The Tablets And The Glory

[0:00] We're continuing our series in the book of Exodus, and today we come to chapter 34, verses 1 through 7.

[0:20] So beginning in verse 1. The Lord said to Moses, Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.

[0:38] Be ready by the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you and let no one be seen all throughout the mountain.

[0:53] Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain. So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him and took in his hand two tablets of stone.

[1:10] The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity and transgression and sin, I'm sorry, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

[1:54] Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, and we pray that you would help us now as your word is open to comprehend, to understand, Lord, we pray, help us to worship you.

[2:10] We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Now just to remind you what we've seen recently, the context of what we have here, the golden calf had just happened.

[2:23] Moses had been on top of the mountain with God. He had received the Ten Commandments, and even while he's up there, they're breaking the commandments. They build a golden calf.

[2:33] They worship it. Moses comes down. He sees what they've done, and he throws the Ten Commandments down and breaks them. And so last week, we looked some at how God had revealed himself, and that was in response to God saying that he could not go among them or he would consume them.

[2:52] And Moses intercedes for them. He prays for them. And we see some of the Lord's self-revelation. That's his 33 verse 19. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord, or Yahweh.

[3:09] And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And so really we see highlighted there God's freedom in showing mercy and grace.

[3:20] What he proclaims to him is that God can be gracious and merciful to whomever he desires. Well, today we have some further revelation that he gives to Moses.

[3:33] We could see the first part as him telling Moses, here's what I'm going to reveal to you. And as we look at this, we see some of what actually happened there on the mountain. But before we jump into how God reveals himself, I want us to see first that there's a process of covenant renewal that begins here.

[3:50] And this is really important because it looked like the covenant was over. But God tells Moses to prepare for his meeting with God.

[4:04] And he was prepared by bringing with him two tablets of stone. Now you may remember that previously God had cut for him two tablets of stone.

[4:15] Now God says, Moses, you cut two tablets and bring them up. Well, I think this is more than just the fact that, think about Moses on top of the mountain hiking down carrying two tablets of stone.

[4:30] I remember hiking with some of our young children, all of the young children at some point on my back, not very pleasant. God's not saying, instead of just carrying it down, I want you to carry it up and then back down.

[4:43] It's not punishment for him. I think something's changed here. They have broken the covenant. And symbolically, the Ten Commandments are thrown down and broken.

[4:56] And now he brings them up, not quite the same as God making them. Moses makes them. And maybe even when they look at them, they would know these aren't quite the same as the first ones.

[5:09] Maybe the first ones look like polished marble, well engraved. And the other one, you see the chisel marks and it's just not the same. And so there's a reminder with these that they've broken the covenant.

[5:24] We see further evidence of this when he says, I want you to come up to the mountain alone. Now you may remember the elders came with them. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, Joshua came up on the mountain last time, but they were not allowed to ascend to the very top where God met with Moses.

[5:40] Moses, this time God says, no one but you shall be on the mountain, anywhere on the mountain. Now again, why this change? Well, Aaron was one of the ones who was involved in the sin of the golden calf.

[5:54] He made the golden calf. And so now he's not allowed to approach the mountain. God's going to renew the covenant, but he's going to do so just with Moses.

[6:06] And there are two tablets of the covenant. We've talked some about this, but the two tablets would represent the two copies of the Ten Commandments. We sometimes talk about the two tables of the law as being the first four commandments about God and the last six commandments about man.

[6:22] But that's not what's being communicated here. The two tablets each had the Ten Commandments on it. There were two copies, one for God to have and one for the Israelites to have as a reminder of the covenant they made together, which again points out the importance of Moses breaking it.

[6:38] Moses wasn't just pitching a hissy fit. He wasn't just a, maybe we don't say hissy fit in the north. He wasn't just pouting and upset and throwing the stones down.

[6:49] God's people had broken the covenant, so there was no point in keeping the tablets anymore because they were symbolic reminders of the covenant relationship with God. But now that that's broken, he symbolically, as it were, breaks the Ten Commandments because Israel's broken the covenant.

[7:08] They were no longer relevant for them because now that they've broken it, will God even relate to them in this way? And we see God's immediate response is to say, I can't come among you anymore.

[7:18] I cannot dwell with you. The tabernacle that plans out. God can't be there with them because of their sin. He would consume them. But Moses is interceded.

[7:31] And now God asked Moses to bring the tablets to the top of the mountain because God's going to renew this covenant. He's going to reestablish the covenant even though they've broken it.

