When God’s People Sin, We Need a Priest (Exodus 32-33)
Introduction
Shortly after leaving Seminary, in the late 1940’s Tom Carson began his work in Montreal Canada. Tom was the father of well-known evangelical scholar, D.A. Carson. And, in the beginning of his ministry, Montreal was a very Catholic place. He spent a large amount of his ministry evangelizing Catholics, attempting to show them the true gospel and the true church. He would often correspond with Catholics through writing letters and sending books and copies of Scripture in the mail.
In this work, he experienced quite a lot of resistance from Catholics. There were many times when he was told that his labors were not wanted. One letter was saved from 1947, written by a lady. She started by saying, “I am writing to tell you to no longer send anything to me because we pay little attention to your gospeling.” She continues, “your letters will not stop us from seeing our priests. You don’t amount to anything in comparison with the church.” To show her disdain, she actually included in the envelope torn up bits of another letter he had sent. And later in the letter she says, “ A time will come when you will have need of a priest and you won’t have one.” You will need a priest and you won’t have one.[1]
Think about that statement: “a time is coming when you will need a priest and you won’t have one.” Is that true?
There is one part of that statement that is true. We do have need of a priest.
We will see that in the passage we are looking at today. Open your bibles to Ex 32. For many of us this is a familiar passage, the golden calf narrative. It is a narrative that disrupts seven chapters full of instructions for the tabernacle. We see the measure of each piece, its materials, its placement, its ornaments. And these prolonged descriptions are written to demonstrate the importance of the presence of God. These details highlight that, for the first time since the Garden of Eden, the creator God was going to assign his presence to a place. He chose one people out of the whole world. And he said, I will dwell with you. You will be my people. So, these chapters demonstrate Israel’s great privilege. But how do they respond.
Ex 32 begins with the nation impatiently demanding Aaron to make them a god to go before them. So, Aaron, probably out of fear, gathers together the earrings of the people. He crafts a golden calf for them. And the people say, “these are your gods, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” In front of this idol, this cow, they hold a feast which probably looks more like a college frat party than an noble banquet, full of drinking, sex, violence, revelry.
After about a month, Israel forsook her husband. Just like in that original garden, God’s people quickly rebelled against his commands. They chose death instead of life.
Just days ago, Israel had covenanted with YHWH. They said, “all that YHWH has said we will do. Now they have forgotten their husband.
And as this rebellion has been happening, Moses has been on the mountain. Look at what YHWH says. Read with me starting in Ex 32:7–10
Exodus 32:7–10 (ESV)
7 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” 9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Israel has forsaken the Lord, and they stand on the brink of collapse. And what comes next could be utter catastrophe.
In this moment, what Israel needs is a Priest. When they had sinned, they needed a priest. That is the title of this sermon: When God’s people sin, we need a priest.
This is what Moses becomes, this is the role he takes.
Specifically, he intercedes for the people. He prays for the people.
Intercession was in fact on of the Priests primary duties. Earlier, Yahweh had said to Moses,
Ex 28:29, “So Aaron [the Highpriest] shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breast piece of decision making on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the LORD.”
So, physically the Priest would bring the people before Yahweh, on his chest. And this a sign of his task, a symbol of prayer. After making a sacrifice, he would approach God with the blood and with the names, and he would intercede.
It was the priests job to stand in the gap, and a major part of that task was interceding. As we will see, this is what Moses does. He prays for the people. He comes in to stand in the gap.
This morning, we are going to focus on three times in chapters 32–33 where Moses intercedes for the people. The first starts here in v. 11. The second starts later, in v.31. And the last starts in 33:12.
The reason we are focusing here is because, as Moses intercedes for the people, he is being a priestly example for us. He is showing us what a priest is. And we need this example for two reasons.
1) Moses gives us a glimpse of Christ’s intercessory work as our current great High Priest. The whole book of Hebrews is arguing that Christ is our High Priest, better than any other priest. But listen particularly to this verse, Heb 7:25
Heb 7:25, Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Christ saving work is tied to his present intercession. As our High Priest, he is praying for us, right now. And, as we look at Moses, we get a glimpse, a shadow, of what Christ is doing, right now. When we sin, we need to remember that Christ is interceding for us. Moses helps to do that, to see Christ interceding for us.
