Grace and truth

I don’t know about in Japanese, but in English, we have some interesting slogans for products. For example, have you ever noticed this on your KFC bags or boxes? “Finger lickin’ good.”

Do you know what that means? This chicken tastes so good, you’ll want to lick the grease right off your fingers. Pretty disgusting when you think about it. Frankly, I don’t know why Japan puts that slogan on their boxes, especially considering they give you a plastic glove to wear as you eat your chicken.

Still, I will admit that I have licked my fingers in the past when eating KFC. It really is finger lickin’ good.

Other slogans are not so accurate, though. Do you know the slogan for M&Ms? It’s “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.”

The dirty little secret, though, is that if you hold M&Ms in your hand long enough, they will melt. So I wouldn’t recommend trying it.

Why am I talking about all this? Did you know that God has his own slogan that he coined for himself? They’re words he taught Moses, and you see them repeated time and again in the Bible.

What are they? Let’s look at the book of Exodus and find out.

To give you some background on this story, God had just delivered the Israelites out of Egypt where they had lived as slaves for hundreds of years. Now they were at Mount Sinai where they made a covenant with God to be his people and he their God. God gave them all the terms of the covenant including what we now call the ten commandments. And after hearing all this, the people promised on oath to keep that covenant.

But their promise lasted all of 40 days. While Moses was up on the mountain getting instructions from God, the people started to get restless. “What’s taking so long? Where’s Moses? Is he even still alive?” Eventually, they called Moses’ brother Aaron who was also the high priest. Look at what they said.

Come, make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!” (Exodus 32:1)

Amazing isn’t it? Just a month earlier they had made a covenant with God promising to be true to him. The very first terms of that covenant was, “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “You shall not make idols for yourselves to worship.” (Exodus 20:3-5)

And when they made the covenant, they had the blood of the sacrifice sprinkled on them as if to say, “If we break this covenant, we will die for it.”

Yet despite all this, now they were saying, “Aaron, make other gods for us to follow.”

What’s even more incredible is that Aaron, their high priest, said “Okay.”

No protest. No rebuke saying, “What are you guys thinking?” Just, “Okay.”

And he built them a golden calf to worship. Even worse he used God’s name, and said, “This is Yahweh. We will have a festival to him tomorrow.” Aaron had reduced the Almighty God to an idol he had made with his own hands.

So the next day the Israelites basically had their own twisted version of the kind of feast and ceremony they’d had with God a month earlier. But this time they offered themselves to this idol Aaron had made. Look at God’s response in verse 7.

The Lord spoke to Moses: “Go down at once! For your people you brought up from the land of Egypt have acted corruptly…

The Lord also said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone, so that my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” (Exodus 32:7, 9-10)

You may think that God’s response was harsh. And it was. But remember three things. First, the Israelites had promised on oath with their lives that they would follow God. And here they were shattering that oath.

Second, this wasn’t a sudden burst of anger that came from a single minor mistake. From the time that the Israelites were in Egypt to the time they were in the desert, they constantly complained against God and showed an utter lack of trust in him. Yet while Moses often got upset with them, God kept showing them grace, proving time and again that they could trust him. But by making and worshiping another god, the Israelites had now crossed a line. Moses recognized that. Three times he told Aaron and the Israelites, “This is a grave sin you have committed.” (Exodus 32:21, 30, 31)

We live in a culture here in Japan where idols are everywhere. To us, it may seem like such a small thing. But understand, to God, it is no small thing. It is a grave sin. Why? We’re making him something much less than he actually is. And in doing so, we are showing utter contempt for him. One reason God was so against idols was he was telling the people, “You don’t get to shape me into whatever kind of God you want. I am who I am. And you are to worship and honor me as I am, not as how you want me to be.”

Even today among people who call themselves Christians, many commit grave sin by not worshiping him as he has revealed himself. Instead, they worship him as they want him to be. And when they’re confronted with what God has actually said about himself, they say, “If that’s the kind of God he is, I want nothing to do with him.” Have you ever heard those kinds of words before? It is grave sin in the eyes of God. We cannot worship a God of our own imaginings. We have to worship him for who he is. Jesus put it this way:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)

The third thing to know is this: It would have been perfect justice for God to destroy the people. They had broken their blood oath. They deserved to die. But instead of immediately striking them down, God gave Moses a chance to intercede. Why? Because that’s God’s character. Throughout scripture, time and again, he warns people that judgment is coming. And he does so because he wants his people to intercede for others, and he wants people to repent. You see an example of this with Abraham in Genesis 18. You see another example of this in the book of Jonah.

And you see it here. Moses interceded, and God relented (Exodus 32:11-14).