[7:42] I've said already God provided the first tablets. It says 24.12, The Lord said to Moses, Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone with the law and the commandments which I have written for their instruction.

[8:02] And then that's echoed in It says 32.16. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. So again, the second tablets were not quite the same, perhaps as a reminder that the covenant had been broken.

[8:19] But what we're seeing here is that God is reestablishing relationship with his people. They've sinned. They've broken the covenant. This should be the end of the relationship. But God still desires to have relationship with his people.

[8:33] He wants to be their God and for them to be his people. There's even hope that God will again dwell with them as he reinstitutes the covenant.

[8:45] And if God might dwell with them, then maybe the plan for the tabernacle isn't out altogether yet. Maybe God still will dwell in the tabernacle in their very midst. In other words, it's a possibility that their sin has not in some way ended the possibility of God dwelling with them.

[9:03] How could that be? Again, they have a bond, a covenant that's been made.

[9:13] And they've broken the covenant, and now, obviously, they're not deserving of this. God's not owing them this. How is it that God could possibly dwell with them?

[9:25] Well, we've seen a little bit of the answer already back last Sunday. It's just 3319 that I read earlier. He says, I will proclaim before you my name, Yahweh, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

[9:41] God's expressing, he has freedom to be gracious and merciful to them, even though they've sinned against him. And we're going to see in a minute that more revelation of God speaks to that same idea of God's graciousness, of God's mercy.

[9:58] But as we think about these two tablets that represent the covenant, and the idea of Moses throwing them down because they had broken them, and then God making a new copy, and do you think Israel's going to keep the covenant from here on out?

[10:12] I mean, he had made it down the mountain before they broke it the first time. Right? I think there's very, well, we know the history. Of course they're going to sin. Of course they're going to break the covenant. It's interesting as we look at the prophecy about the new covenant, about the covenant that Jesus would institute, how it's described, for example, in Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

[10:38] We read there, it says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

[10:58] So what's the covenant he's speaking of there? It's the Mosaic Covenant, it's the Ten Commandments. And it goes on, it says, For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

[11:12] I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

[11:31] For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. And so, what we see here is a little bit of a taste of what's going to come in the new covenant.

[11:42] When Christ comes, and he has come now, we living in the new covenant, we don't have a external law written on commandments or written on stone that if we break or are no longer of relevance to us, God has replaced his covenant promise.

[11:59] He's written it not on tablets of stone but on the tablet of our heart. He's put it inside of us. It governs how we live internally by the Holy Spirit's indwelling of us.

[12:14] And it says that I will write on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. This is the desire of Israel. This is what they're wanting. For them to be God's people and for God to be their God.

[12:25] And with that means the idea that God would dwell among them. Well, God's going to do that. God's going to do that. God's going to do that. Not primarily in the person of Christ, incarnate, but in the Holy Spirit indwelling them and really convicting them of sin.

[12:41] Pointing out to them the way they should go. Helping them and leading them in the right way that they would have that law written upon their hearts. And further, there's another problem in Israel.

[12:53] All throughout the history of Israel, you have some who are part of the covenant community who are not saved. They're not trusting in the coming Messiah. There are unbelievers in terms of the Messiah even dwelling in the midst of Israel.

[13:08] In fact, at times, there's very few within Israel who are faithful to God and holding to Him. But there's a difference with this new covenant. No longer should each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord.

[13:22] Inside the covenant community, there's no need for evangelism because he says, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

[13:38] We might say an actual salvation. In the Old Testament, they were looking forward to a future salvation. They were saved the same way as us, but we live in light of the fact that those in the covenant community, they have the law written on their heart.

[13:52] Their heart has been circumcised, not their flesh. And so now they are believers who are faithful, as we as sinful people can be, to God. And God has forgiven their iniquity and He remembers their sin no more.

[14:07] And so the promise is even greater, but we see God acting graciously toward Israel and foreshadowing just how great the new covenant will be when God instituted it in the new covenant which we live under.

[14:20] But as I said earlier, God continues to reveal His attributes, so forgive me for my headings. I probably should have gone back and elaborated more, but when I started making my notes, I put God here.

[14:32] So the title for this point is God. God's attributes, His character, God's self-revelation, something like that might have been more helpful for you. So God further reveals His divine attributes.

[14:50] Remember, this is the moment where Moses is, I'm sorry, God is going by Moses. Moses is hidden in the cleft of the rock. God covers Moses with His hand. Moses sees the back glory of God as He passes by.

