Prayer: Lord, we take You as our sin offering and trespass offering. Thank You for cleansing us. We praise You for opening Your Word to us, and we ask You to continue to be with us. Lord, infuse us with Your thought. Give us a clear, living word full of life supply. Defeat and shame the enemy.
In Exodus 33 and 34 God deals with His redeemed people in a special way after their great failure of making and worshipping the golden calf. This failure happened not at the beginning of their journey but in Exodus 32 after they had experienced and enjoyed many positive things given by the Lord, including the Passover, the pillar of cloud, the heavenly manna, and the living water from the cleft rock. The Passover lamb, which was for their initial salvation, typifies Christ. After they experienced Christ in type in their initial salvation, they began to follow Jehovah. In their journey they first passed through the Red Sea, which was a type of the death of Christ and dealt with their enemies. Afterward, on their journey through the wilderness they enjoyed the heavenly manna, which also typifies Christ, and the rock cleft to flow out the living water to quench their thirst, which typifies the crucified Christ flowing out the Spirit.
After the children of Israel had experienced and enjoyed all these wonderful things, they were brought to Mount Sinai as they followed the Lord in their journey. At Mount Sinai they saw something unprecedented in human history—God descended upon the mountain (19:18). They stood at the base of the mountain, and Moses, their representative, went up to the mount to stay with God. Although Mount Sinai is a negative type of the covenant of the law according to Galatians 4:24-25, Message 50 of Life-study of Exodus points out that Mount Sinai has a much more positive significance. Mount Sinai was not only where the Old Testament law was decreed; more importantly, the children of Israel were brought into the presence of God at Mount Sinai (Exo. 19:11) through sanctification (v. 10) and in resurrection (v. 11) to hear the speaking of God (v. 9). Furthermore, in fellowship with God they were brought into the knowledge of God to know the grace of God (v. 4) and the holiness of God (vv. 10-24) and to become God’s personal possession, God’s peculiar treasure (v. 5), a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation (v. 6). They stayed at Mount Sinai for a considerable length of time. Moses went up to the mountain for two periods of forty days each (24:18; 34:28), which is nearly three months. Additionally, there was the time required for the children of Israel to make all the furniture of the tabernacle and the tabernacle itself. God remained on the mount in the cloud, and manna descended every day to feed the people. What a wonderful scene this is!
In spite of all these experiences of God and of His gifts, the children of Israel made and worshipped the golden calf. They did this when they were still eating manna and in sight of the cloud on Mount Sinai. It is difficult to comprehend how it is possible that a people who had experienced and enjoyed God to such extent could make an idol to worship. They were not ignorant; their forefathers gave them much knowledge concerning God while they were there in Egypt. Nevertheless, they committed such a sin before God, even while they were enjoying His supply.
Moses, who was on the mount with God, surely did not expect this to happen, but God saw it and told Moses, “Go, get down” (32:7). Moses went down with the two tablets of the Testimony, which were inscribed by God. When Moses saw the calf and the dancing, he could not restrain himself and threw down the two tablets, shattering them. Moses could not tolerate such a terrible sin. He did not pray to God to seek His will about what to do but immediately told the sons of Levi, “Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Let each man put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each man kill his brother, and each man his companion, and each man his neighbor” (v. 27). They slew three thousand that day. Actually, there was no need for Moses to pray, because he already knew what God wanted (v. 27a). He was a man who was in God’s heart and knew God intimately. The next day Moses returned to the mountain to appease God. His heart was for Israel and even the more for God. God would not give up His rebellious people, yet there was the need of a mediator to reconcile them. Moses, who knew what was in God’s heart, was such a mediator.
God’s answer to Moses’ petition for the children of Israel comprised two main aspects: God’s mercy and God’s government (34:6-7). God is merciful, yet He is altogether righteous and orderly. God’s heart was not to give up the children of Israel but to keep and preserve them. In His mercy God wanted to forget about Israel’s sins, but God’s government would not allow Him to do this. According to His government, God should have destroyed the people, but His mercy would not allow Him to do this. To carry out what was in God’s heart for His people, both God’s mercy and God’s government had to be satisfied. The only way God could deal with His people in a way that maintained both His mercy and His government was through the Divine Trinity.
Human fathers know the difficulty of dealing with rebellious children. We love them, but we must discipline them. We have to play different roles as a loving father and a chastising father. It is no wonder that in order to describe the Trinity, early theologians chose the Latin word personae, which denotes the various masks of a stage actor.
God’s dealing with this situation presents a detailed picture concerning the Divine Trinity. As we have seen, the principle is that the New Testament contains clear words concerning the Divine Trinity, but the details are in the Old Testament. The most detailed pictures concerning the Divine Trinity are in Exodus. God’s dealing with His redeemed people in Exodus 33 and 34 after they committed the gross sin of idolatry is a special part of this picture. Jehovah could deal with His rebellious people only through the Trinity as signified by the Angel, the pillar of cloud, the cleft of the rock, the hand of Jehovah, the presence of Jehovah, and Jehovah Himself. This dealing through the Divine Trinity was primarily to preserve God’s redeemed people so that they could remain in the enjoyment of God. Message 179 of Life-study of Exodus emphasizes the enjoyment of the three feasts and the Sabbath rest. However, we also need to see that this enjoyment can be recovered and maintained only by God’s dealing through the Trinity. Once God’s people lost their enjoyment through the sin of idolatry, the only way for them to be brought back to the enjoyment of God was to be dealt with through the Divine Trinity. Thus, in Exodus 33 and 34 the Trinity is for dealing with God’s redeemed people for the continuation of their enjoyment of the Triune God. In this we can again see that the purpose of the Divine Trinity is for God to dispense Himself into us so that we may enjoy Him.