And second, 2) His example informs and gives meaning to our intercessory prayers. 1 Peter says that believers are a kingdom of priests. We have access to the Father and we are tasked with praying for one another, with interceding. Now, Moses gives us an example of how to pray, but he also shows us that our prayers are meaningful. Moses’s example teaches us that God cares about our prayers, and that they are a means for accomplishing his glorious purposes.
This sermon will have two points. Now, from Moses’s first prayer, we will see our first point
Point 1: Moses built his intercession on what Yahweh revealed.
We see in Moses’s first prayer that he patterns his prayer on what he knows about God. Specifically, he knows God cares deeply about two things: 1) His own glory and 2) keeping his promises.
So look with me at the start Moses’s first prayer, starting in v.11–12
But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.
Yahweh cares most about his own glory.
So we see Moses praying for God’s glory. He does this by asking, “what will the nations think?” He likely remembers what God said to Pharoah through Moses,
Ex 9:16 “But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
And it was. We will see in Joshua, Rahab will say that the Canaanites hearts melted after hearing what Yahweh had done for Israel.
So, Moses says, “God, what will Egypt think? They saw Yahweh’s power. Was it just to kill them? Is Yahweh not strong enough for this.” Was he playing a giant prank, taking 600,00 slaves away from here just to kill them? Was there a god stronger than Yahweh?
Yahweh’s triumph over Egypt would be second guessed. Moses is praying for what would most glorify God. He said, God don’t do this thing because you will be less glorified.
Moses knew that Yahweh cared deeply, profoundly about his glory. But he also knew that Yahweh cared about his promises.
Yahweh cares about keeping his promises.
Look at 32:13,
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”
So Moses is praying that Yahweh would remember his promises to the people.
But this raises a question.
Question: Was God ever going to forget his promises?
It certainly looks like he was about to right here. God looks willing to destroy his people. Did he change his mind? How do we understand that?
Well here is how we should understand this. The bible reveals a sovereign God, who has ordained the beginning from the end.
Isaiah 46:9b–10, “…I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’”
So, God has ordained the end from the beginning. He has the power and the intent to do everything that he has promised. He does not change his mind, and his promises will never fail. We must believe that.
And yet, he has graciously chosen to draw humans in for accomplishing his eternal plans. We see this clearly in missions and evangelism. Do you know that God is powerful enough to provide every person in the world with a personal gospel message right now, at the same time? He could do that. Instantly. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he chose to use humans to accomplish his goal of preaching the gospel to the ends of the earth. God has drawn us in to accomplish his purposes.
Now, it is harder to understand, but the same is true about prayer. God has ordained prayer as a means to his ends, his plans. He ordained us into partnership with him and uses our prayers in accomplishing his plans. He has created us for relationship and for partnership.
In order to have this partnership, God chooses to act in ways that we understand, that that draw us in. So, he is not changing his mind about his promises. He is drawing Moses in.
And actually, I think we can see that God is prodding Moses to action. Look again at the end of v.10. What does he promise to make Moses? A great nation. Now, if we were Moses, that would have set off alarm bells. Because it would take him back to probably the most important event in the history of Israel, God’s choosing Abraham out of a pagan nation, God’s covenant with Abraham. And what is the first thing Yahweh promises Abraham?
Gen 12:1–2, “And I will make of you a great nation…,”
God’s speech pointed Moses’s mind toward his promise. He remembers the promise. And then he takes it back to God. He says, “God remember what you said? Keep your promise.”
Response: Our prayers must be word-saturated.
So, we see in Moses’s example, a clear push to pray. He shows us that prayer is valuable in God’s economy. That, in his divine wisdom, he uses our prayers.
And yet, how Moses prays should also inform the shape of our prayers. Moses built his prayers on what he knew about God. He knew that God cared most about his glory and about keeping keep his promises. These guided his prayers, and they should guide ours too. We need to build our prayers on what God has revealed in his word.
