart is to forgive.

So deep is his heart for forgiveness that he sent his one and only Son that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).

God does not delight in punishing sinners; he delights greatly in forgiving them through Jesus Christ.

God is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

“Steadfast love” translates the Hebrew word chesed,

which is a word that refers specifically to his covenant commitment to his people.

“Faithfulness” carries with it the idea of truthfulness

God’s covenant love is secured by the fact that he always keeps his promises.

When he enters into covenant with someone, he will follow through, because he is a God of truth.

This is the theological principle that undergirds the Reformed teaching on the perseverance (or preservation) of the saints.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39)

because when he makes a promise to us, we can be sure that he will keep it.

God “keep[s] steadfast love for thousands”

(or, as the ESV footnote suggests, “to the thousandth generation”).

“Steadfast love” once again translates chesed,

and the point here is that his chesed endures.

God’s covenant love is not so narrow that only a few benefit from it.

It spreads far and wide and lasts for thousands of generations.

His love endures.

God “forgiv[es] iniquity and transgression and sin.”

The word translated “forgiving” means to lift or carry.

The idea is that God himself carries our “iniquity and transgression and sin,”

which is exactly what he did in and through Jesus Christ.

Jesus carried our sins to the cross and died in our place so that we could experience God’s forgiveness.

To underscore how forgiving God is, he speaks of his willingness to forgive “iniquity and transgression and sin.”

While all three of these words describe sin in some form, there is a slight distinction in emphasis.

Kent Hughes highlights this distinction.

“Iniquity,” he says, means to “turn aside” from what is right and good.

“Transgression” is “willful violation of the terms of the covenant, involving not merely disobeying a rule or regulation, buy betraying the relationship one has with the covenant King” (Mackay).

“Sin” is a general term referring to any moral failure.

The point seems to be that God is prepared to forgive any and all kinds of sin

because Christ carried all and every kind of sin to the cross when he became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21).

There is no category of sin that is beyond God’s gracious forgiveness.

This is exactly the kind of God that Israel needed:

a compassionate, gracious, patient, forgiving God.

And it is the same God we need today.

We need a God who will hear our cry of distress.

We need a God who will treat us better than we deserve.

We need a God who will be patient with our grumbling and complaining.

We need a God who will forgive our sin.

The God of the Bible is just such a God.

These attributes of God are most clearly seen in the Lord Jesus Christ,

who is the one through whom God pours his compassion, grace, patience, and forgiveness on his humble, repentant people.

B. Defying God

But while God is “slow to anger”

and willing to forgive every kind of sin,

he is not willing to overlook sin.

(Yes, there is a difference between forgivingand overlooking sin!)

He “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 fourth generation.”

Many people love to hear about the God who is

graciously compassionate,

faithfully loving,

and patiently forgiving,

but that is not all there is to say about him.

If we ignore God’s revelation of his justice, we have constructed an idol.

The God of the Bible is also a God of justice who must and will punish sin.

He will not “clear the guilty.”

That is, he will not sweep unconfessed sin under the rug.

In his holiness, he must deal with sin.

According to this text, he is committed to “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”

There is likely a hint here of the truth that God deals with families.

In our context, we tend to think of the third and fourth generation as those coming after us,

and of a “family” as a husband, wife, and two children,

but in Old Testament times, families generally lived together in larger units.

A family unit in Old Testament times would include three or four generations of family members living together.

Today, we find it impossible to think that we will live with our parents well into adulthood.

Certainly, when we get married and have children, we must have a home of our own.

This idea would have been foreign to most people in the Old Testament era.

Households included easily three or four generations of family members,

with the oldest man typically considered the patriarch of the family.

In an Old Testament context, therefore,

this verse could be interpreted as God bringing discipline upon family units,

as he did with the family of Korah (Numbers 16:25–34)

and the family of Achan (Joshua 7:10–26).

But there is perhaps another principle at play here.

It may be that God visits the iniquity on succeeding generations

by allowing sinful tendencies, if left unaddressed, to be passed on to subsequent generations.

Children learn from their parents—good and bad—

and if we don’t model humble obedience, they will not learn humble obedience.

If our children hear us gossiping and backbiting, they will learn to gossip and backbite.

If our children see us bitterly withholding forgiveness, they will bitterly withhold forgiveness.

If our children see us idolising material possessions, they will learn to idolise material possessions.

In that way, our sin, apart from the grace of God, may well be “visited” on subsequent generations.

And so we see that God is a God of both grace and justice.

Progressive Christianity promotes a God of unjust love.

But the God of the Bible is a God of holy, just love.