[15:06] And we're thinking, we talked about this last week, but we imagine that it's the sight that matters the most. What does he see of the glory of God? And notice what's written for us in our passage about what Moses saw.

[15:21] Yet nothing. There's not one mention. I think sometimes now we have people who write books that claim to have had these experiences in what they've seen and they share it.

[15:33] Moses saw a revelation of the glory of God that none of us will see. And Moses wrote nothing about it. It's very similar to what Paul says, that he knows someone who was carried up into heaven.

[15:46] And he saw these things and he wasn't allowed to speak of them. So Moses sees something of the glory of God, but what's communicated to us is not what he sees, but rather what God tells him about his character.

[16:01] That's the glory of God that's revealed to Moses. So essentially God preached a sermon to Moses. And that's more important than what he saw.

[16:11] There's a proclamation. I will proclaim my name before you. And so God, as it were, preaches to Moses. He explains the meaning of his name.

[16:24] What does it mean to be Yahweh? You may remember he did this at the burning bush and basically he got out of that, Moses got out of that, I am who I am. Tell them I am sent you.

[16:37] And so speaking to God's power, the fact that he's not constrained by anything, he can do whatever he wants, that's communicated, but now we see more. Last week we saw he could be gracious to who he desires and merciful to who he desires.

[16:54] But as we look at this, understand that God's glory is revealed in his divine perfections, in his character. That's where we see the glory of God.

[17:07] I think, much like we would imagine Moses, how awesome would it be to see God's glory? It's the message communicated to him that really expresses the glory of God, God's character.

[17:22] And what's interesting about that is God's given us that same revelation, and more than Moses had in his word. And sometimes we imagine, boy, it would be really cool to see God in his glory.

[17:38] But we don't really practice that in terms of God's glory revealed in his word. That we can know God and his glory in greater detail from his word even than a glance of his back glory.

[17:51] And this becomes a very important formula. What we see here, what God reveals about himself, it's repeated throughout the Bible.

[18:03] I tried to count up some of the occurrences and got over 20 occurrences of some form or another. One commentator, John McKay, he says this, he said, the revelation here becomes central to Israel's understanding of who God is and what he does.

[18:22] It is clearly reflected in Psalms 86, 103, 145, Numbers 14, Joel 2, Nahum 1, Nehemiah 9, and Jonah 4. There are many other allusions to this passage.

[18:35] And so, just a small expression of that, but you see some of the verses there, but all throughout the Bible, we see references back to God's revelation of his character. This is who God is.

[18:47] And so, it's important as we look at this to understand who God is and to worship him according to what he's revealed to us. And so, as we look at this, again, realize that we need to know God more than we need to see God.

[19:02] We need to know God more than we need to see God. God gives Moses exactly what he needs. He reveals his glory in a knowledge of who God is and his character and his attributes.

[19:18] And so, the passage begins in verse 6 of Exodus 34. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, or Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

[19:37] So, we see that Yahweh, the same revelation at the burning bush repeated twice now for emphasis to understand this is what's being revealed and I am speaks to that self-sufficiency, his own self-existence that God isn't dependent on anything.

[19:57] He is. God is who he is. But then it goes on and expresses some of the attributes and I'll go quickly through the list but we see that God is expressed as being merciful.

[20:16] It says, merciful and gracious. God is merciful. God cares about you. He is a God who is compassionate or sympathetic. Merciful literally means full of mercy.

[20:31] God's mercy is overflowing in him. He's a God that overflows in mercy toward his people. Another way of thinking about this is mercy is God not giving us what we deserve.

[20:47] We deserve God's judgment. God does not give us the judgment that we deserve. Instead, what does he give us? He gives us mercy. He gives us that which isn't deserved.

[20:58] In fact, he gives us what we see next is the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. As we think about gracious, we could say if mercy is not getting what we deserve, grace is getting what we don't deserve.

[21:15] Mercy, God doesn't judge us for our sin. Grace is he gives us the righteousness of Christ. He gives us heaven, that which we do not deserve, he grants to us undeserved favor.

[21:33] And so, again, this is a character of God. He overflows in mercy and grace. We see also that he is a God who is slow to anger. anger. This is one that I find hard to fully comprehend.

[21:54] I'd like to think it's all of us, but I know in my own heart that anger doesn't always come slowly. My wife and I were even talking recently, sometimes we have bad dreams, and her response is one of compassion, mine is usually one of anger.

