Josh King

The True Bride Doesn’t Settle for the House (Exodus 33:1–11)

Does the “depart” of Exodus 33:1 sound like God’s driving man out of the garden in Genesis 3? It should. If it doesn’t, then you do not know what the chief blessedness of the garden was. If it doesn’t, then you probably think Israel was getting a great deal here and don’t understand what all the tears were about.

Despite their great sin, God mercifully still gives Moses to lead the people. An angel, I would argue not the same Angel promised in chapter 23, will go before them and derive out their enemies. Further, they still get to enjoy the promised land flowing with milk and honey. It would seem that all lost in the garden and hoped for in God’s redemption and restoration will still be theirs.

So what is being denied to them? God! It is as though man having been driven from the garden is now permitted to return, only God isn’t there. Would this be disastrous news to you? If you have not seen the glories of chapters 25–31, you won’t see the disaster of Exodus 33:3-5. I’m not saying that chapters 25–31 will magically read more excitingly than the ten wonders recorded in chapters 7–12, but if upon meditating on the truths seen in chapters 25–31, you do not see that the supreme blessing and greatest glory of God’s redemption of His people is His dwelling among them, then you won’t see this as disastrous.

The greatest glory of Exodus isn’t what the people were saved from, but Who they were saved to, just as the greatest joy of marriage isn’t the leaving behind of singleness, but he embracing of intimate companionship. So, does this “depart” sound as disastrous as God’s driving man from the garden? If you think that Adam lost only life, health, and ease, then you don’t have a clue how far man fell. To have the promised land or the garden without God is worse than having the earth with no Sun. It could only be cold, dark, untethered, and lifeless. John Piper asks,

The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?

Picture a husband and wife radiant with love who build a cottage with striking intricate craftsmanship and a stunning garden. It is as though the house is a manifestation of the beauty of their love for one another. But, in a moment of immeasurable folly the spouse commits adultery. She mourns repentantly confessing and pleading with her beloved. The husband doesn’t utterly abandon her. He leaves her the house and promises provision, but he will not be with her. Will she enjoy the house? No! It will only be a continual reminder of the beloved she has sinned against and can no longer know.

Would you be happy if you got the house minus the Bridegroom? If so, you have never known Him. He is not yours, and you are not His.

The Apologist: Men’s Imaginations Don’t Grow Up, They Grow Sinful

A child may feel sure of himself as he schemes his schemes. When he was a little boy, my son used to devise great plans for fighting off the Russians if they were to come up the mountain. And he was totally serious. But if Russian tanks had ever begun to roll up out of the valley, we would know we were going to be overrun. When the force of reality strikes us with all its drive, our own imaginings are seen in their proper perspective. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

Mediated Judgment and Mercy (Exodus 32:15–35)

“You break it, you remake it.” Is this the connection between Moses’ breaking the first set of tablets, which were completely the work of God, and the second set, which God required Moses to cut? Is Moses being punished for a temper tantrum? I doubt it. When Moses makes the second set, it doesn’t speak against, but for Moses.

Just before Moses comes down we have the fullest description of the tablets (Exodus 32:15–16). This sets you up to be devastated at their being broken; but who really has broken these tablets? The tablets say, “You shall have no other gods before me.” The tablets say, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.” Who has broken the tablets? If Moses’ breaking the tablets was wrong, far better to break these tablets the way Moses did than the way Israel did. Still, I don’t believe Moses is sinfully throwing a hissy fit, and thus, neither was his making new tablets like being required to rewrite a sloppily composed essay.

Consider the following things that speak for Moses’ action. First, the very words are used to describe God’s anger (32:10), and now used for Moses’ (32:19). Second, unlike the instance in Numbers 20 where Moses does disobey God, there is no rebuke here. Third, Moses breaks the tablets at the foot of the mountain, the place where the true altar was built and their covenant with the true God was ratified. Finally, the tablets are a visible sign of the covenant. Israel has broken covenant, and now Moses throws them down as a sign of what has happened. Moses throws down the tablets of the covenant to show them what they’ve done.

Following this, further judgments are then mediated through Moses, yet, following this, he pleads with God for the people. When the people enter back into covenant through Moses’ mediation, the second set of tablets is carved by the mediator. This isn’t punishment, rather, it speaks to the necessity and blessing of mediation before God.

