A Great Leader

Leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.   Exodus 32:10

This was quite an offer! Put yourself in Moses’ shoes: God offers you a fresh start and the prospect of leading a whole new group of people. What would you do?

But when Moses thought about the people God had given him, he could not give them up. No doubt Moses had thought about the Passover and the death of the lamb. Perhaps he could be the substitute! He was ready to lay down his life if it meant that these people could be spared.

The next day Moses said to the people, “Perhaps I can make atonement for your sin” (Exodus 32:30, NIV). Then Moses went back to the Lord: “These people . . . have made gods of gold for themselves. But now, if you will only forgive their sin—but if not, erase my name from the record you have written!” (32:31-32).

We have a volunteer—the greatest spiritual leader in the Old Testament—ready to lay down his life for the people. But God does not accept his offer. “No deal, Moses,” he seems to say. “This is out of your league.” Moses had a murder on his record, and a man with his own sins is in no position to atone for the sins of others.

What Adam and Eve had discovered, the nation of Israel now discovers—that sin causes God to hide and withdraw his presence. Without an atonement, God “will not travel” with them to the Promised Land (Exodus 33:3). The immediate presence of God is dangerous for them, because it is a fearful thing to be in the presence of an angry God.

When the people hear they will have to face the future without God’s presence, they begin to mourn (see Exodus 33:4). They are now facing the most fundamental question in the most personal way: What will it take to bring back the presence of God?

For further reading, see Exodus 33