[22:09] I wake up angry from a bad dream. But this God, our God, is slow to anger. What that means is that he's patient. Sometimes this is translated as long suffering.

[22:21] He suffers for a long time without a response of anger. He is patient. And again, when we understand God's patience, we understand it as God grants us, he gives us time for repentance.

[22:37] You know someone who's quick to anger, you say something, you set them off and it's over. There's no chance to make anything right. There's no repentance. There's no reconciliation in relationship.

[22:49] God's not like that. God is slow to anger so that there would be time for repentance. 2 Peter 3.9 says, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

[23:08] And that's speaking specifically of the delay of Christ's coming. Why hasn't Christ come yet? Why hasn't Christ returned? Because in the day that Christ returns, there will be no other chance for repentance.

[23:20] That will be the end. And God is not just being slow to keep his promise. That's not what he's doing. He's being intentionally slow for the sake of repentance, to give us time to avoid the judgment.

[23:35] God is slow to anger. And then it says abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Now, merciful, I said it means you're full of mercy, you're overflowing in mercy.

[23:46] Abounding has that same idea, right? He's abounding in steadfast. He doesn't have a little bit of love and a little bit of faithfulness. He's overflowing in his love and faithfulness.

[23:58] And that word steadfast love is in Hebrew hesed, it really means God's covenant love. God has bound himself, he's committed himself to love his people. Which you see why there's this connection between abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

[24:14] God is abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness because God's love is faithfulness to his covenant promises. God has bound himself and he will be faithful to continue to love those who are his people.

[24:29] God keeps his promise, that's what faithfulness is. God keeps on loving those to whom he has committed his love. And we even have an expression that it says loving thousands.

[24:45] The second commandment, there's a little bit of a connection here with the second commandment. Exodus 20 verses 5 and 6 says, you shall not bow down to them, this is the second commandment on idols, or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[25:13] And so verse 6 in particular we see, this is somewhat of repetition of that. God is saying, he shows steadfast love to thousands of those who love him and keep his commandments.

[25:24] And so here we see God is abounding in steadfast love. And then it also says that he is forgiving of iniquity, transgression, and sin.

[25:39] Now there are three different words here in Hebrew. I think in English, when we look at that, it probably carries much of the same meaning. I tried to read some nuances of what that might mean.

[25:52] Iniquity probably refers to some form of blasphemous turning away from God, spiritual adultery, and transgression could be that of violating someone else's property, stealing, taking something that's not yours, and sin would be the broader category of anything else that doesn't fall specifically in those categories.

[26:13] But the idea here of God forgiving iniquity, verse 7 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, the word here in Hebrew for forgiving iniquity is similar or of the same root word as that of the Hebrew word for lift or carry.

[26:36] And the idea is that God is lifting us up. He's carrying our sin away. You think about maybe Pilgrim's Progress would be helpful here, but the weight of sin on Christian's shoulder, and how when he got to the cross, that weight was taken off.

[26:52] God lifts and carries away our sin as far as the east is from the west. Our God is a God who forgives sin. Consider this in the context of Moses right now and the people of Israel.

[27:06] As he hears these attributes, God is a God who forgives sin. It had to be an encouragement to him as he thought about where they're at in their relationship with God.

[27:17] God is a God as we look at these attributes, every one of these that's spoken of here is displayed in salvation.

[27:30] The attributes that are given to us about God, what God reveals of himself is crucial for our salvation. I think even his renewal of the covenant is an expression of these attributes.

[27:49] How is it that God can renew his covenant with his people? Because of these things, because he's merciful and gracious, because he's slow to anger, he's given you time for repentance and you've expressed repentance.

[28:04] He's abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Even though you've been unfaithful, and you saw the passage we read earlier where it spoke of their unfaithfulness, even though God was a husband to them, you've been adulterous, but God is faithful.

[28:26] He forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. Even if we go back to what we saw before, God is gracious to whom he's gracious and he's merciful to whom he's merciful.

[28:37] All of these things go to the idea of salvation, forgiveness of sin. How is it that God's people can continue to have relationship with him even after they sinned?

[28:50] When, if God were in the presence of sinners, he would consume them in his holiness. How? Because this is the character of our God. Our God is a God whose grace is merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving our sin.

[29:10] And so, as I said, his renewal of the covenant is a testament to these attributes. God's going to reestablish relationship with them even though they've been unfaithful to him.