What we have broken, Jesus makes new. We have received something better than the sign of tablets for our covenant breaking. We have received the cup of the new covenant. Yet all the same, we should not take this sign lightly (1 Corinthians 11:27–32). Both judgment and mercy were mediated through Moses. We should not then be dumfounded that such things can be joined together in Jesus if they were united in Moses. Jesus will both save His church and purify her. All of His mediation is good and all of it is for the good of the church.

The Apologist: Not that Far Off

A sociologist has written that as computers and machines take over more and more tasks, people will have to stop being achievement-centered. Some are saying that in the next generation, the government’s chief job will be to devise ways of keeping a growing mass of people entertained, because machines will have taken their jobs.

…Entertainment so fills every cranny of our culture we can easily escape thinking. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

God Is not Unstable so Be Not Unstabled (Exodus 32:1–14)

The point of the text is not to paint God like some Roman deity. God is not moody. God isn’t temperamental or vindictive. God is not emotionally erratic and unreliable. Exodus 32 should not cause the saints to doubt God’s faithfulness, rather, just the opposite. God’s covenant faithfulness is unfailing. Everything that happens in Exodus 32 is part of God’s sovereign plan. Consider four things.

First, read this singular instance in light of the whole of Scriptures that show God as sovereign over all things. Israel’s sin and Moses intercession are both part of God’s plan.

Second, Moses has pleaded with God on the basis of God. Moses has not spoken of how good the people are. Moses has not bartered with God as Abraham did, asking that if there are just ten righteous that God would spare them. Moses pleads with God upon the basis of what God has done (Exodus 32:11), out of zeal for God’s glory (Exodus 32:12), and because of what God has promised (Exodus 32:13). This isn’t Moses changing God’s sovereign will, but instead, revealing it.

Third, God set Moses up. When God says, “let me alone (Exodus 32:10)” the implication is that if Moses does not leave, then God will not consume them. Moses doesn’t disobey God. He stays upon the basis of who God has consistently revealed Himself to be and what He has promised to do and he implores God based upon the implication of what God has threatened and who God has called him to be—an intercessor.

Fourth, Why is Moses who he is? At the beginning of this book, when Moses was first on this mountain speaking with God, he argued with God in a sinful way, offering up various excuses for not obeying God and going to Egypt to deliver God’s people. Previously, Moses argued with God in a sinful way for selfish purposes that would leave Israel in bondage. Now, he implores God in a holy way for unselfish purposes, that will preserve Israel. So who has made Moses who he is? Who does Moses look like? Into whose image is Moses being conformed? Moses looks like Jesus, which is to say, he looks like God.

The point of the tabernacle is that man is sinful, God is holy, and that a mediator and sacrifices are thus necessary. This chapter, sandwiched between the instructions for and construction of the tent, not only amplifies those themes, it unites them as the mediator puts himself forward as the sacrifice (Exodus 32:30, 32). Saints, this text should cause you to hate sin and it should show you the ugliness of sin, but it should not cause you to doubt God’s faithfulness. One better than Moses pleads for you. He died. It is finished. He rose. He is at the right hand of the Father. You are united to Him by the Spirit. It is the Father who gave Him. You cannot be cast away unless Christ be cast away, meaning you are unmovable. Oh great sinners, take comfort in your great Savior.

The Apologist: R and R

Often men have acted as though one has to choose between reformation and revival. Some call for reformation, others for revival, and they tend to look at each other with suspicion. But reformation and revival do not stand in contrast to one another; in fact, both words are related to the concept of restoration. Reformation speaks of a restoration to pure doctrine, revival of a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture, revival of a life brought into proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. The great moments in church history have come when these two restorations have occurred simultaneously. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation, and reformation is incomplete without revival. May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world in which we live may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and a Spirit-filled life. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People

No Need to Choke on Our Own Words (Exodus 31)

Whereas many are comfortable saying God “rested” on the Sabbath, I think more would squirm to say He was “refreshed” in Sabbath (Exodus 31:17). Of course we understand all this to be anthropomorphic language. We understand this, because, if it wasn’t, we couldn’t understand it. Follow?