Now, this isn’t a guide to making prayers God will always answer. We are not learning a manipulation method to make every prayer answered with a yes. Rather value these things ourselves. We must have a real desire that God would keep his promises and that God would be glorified. If we kept going on to the end of Ex 33 and 34, we would see that what is driving Moses is his love for God’s glory. He wants to see God’s glory.
So, God’s desires should first shape our desires, and then they should shape our prayers. God’s desires should first shape our desires and then they should shape our prayers.
Next Story Component
Well, we see that YHWH answers his prayer. Read v.14
Ex 32:14, And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.
Now, Moses’s job as an intercessor is not done. After Moses comes down the mountain, he destroys the tablets, a sign that the people have broken the covenant. Then he destroys the calf and ends the party. He calls out Aaron, who does worse blame shifting than Adam and Eve. “The calf just came out of the fire.” Sure, it did.
Moses didn’t buy that. He gathers “all on the Lord’s side,” specifically the Levites. And together they kill 3000 Israelites. The punishment of sin is death.
But all is not forgiven. A rift still remains and Moses’s job is not done yet. Look at Ex 32:30
Ex 32:30–32, The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
This leads to our second point, which is
Point 2: Moses makes atonement by interceding in his own name.
Now, when we pray, we often end our prayers, “in Jesus’s name.” This is a traditional recognition that, without the work of Christ, we have no right to come before God. We cannot come in our own name. We need another name. And Christ has given us his, so we come to the Father in Jesus name.
But what we see here is that Moses comes in his own name. God has already demonstrated that Moses is pleasing to him. He did this when he promised to make him a great nation in v.10. That offer assumes that Moses is pleasing to him. In a sense, he doesn’t need another name.
And Moses is going to pray for this nation in his name. In effect, he will say, “Yahweh, if I am pleasing to you, hear me out.”
V.30 also tells us Moses’s goal. He is desiring to make atonement. He is saying, there is currently a rift between the people and their God. And he is taking the responsibility of a priest, to stand in the gap and mend that gap, to unite the two divided parties. This is his goal; this is what atonement is. To bring the two together.
And he does this on the basis of his own name. We can see that in two ways
First,
Moses offers himself as a sacrifice.
Look at 32:32
But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
Here, Moses is offering himself as a sacrifice. Not as an exchange, one life for another. Not substitution, but as an ultimatum. Either you can have us all, or none of us.
Now, Moses can only do this because of what God had said before. The Lord had already shown favor to Moses. Now, Moses says, if you want me, they are coming too. He is putting his life on the line.
But, Yahweh’s response is rather ominous. V.33, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.” But he continues, “but now go, lead the people…” So, was Moses’s successful or not? Has atonement been achieved or not? It seems that the answer is, “not quite.” There is still a division.
Look at the beginning of Ex 33. In v.2 YHWH says, “I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out these nations.” Ok, that sounds good. But the problem comes in v. 3. He says, go up, “but I will not go with you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff necked people.”
So, we see that atonement has not yet been achieved. There is still a division. That means that Moses’s job is not yet done. And so, Moses prays again. Jump to v.12. Moses has set up a tent of meeting. And he had to do it outside of the camp, because God could not dwell with the people.
Moses pleads on his own merit.
And here we will see the second example of him praying in his own name: Moses pleads for Israel on his own merit. We read
Ex 33:12–13 Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”
Three times he says, if I have “found favor.” He is saying, “God, you say that I found favor in your sight—that I have your approval. If that is true, please come near to me, so I can keep getting your support. And, you know, this people too has found favor in your sight. You called them your treasured possession. You remember that.”
Here is another example of Moses coming in his own name. He comes to Yahweh, to intercede. And he can only do that because he has not sinned like Israel has. While all of Israel is tainted by idolatry, Moses’s hands were clean. He was approved by God. And he takes that status and uses it to benefit his people. He is up, and, instead of exalting himself, he brings Israel up to.