[29:21] God forgives sin. And really, when I said earlier that God goes before Moses and he preaches to Moses, he proclaims his name, what is it that he's proclaiming?

[29:35] I would argue it's essentially the gospel. That God is gracious and merciful, that he's slow to anger, that he's faithful in his steadfast love, that he forgives sin and iniquity and transgression.

[29:50] He's proclaiming the gospel to Moses. This is who I am. I'm a God of the gospel. I'm a God who's loving and caring. But then we get to one other part, God's justice.

[30:05] And so, again, in a moment of sheer brilliance, the title of our third point is justice. We read in verse 7, it says 34-7, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.

[30:37] And so, this sounded really good, didn't it, until we got to that verse, or that part of the verse, second half of part 7, verse 7. Earlier, we read the second commandment, and I said, we see a connection here with the attributes described of God, especially loving thousands, back to verse 6 of Exodus 20.

[30:57] But I read earlier, I'll read again, verse 5, says, you shall not bow down to them, idols, or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.

[31:12] And so, again, we see a repetition of this. Think about why is God repeating, whatever you want to call it, the preamble to the second commandment. It's specifically the second commandment that they have broken.

[31:26] They worship false gods. They bow the knee to other idols. They have hated God in the process. And so, can you just imagine the emotions that would be going through me if I were there that day?

[31:41] I hear the presentation of the gospel. Yes, there's hope. But, we see also that he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers, of the fathers and the children, the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

[32:01] And Moses had to be thinking that this is us. How can he forgive our guilt, our iniquity?

[32:14] Four generations? And before I address some of that, let me just say, when I was in Africa, they have something that probably isn't a struggle for us.

[32:27] But, there are some tribes that teach, and really the prosperity gospel is latched onto this, but the idea of generational curses. So, bad stuff is happening to you.

[32:39] It could be that you're poor or you're having trouble getting a job because your grandfather or great-grandfather sinned. And so, they look at a passage like this and say, see, God visits the iniquity on the third or fourth generation.

[32:52] What's specifically, I think, being dealt with here is that in that day, in that culture, they all lived in one household together. There's probably not an instance in which there's not guilt related to the whole family in this, but God's visiting upon the family.

[33:07] And we see an example of that with Korah and his family being consumed in the earth. But we also see later on the sons of Korah become those who lead in the worship.

[33:20] And so, God is still gracious with future generations. So, I think as we look at this, we don't understand this to be, well, bad things are going to happen to me because someone else sinned in my past. That's not what's being communicated to us here.

[33:32] But understanding that God is a God who righteously judged. And oftentimes, we know this, some of you come from such homes, that you know that you're raised in an ungodly home, and the tendency, naturally speaking, is for those same sins to be repeated.

[33:49] Maybe it's alcoholism, drug use, could be dishonesty. You watch your parents lying. You grow up thinking lying is normal. You get it.

[34:00] You pass it on to other generations. And so, there are ways in which sin is passed on. And there's judgment for that. But we also know the grace of the gospel that God saves us, many of us in this room, out of such families.

[34:19] And so, what's being expressed to us here is God's justice and righteousness. God can be gracious and merciful to who he desires. He's a God who's overflowing in love and mercy and grace.

[34:34] God is God's God's love and so he ignores sin. Everybody's going to heaven, he's going to sweep it under the cosmic rug.

[34:48] That has also become a popular teaching in our day. If God is a God of love, how can he judge anyone? So, whatever I do, if it's right for me, then God's going to accept me no matter what I do. But what we see communicated is that God is just and righteous. He does judge for sin.

[35:08] This is another expression of God's faithfulness. If God is faithful and he said there's consequences for sin, God's repeating here those consequences are still the case. God doesn't change. He is faithful even in his justice. Another way of thinking of this is God does not allow wrongs to go unaddressed, injustice to go unpunished. God deals with all sin, which is a very scary thought because we've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

[35:43] But as we look at this idea of God's justice, it points us to Jesus. And I didn't specifically say this before, but the gospel is in the person of Christ. And so when we see all these attributes of God and how they point us to the gospel, they point us to Christ, who is our Savior also. But I would say the same is true here.

[36:05] We understand that God says that he will punish, he will judge sin. And yet he's gracious and merciful. And how do those two things coincide? Well, for us, the answer really is Jesus.

[36:20] For the Christian, God has punished our sin on the person of Jesus Christ at the cross. God took upon himself our sin in the person of Christ at the cross. And so God's faithful.