Some people make a fuss when Scripture speaks of the strong arm of Yahweh, arguing that all man-talk of God is meaningless. This has several problems. First, man-talk is the language we know best. Second, man talk is the best creaturely language that there is to speak about God as man is made in the image of God. In theology, Spanish trumps dolphin beeps every time. Finally, such talk about man-talk being inadequate to communicate truth about God puts the greatest limits not on man, but on God. It may sound humble to say that human language can’t convey truth about the divine, but it is just the opposite. It is arrogant to think that God cannot speak in such a way as to reveal who He is to us. God knows our language better than we. He knows our ears too. There is a problem, but it’s not that God has a speech impediment, rather, our ears are morally clogged with filth.

What then is God meaning to say with the word “refreshed”? We realize that “rest” simply means that God stopped His special work of creation ex nihilo. But what of “refreshed”? The word seems more problematic; too tied to man’s weakness. Indeed, creation didn’t exhaust or deplete God in any way. God didn’t need a nap. So some venture that such anthropomorphisms are merely meant to teach us about our stance to the Sabbath. No, the reason “rest” and “refreshed,” teach us anything about our stance to the Sabbath is because of what they first say about our Creator in whose image we were made.

If a job is done poorly or partly and then rest is attempted by anyone with a modicum of character, their time off is likely to cause more anxiety than refreshment. Have you ever been ready to take a vacation only to have a fresh load of work dumped on you last minute, knowing it will be waiting for you when you return? Or, say you botch up the last job before a trip that you know has to be redone, what will your mind be on? On the seventh day God looked at His completed work and saw that it was good. God’s refreshment derived from the completion and quality of His work. “Refreshed,” should not be take to mean that creation drained God, but rather just the opposite. He had joy in it. It was done. It was very good.

The Sabbath was good news to the Jew, not simply because they abstained from their work, but because God was inviting them to enjoy His rest. He invites us into this rest in Jesus Christ. The work is done. The work was perfect. The rest is therefore refreshing.

The Apologist: Trying to Gas a Diesel

The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them. —Francis, Schaeffer, No Little People

All Concerns the Tabernacle and the Tabernacle Concerns All (Exodus 30)

When you’re going on vacation the final bits of packing might seem haphazard and chaotic, but two things could be happening.

1. Things really are a mess. You’ve run through the house last minute gathering up tidbits you either forgot to pack or now think you might need and just throw them in.

2. There has been a strategic ordering and packing up of things and you’ve simply come to remaining smaller items that could only be packed last and for which there was no room in any other bag.

God didn’t pack the tabernacle instructions like you might pack for vacation. Everything has been highly organized. Chapter 25 concerned the furniture of the tabernacle, chapter 26 the tent itself, chapter 27 the courtyard, chapter 28 the priest’s garments, and chapter 29 the priest’s consecration. Now it’s time to pack some remaining items. Remember that the chapter divisions are inserted by man. These chapter divisions have been very good in seeing some natural divisions, but we must remember that they’re divisions within a section all concerning the tabernacle. The smaller items that make up chapter 30 don’t cohere together the way the items in chapter 28 do, but they do cohere with chapter 29 the way that chapter 25 does.

How do these all things go together? The way everything in chapters 25–31 go together. All these chapters are about the tabernacle. All these chapters are packed into the same place, or rather, are about the same place.

Even if a neighbor looked in on a crazily packed family car and asked what all that randomness was about, they could reply, “Vacation.” It’s not unrelated randomness. It is all about vacation.

This chapter is neither unrelated or random. All concerns the tabernacle.

When Israel would sojourn through the wilderness, all of these things wold be packed together and carried by the Levites. All of these things relate to the tent. The tabernacle is diverse, but not because it speaks of a great many different things, but of the great depth and diversity of a single thing, Christ and His redemption—that thing which binds not only the tabernacle together, but everything together. All concerns the tabernacle, and the tabernacle concerns all. Jesus’ redemption is so big that it not only unites all the tabernacle, it also is uniting all creation as a tabernacle.

The Apologist: Consecration over Agglomeration

Quietness and peace before God are more important than any influence a position may seem to give, for we must stay in step with God to have the power of the Holy Spirit. If by taking a bigger place our quietness with God is lost, then to that extent our fellowship with Him is broken and we are living in the flesh, and the final result will not be as great, no matter how important the larger place may look in the eyes of other men or in our own eyes. Always there will be a battle, always we will be less than perfect, but if a place is too big and too active for our present spiritual condition, then it is too big.

…The final result of not being quiet before God is that less will be done, not more—no matter how much Christendom may be beating its drums or playing its trumpets for a particular activity.

…The size of the place is not important, but the consecration in that place is. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People