He relented because that’s his character. That said, there was still a reckoning for what the Israelites had done. Thousands died, most likely because even after Moses came down from the mountain, they wilfully continued in their sin (Exodus 32:25-28). God is merciful. But where there is no repentance, there is also judgment. Because that’s his character too. There must be judgment and justice for unrepentant sin or God is not truly a good God. (Exodus 32:34-35)

Anyway, after everything settled down, Moses once again interceded for the people. Look at his prayer in chapter 33 verse 13.

“Now if I have indeed found favor with you, please teach me your ways, and I will know you, so that I may find favor with you. Now consider that this nation is your people.”

And he replied, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exodus 33:13-14)

That promise was huge, because for a while, God had threatened not to go with them (Exodus 33:3). But now in his grace, he said, “I will go. I will continue to be with you and lead you.”

Perhaps encouraged by the Lord’s words, Moses made one more request. Verse 18.

Then Moses said, “Please, let me see your glory.” (Exodus 33:18)

What was Moses asking for when he said, “Let me see your glory.” I think more than anything else, he was saying, “I want to see you, Lord. I’ve seen a burning bush. I’ve seen a pillar of cloud and fire. But I want to see you yourself. I want to know who you truly are.” How did God respond? Verse 19.

“I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name ‘The Lord’ before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” But he added, “You cannot see my face, for humans cannot see me and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)

In short, God said yes and no. “Yes, I will reveal myself to you more fully. I do want you to know who I am. But no, you cannot see my face. It would overwhelm you. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. You’d die.”

It seems a little strange doesn’t it? If God is so good, why would we die upon looking at him? I’m not sure. But I suspect that because of our sin, seeing a holy and perfect God would cause us to be overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and fear of punishment, even knowing his great love for us. In the Bible, whenever people had encounters with God, their first reaction was often great fear. And that was with God’s glory and holiness partially veiled. If they had seen his full glory and holiness, I suspect their hearts would have literally stopped in fear. And so God basically told Moses in the last few verses of chapter 33, “You’re not ready for that yet. But I will show you what you can handle.”

So in chapter 34, God came down in a cloud to prevent Moses from seeing his full glory. He then passed in front of him and said this:

The Lord—The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin. (Exodus 34:6-7)

Those are among the most famous words in the Bible. They are God’s personal “slogan”. And as I said before, it’s a slogan that’s repeated again and again throughout the Bible. It’s in fact the center of the Psalm we’ve been going through in this series, Psalm 103.

Take a look. Psalm 103 verses 7-8.

[God] revealed his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. (Psalm 103:7-8)

What do these words mean, though? What is God telling us about himself?

First, he is not a cold or distant God. Some of your fathers may have been that way. But our heavenly Father is not. Hide talked about that last week. God is compassionate and gracious. We hold a special place in his heart. And especially when we’re hurting, his heart goes out to us. He showed that to the people of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt. In Exodus 2, the people were groaning because of their oppression. And the Bible says, “God heard, he saw, and he knew.” (Exodus 2:24-25)

But more importantly, in his compassion he acted. David talks about this too in verse 6 of Psalm 103.

The Lord executes acts of righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

For years, the Egyptians oppressed Israel. But God acted to deliver them. He sent plagues to punish the Egyptians so they’d let Israel go. By the way, that explains something else God says that we didn’t read in Exodus 34:7.

But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. (Exodus 34:7).

If God’s going to execute justice for his people, he cannot simply let evil go unpunished. He eventually has to punish sin. Even so, you might be asking, “Why do the consequences have to extend so far?”

That’s the nature of sin. It doesn’t just affect us. It also affects others, especially those we love.

That said, God makes it clear in Exodus 20, verse 5 that he limits this curse to people who hate him. I’ve personally seen God break the curse of sin in the lives of those who love him and repent.

But notice something else. Did you notice the contrast God makes in Exodus 34? The consequences of sin pass to the third and fourth generations. But God maintains his faithful love for a thousand generations. In other words, as great as our sin and its consequences may be, his faithful love toward us is far greater.

He is so slow to anger with us but so quick to forgive our iniquity, rebellion, and sin. Do those words sound familiar? We’ve seen them in Psalm 103. He forgives our iniquity. He does not deal with us according to our sin. As far as the east is from the west, he removes our acts of rebellion from us.

But the two things that characterize God the most are those final two things he says about himself in Exodus 34. He is abounding in faithful love and truth.

Faithful love. In English Bibles you might see “love”, “lovingkindness”, “steadfast love”, “loyal love”, or “unfailing love.” The Japanese Bible translates it “grace.”