[36:38] That sin is still judged, it's punished. But that punishment has fallen upon Christ instead of upon you if you're a Christian. And at the same time, there's a warning for us.

[36:53] I think God's God's justice is displayed in the fact of the necessity of the cross.

[37:04] That God himself had to come in human form and suffer and die for our sins that we might have salvation. It shows us just how serious are the consequences of our sin.

[37:18] But in the gospel, we understand that he suffered the punishment that we deserve. Romans 3.26 expresses it this way. It says, it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[37:36] So God is just because he punishes sin on the person of Christ. And yet he is the justifier. He is gracious. He is merciful in that he saves those who have trusted in Christ.

[37:52] But as I said earlier, we're all guilty. And if you're a Christian, because of Jesus, God is only grace and mercy for the believer.

[38:03] They get only those great attributes we like to hear of earlier because the judgment of God, his righteous judgment has fallen upon the son in your place, your substitute.

[38:19] But we understand that we're all guilty. We've all sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And apart from Jesus, the justice of God will visit us. It will fall upon us.

[38:29] But it will go punished. God is righteous and faithful. And so God's expressing his nature here.

[38:42] And it's difficult for man to understand. But Moses and Joshua and the Levites killed many in Israel because of their sin.

[38:53] God struck down others in Israel because of the sin. And yet here's God is saying, I'm gracious and merciful. He's going to show his grace and mercy to those who have lived through this judgment.

[39:06] So how is it that God can both be a God of justice and a God of mercy? It's because of Christ. But we also understand, and for any of you in this room who have not trusted in Jesus Christ, we have the warning here that God by no means will clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

[39:33] So as we look at this, we understand that God is righteous, he is just, and he is faithful. And so we cannot imagine that God's somehow just going to ignore our transgression and sin.

[39:45] It has to be dealt with. And so the only solution for us is the person of Christ. Christ. My application is very short today because my hope is that you've seen application all along.

[39:58] We've seen God's character. He's given us grounds for worship. We've seen also God's justice and judgment. I pointed already to Christ, but I want to express again that Jesus really is the revelation of God.

[40:14] We looked at this a little bit last Sunday, so I won't go too much into this, but just to say again that God's going to reveal or God does reveal to Moses his glory.

[40:26] And we see that glory revealed all the more in the person of Jesus Christ. First of all, we see it because Jesus is the Savior. And so the attributes we see of God described here, we know because Jesus is God that this is true of him, but we see it lived out in his life.

[40:46] He took upon himself our guilt and therefore our suffering. We know that God does not clear the guilty because he didn't even clear his own son.

[40:57] Not for Jesus' guilt, but because he bore our guilt, he wasn't cleared. He faced the wrath of God. But we also see that God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, that he's slow to anger, that he's patient, that he forgives iniquity and transgression and sin because of the cross.

[41:19] He's done that at the cross. He's done that through the person of the Savior, Jesus Christ. And I mentioned last week, let me say again that the transfiguration, we have an instance in which Jesus' disciples ascend to a mountain top.

[41:38] Jesus is transfigured to reveal his glory to an extent before them. And who meets them there?

[41:49] Moses and Elijah. And I think about this promise that God says, I'm going to show you my glory. And God brings Moses back to see an even greater display of the glory in the transfiguration of the sun.

[42:02] This is what was described. This is what was preached to Moses. God's saying now, here is the manifestation, the incarnation of what was preached to you there.

[42:16] This is an expression of me being slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, gracious and merciful, forgiving of sin and transgression and iniquity.

[42:29] And so as we think about these things, I want to encourage you to worship God for who he is. There are those who want to encourage that we just worship God for his love. But we see a full expression of God's character here.

[42:44] Maybe I should say a more full expression. We know it's not full. We won't fully ever comprehend who God is. But look again at our passage, verses 6 and 7.

[42:55] And I want to encourage you that as we go through the rest of our service, as we go throughout the rest of our week, that we worship God for who he is. He is a God who is merciful.

[43:07] He is a God who is gracious, who is slow to anger, who is abounding in his covenant love and faithfulness, that he keeps steadfast love for thousands, that he forgives iniquity, transgression, sin, but at the same time that he is a God who is just, that he will not clear the guilty, that he visits the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation.

[43:32] This is our God. He is just and the justifier. All of you in this room, if you will look to Christ, if you will put your trust in him, you will know him to be full of grace and mercy.

[43:46] Let's pray together. Let's pray together.