Indeed, God’s love is most clearly displayed against the backdrop of his justice.

C. S. Lewis explains:

“Mercy, detached from justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of justice.”

What does it mean that God is loving, gracious, and merciful if we deserve love, grace, and mercy?

God’s love, grace, and mercy only become meaningful when we realise we don’t deserve them,

but that he freely lavishes these things undeservingly on us.

But how do we square God’s free grace with the revelation that he “will by no means clear the guilty”?

After all, we are all guilty before God, are we not?

Is there, then, no hope of receiving mercy?

That is where Jesus Christ enters the scene.

Jesus Christ became sin for us.

He went to the cross in our place and our guilt was poured out on him so that we are no longer guilty.

God does not overlooksin; he punishes sin.

Jesus died as a substitute for those who would believe in him.

At the cross, he was willingly punished for our sin, so that his righteousness could be given to us.

We call this “imputation”:

that our sin was placed on Christ and his righteousness placed on us.

If we are in Christ, we stand before God innocent because Christ took our guilt to the cross.

If we reject Christ, we will one day stand before God in our guilt to face his full wrath against sin.

Jesus died and rose again to deliver us from wrath

and our only hope of standing before God guiltless is to receive Christ’s offer of forgiveness through the cross.

IV. The Response We Need (vv. 8–9)

Finally, we in our text, the response we need:

Read vv. 8–9

How did Moses respond to God’s self-revelation?

With worship.

Worship is the only appropriate response to the revelation of God’s gracious, merciful, patient, forgiving character.

To worship means to bow.

Worship is an act of submission.

In worship, Moses

acknowledged Israel’s sin,

pleaded for forgiveness,

and begged God to receive the nation as his own.

He knew that this was the only way they could possibly be forgiven and escape God’s righteous judgement.

We need the same response.

Moses acknowledged that he and the people he led were “a stiff-necked people” filled with “iniquity and sin.”

We need to recognise the same.

Sin is rebellion against God’s law—

either by doing, thinking, or saying what he says we ought not to do, think, or say;

or by not doing, not thinking, or not saying those things he says we ought to do, think, or say.

We sin by transgressing God’s law and by failing to obey God’s law.

Our sin renders us guilty before God,

and he will “by no means clear the guilty.”

We face the penalty of eternal death because we have sinned against a holy God.

We need to recognise, acknowledge, and confess that.

Moses prayed that God would “pardon our iniquity and our sin”

and, indeed, our only hope in the face of guilt is pardon.

That pardon is—and always has been—exercised only in and through Christ.

In the old covenant era, sinners were pardoned by looking forward in faith to the one God would send to deal with sin (Genesis 3:15).

In the new covenant era, sinners are pardoned by looking back to the one God sent to deal with sin.

Christ is the only one in whom we can find pardon for our iniquity and sin.

Moses prayed that God would “take us for your inheritance.”

Those who have been pardoned of sin have become God’s eternal inheritance.

We have a sure, eternal hope because of our pardon.

God’s people are his unique possession.

It is fascinating to study the word “inheritance” in the Bible,

particularly as it is used in relation to God and his people.

In the Old Testament, “inheritance” is predominantly used to describe God inheriting his people.

For example, “the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob is his allotted heritage” (Deuteronomy 32:9).

Again, “They are your people and your heritage, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm” (Deuteronomy 9:29).

Yes, “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1),

but God’s people are his special inheritance.

He cares for his people in a way that is unique.

In the New Testament, on the other hand, the idea of “inheritance” is predominantly used to describe what God’s people inherit in him:

that he is our inheritance. God belongs to his people in a way that he does not belong to those who are not his people.

These two uses of “inheritance” are beautifully brought together in Jeremiah 10:16:

“Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is the one who formed all things, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; the LORD of hosts is his name.”

Notice here that God is “the portion of Jacob” even as “Israel is the tribe of his inheritance.”

Those who are pardoned belong to God, and he to them, in a special way.

When we receive forgiveness in Christ,

we become his people

and he becomes our God

in a way that is not true of unbelievers.

We enter a unique and precious relationship with him—

a relationship made possibly only in Jesus Christ.

So, here is God’s pinned post:

He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 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 fourth generation.”

Will you today recognise that

there is a law you need,

and there is a mediator you need,

and there is a God you need—

and these needs are met in Jesus Christ?

Will you therefore respond as you need to,

receiving pardon in Christ

and entering into a special relationship this God through him?

Will you then commit to living as his inheritance,

walking in obedience to him,

as he promises to be to you

a graciously compassionate,

faithfully loving,

and patiently forgiving God?

AMEN