Look at how YHWH responds.
Ex 33:14 “my presence will go with you and I will give you rest.”
Now, it looks like Moss has been successful. However, for whatever reason, this answer was not good enough for Moses. Because he prays again,
Ex 33:15, And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.”
Moses is persistent that God would be with them. We see that his intercession is driven by a desire for atonement. He will not rest until God again will dwell with his people.
This is accomplished finally in v.17
And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
Moses is successful, atonement is accomplished.
Now, as we consider Moses coming in his own name, we probably understand that we really cannot follow this part of Moses’s example. We cannot come in our own name.
But instead, when we look at what Moses is doing here, coming in his own name, we see a glimpse of what Christ is doing, right now.
Respond: Remember, Christ is doing the same thing right now!
After Christ died for our sins, as the perfect sacrifice, pleasing to God, he rose. And he ascended into heaven. This is what Hebrews 10:12 says
Heb 10:12, But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
Christ was the pleasing sacrifice before the Father. He purchased our pardon; he purchased God’s kindness for us. And we already quoted from Hebrews 7:25,
Heb 7:25, Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
So right now, Jesus is doing what Moses did. He comes to God the Father in his own name, because of his sacrifice and merit, and he prays to God for us. Our high priest is praying for us.
Believer, do you think about these things? That our Lord, at this very moment, is praying. He has sat down, at the right hand of God, as the eternal Lord of glory. And he is praying. And if you are a believer, he is praying for you! He is more persistent that Moses, he ever lives, he is always faithful. He is praying for you right now! If we have any hope in seeing eternity, it is only because Christ is ever living, interceding for us right now, before the Father. Just like the former priest, who carried the names of the 12 tribes before God in the tabernacle, Christ is bringing you, is bringing us up, before his Father, constantly.
The Father granted Moses prayer because Moses was pleasing to him. But how much more pleased is the Father with the Son. Is there anything the Son asks for that the Father will not give him. Absolutely not. So, if the Son is praying for us, we can have such strong assurance. My friends, we have a great and perfect high priest.
And this is a particularly encouraging word for those of us torn by sin. Israel had just fallen into egregious, disgusting, sin. . How often do we do the same. We know we should be faithful, but we fail again and again. But hear these words from 1 John.
1 John 2:1, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Fellow believer, be encouraged, be hopeful. Christ is praying for you. He is interceding for you before the Father, saying “Father, look at me, and pardon your child.” And the Father does.
Conclusion
Think back to the opening image. That lady wrote to Tom Carson, “you will need a priest and not have one.” Now, she was right in saying, we need a priest. But she was oh, so wrong, in saying he lacked one. This is a truth Tom knew well. In a radio program from that time, Tom spoke of how Christ is our advocate, our Priest. And in that program, he recited these words from the well-known hymn, Arise my Soul Arise:
Five bleeding wounds He bears received on Calvary
They pour effectual prayers they strongly plead for me
"Forgive him, O forgive, " they cry
"Forgive him, O forgive, " they cry
"Nor let that ransomed sinner die!"
Christ pleads for us on the basis of his death. So, when we have sinned, when our conscience condemns us, when the accuser points out our failures, we can remember Christ. His wounds plead for us because they show that our sins have been paid for.
And if you are here this morning and you do not know Christ, you must see that you stand condemned. You are guilty of Idolatry. Maybe you haven’t worshipped a golden calf, but you have worshipped yourself. You have made yourself the most important thing in your life. You have dethroned God, and you stand condemned.
Friend, you are like all of us. You need an advocate. Someone to pay for your sins. And Christ offers himself to you. Freely. In him you find the only priest you will ever need.
We come today to partake of the Lord’s Supper. And one of the key things we remember in the Lord’s Supper is our Union with Christ. We are united with him now, so that when the Father looks on us, he sees Christ. We are safe from the judgment of God in Christ, because of the death and resurrection of Christ. So, believer, as you partake, take heart. As we sang today, while Christ stands in heaven, no tongue can bid you to depart. Christ died that we might live. And he intercedes for that same purpose.