But personally, I love Hide’s translation last week: God’s unchanging, never-let-you-go covenant love. I think that perfectly captures the meaning of the Hebrew word God uses of himself. God is utterly faithful in his love toward us. And that’s a good thing because so often we are not faithful in our love toward him. That’s probably one reason why the word “grace” is used in the Japanese translation. Grace is receiving something we do not deserve. We don’t deserve God’s faithful love because we are so unfaithful to him.

The Israelites certainly didn’t deserve his faithful love. This wouldn’t be the last time they would break their covenant with God. They should have died many times over for their faithlessness to the covenant. But instead, God came to this earth as a man, and he was the one who died for their faithlessness by going to the cross. That’s unchanging, never-let-you-go covenant love.

And now God shows that same faithful love toward us. Though we sin, though we are faithless, though we often fail, his love towards us never fails. Through Jesus’ blood, he started a new covenant with us. Not one based on our faithfulness to him, but his faithfulness to us. A faithfulness, that unlike ours, is always true to his promises. That leads us to God’s second main characteristic: truth. The Hebrew word can be translated either “truth” or “faithfulness.”

They may seem a bit different in nuance but think of it this way: God is truth personified. Every word he speaks is true. And he always acts according to his word. Because of that, he is utterly reliable. We can always trust that what he says, he will do. Have you ever had people lie to you or break their promises? I have. People are so unreliable. They lie or break their promises all the time. I have too. But God never does. We can utterly trust him.

Faithful love and truth. That’s the abridged version of God’s personal slogan. Those words are a set when people describe God throughout the Old Testament. However they’re translated in your Bible, circle or highlight them here, and look for them whenever you read the Old Testament. They come up time and time again.

They also show up in the New Testament in a very important place, though you can see it better in the Japanese Bible. Look at John 1:14. In this chapter, John talks about Jesus, calling him the Word. Why the Word? Because our words express who we are. And Jesus is the visible expression of who God is. Look at what John says about him.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:14, 17)

The words translated “grace and truth” are pointing back to the words translated “faithful love and truth” back in Exodus 34. I think that’s the main reason why the Japanese translators rendered the Old Testament phrase “grace and truth.” They knew John used those words to point to Jesus. Do you remember what Moses asked God? “Let me see your glory. Let me see who you are.”

Now John says, “We have seen God’s glory. In Jesus, we have seen who God is. What is God like? Faithful love and truth. Grace and truth. That’s who God is. That’s who Jesus is.”

Do you know what’s really interesting? God told Moses, “You cannot see my face or you will die.” But one day Jesus was on a mountain with his disciples. And there, Moses got his heart’s desire. He got to see the face of God in Jesus, and he spoke to him face to face. And he saw the same thing in Jesus that God gave him just a glimpse of on Sinai: faithful love and truth. (Luke 9:28-31)

So whenever you see the words “faithful love and truth” in the Old Testament, think Jesus. Because he himself is faithful love and truth in human flesh. And he proved it by going to the cross to die for our sin, for our unfaithfulness. Now because of him, all our sins, all our failings are forgiven, and we can draw near to him. That’s the good God gospel.

So what do we do with all this? How do we respond? Do you know how I respond? I draw near.

That was something I struggled to do with my earthly father for a long time. It was so hard for me to draw near to him because it seemed like he was always angry, always accusing. But that’s not God. David says in Psalm 103:9-11,

He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. (Psalm 103:9-11)

If you feel like God is always angry at you, always disappointed in you, you’re not believing in the same God that I do, that Moses did, that David did. God is gracious and compassionate, abounding in faithful love and truth. He proved that in Jesus. He proved that in the cross. So draw near. Especially whenever you read his word, whenever you pray, whenever you worship, purposely draw near.

As I draw near, my prayer is the same as Moses’. “Lord, teach me your ways. Show me who you are. I’m not satisfied with seeing you second-hand. I want you to be more than just words in a book. More than words in a song. I want to see you. I want to know you. Show me your glory.”

And I have caught glimpses of that glory throughout my life. Not that I’ve ever seen a brilliant light or anything. But there have been times when I’ve read the Bible and his word blazed to life in my heart. There have been times in worship or prayer where I felt so close to God that I felt I could almost touch him. But I want that more.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I want to explore all God’s depths. And the thing is, I believe he wants to give me more. Because he loves me. Despite my sins. Despite my failures. Despite all the times I’ve been unfaithful and untrue. Because that’s who he is. Gracious and merciful. Slow to anger. Abounding in faithful love, in grace, and truth. Is that the God you believe in? Then draw near. And let’s cry out from our hearts, “Lord, show me your glory!”