Seeing Easter through the Smokey Shadows of Exodus

"13 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—You swore to them by Your very self and declared, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever.’” 14 So the Lord relented concerning the disaster He said He would bring on His people." -Exodus 32:13-14

The above passage has puzzled many theologians, preachers, and Christians. For a moment it would appear that God has changed his mind. But is that what is really happening here? Does God really change his mind? A tension seems to appear here in the word of God. One thing I often comfort these who are grieving or struggling to understand God's providence is "God doesn't deal in plan B, God only deals in Plan A!"  How should we think about this passage? Let me give you a few things to consider about this text.

1. Scripture teaches us that the perfections of God are unchanging. Scripture is clear that God does not change his mind (Numbers 23:19). God is perfectly Holy (Psalm 99 and Isaiah 6), He is without error and he has no equal in all of the existence of heaven and earth. Just think what horror it would be for us if God could change, because the issue would be does he change for the better or for the worse. In this passage, God's Holiness is burning against sinners. It still burns against sinners today!

2. Scripture teaches us that the purposes of God are unchanging (Psalm 33:11 and Isaiah 36). We see from God's word that he governs every detail of life and that his purposes are unchanging. In the above passage in verse 13 Moses remembers what God had promised in the past, and Moses calls God to remember. Do you think it is strange that Moses would ask God to remember something? The reason that Moses prayers and intercedes for Israel, is because this is what Moses is crated to do. God made Moses to be the mediator. The story of God is still unfolding, but we must remember that part of His plan is to send a mediator that goes before him and the sinful people His Holiness desires to crush.

3. Be Encouraged because God always provides a mediator. We see something in this prayer/plea from Moses that points us straight to the Cross of Jesus Christ. As the men of Beth-shemesh said in 1 Samuel 6:20, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God?..." God made and sent Moses for this moment in redemptive history. Moses stands before God pleading for God's people, a shadow of the true mediator Jesus Christ. Moses stands as part of God's unfolding plan to demonstrate his mercy and grace. We are reminded in Romans 8:34, "Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us."

Though these smokey shadows in Exodus, we see God both condemning Israel and providing a mediator for them. Moses stands as a flawed, sinful human mediator who points us to the mediator who will come. Moses points to the coming of a perfect mediator who will never fail to stand before God on our behalf. Praise be to God that we have a perfect, Holy, Resurrected mediator today and forever! Happy Easter!