Sermon Notes: Exodus 33:12-23 - Jesus Our Mediator
Exodus 33:12-23 Jesus our Mediator
Israel has ruptured the relationship with the Lord, and the resulting consequence is they have separated themselves from the Lord. They have broken the covenant, and the Lord has been mighty merciful in not giving them the full measure of what they deserve.
So far, the Lord has told them he is no longer going with them to the Promised Land. He is sending them on without him. What else are they going to do? Go back to Egypt? Their sin has put them between the old proverbial rock and a hard place.
Some in the camp have voluntarily shed their trappings that were connected to the golden calf, and upon God’s command, the remainder have shed their trappings as they repent of their sin.
Moses has gone into the tent where he meets with the Lord, and we ended last week seeing an example of the relationship Israel can have with God by faith if they will believe and walk in his way of the covenant in ongoing repentance and confession.
Today, Moses in his Holy Spirit inspired account of the Exodus, takes us into the tent where he meets with the Lord and gives us an even more intimate glimpse of his time with God.
Moses serves as the mediator for Israel in his relationship with God. We learn about how to relate to God in Moses’ mediating work. Also, Moses’ work as Israel’s mediator is a prophetic ministry that God intends to point us to and bridge us to the mediating work of Jesus who is the Greater Moses. Jesus, as God in the flesh, mediates the new covenant which is the good news that will transform all who believe, and shows us how to relate to God in him.
Moses points us to Jesus and shows us some gospel riches and some insight into prayer.
NOTE: This is why so much emphasis is made in the New Testament of us being “in Christ”. In Christ we have actual access to what Moses displays in part and in shadows.
Let’s read it: Exodus 33:12-23.
The Lord gives Moses space to struggle with what has happened. V. 12-16
This dialogue with Moses and the Lord is rich. I hope as we walk through it you will grow in your desire to have such dialogue in prayer with the Lord yourself. You can. Jesus has made this fully available.
Moses is giving us an in depth look at honest, God honoring, dialogue with God.
Moses is trying to understand what has happened in the golden calf sin and how God’s response fits according to what the Lord has told him from the time he called him at the burning bush up until this moment.
Moses has learned the Lord to be faithful, merciful, just, holy, powerful, and One who is personal. Moses has learned that the Lord will save his people. Moses is learning what it means to be relational with the Lord.
Moses appeals to the Lord.
Moses enters the tent to meet with his friend and recalls to the Lord the call the Lord placed on his life to bring up the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. But that plan has now shifted from going up with them to sending some generic supernatural messenger rather than THE pre-existent Son of God, Jesus who he met in the burning bush.
Notice how Moses appeals to the Lord by recalling a conversation he has had with the Lord. We don’t have record of what Moses recalls here in the later part of verse 12 (“I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight”), but the Lord does not dispute what Moses says. So, Moses is recalling conversation he has had with the Lord that is not recorded in the text up until this point. Moses appeals to the Lord’s declaration that he knows Moses by name and has given Moses his favor.
Why would God save them and now because of their sin send them on and not go with them if Moses, who he appointed to lead them, is his friend and has his favor? That is the nature of Moses’ appeal in this prayer/fellowship time with the Lord.
Notice verse 13. Moses asks the Lord to show him more of himself so Moses can search out how to please the Lord, because he wants to, and Moses throws in there a request to consider the nation as his people he rescued from Egypt.
Moses has God’s favor, but he doesn’t throw the people under the bus. He represents them. He’s striving to bring them along into the favor he has with the Lord.
Moses again appeals to the Lord for the favor shown to him to be shown to the people.
Look at the Lord’s response in verse 14.
The Lord responds by telling Moses he will go up with him (the you is singular). So, the Lord responds to his friend with the promise he will go up with him, but Moses understands the implication of the singular “you”. God will go with him but not them.
Moses’ response in verse 15 is beautiful. It’s not that Moses didn’t hear or understand. He understood. It’s just that Moses does not consider himself apart from the nation. Moses sees himself and Israel as intricately bound together. So, he says, “If your presence will not go up with me, do not bring us up from here.”
Me and us. Wow. Moses is so dialed in to covering for and being identified with the people and the people being identified with him that the promise of God to go up with him and not the people is equal to God not going up with him at all.
Moses is saying in essence that going up with him alone is equal to not going up at all. Moses is saying that it is all of them or none of them. Why?
Because Moses is appealing to what the Lord promised already, and that was to save a whole people for himself.
NOTE: It’s not like the Lord does not remember his promise. He’s at work through his mediator to operate according to promise not law. The Father wants Moses to operate like this because it is at the heart of the gospel. Galatians has something to say about that. God builds in this appeal to promise on the part of the mediator Moses for our sake so that we see the gospel in his word before we even get to the cross. It is God the Father working in Moses who he called as mediator to show us how Jesus is the Father’s appeal to promise not the mere justice of law for salvation.
Moses ends his appeal as their mediator with one final question. That question gets to the heart of God’s intent on saving the nation not just the mediator. Remember, God’s intent was to save a people descended from Abraham who would be the missionary people of God to go to the nations who have followed the dark forces of evil from Babel and who sit under those principalities and powers as judgement for the ongoing rebellion.
If God does not save a missionary people, God aborts his eternal purpose to make sure that the descendants of the woman would crush the descendants of the serpent dragon by the sacrificial death of the Descendant of the woman, Jesus. It’s this mission that makes them distinct from the other nations. So, by God not going up, he was abandoning the mission in making a distinct missionary people.
The Father’s intent is that Moses see this and appeal to this promise he made to Abraham way back in Genesis 11:1-3.
NOTE: We should learn something about prayer right here.
Notice how God does not rebuke Moses for appealing to his word to Moses. Notice how God does not rebuke Moses for seeking understanding. Notice how Moses was not afraid to bring his appeal to God.
We’ll make application in a moment.
God has given Israel a mediator in Moses who appeals to the covenant promises for the people and the Lord responds to the mediator in favor of the people. V. 17
This is God’s plan. It is how he has chosen to reconcile a people back to himself for salvation. It just is. Look for it in the whole Bible.
The Lord promises Moses he will do what he has asked because Moses has found favor in his sight and knows him by name.
The Lord chose Moses when Moses was not looking for God. God showered mercy to Moses and not only knows Moses, but makes Moses understand that he is known by God.
Wow. Moses is known by God.
The Lord answers Moses request to go with them to the Promised Land because of his love for Moses not because Israel is good.
Because the Father loves Moses, he chooses to showers his love on Israel in loving response to Moses’ appeal to the Father’s promise.
It is important to NOT play the Lord, God the Father, against the mediator.
You have to remember that the mediator is the Lord’s idea and plan. God has promised that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. God intends to be merciful and save through a mediator, and particularly through THE Mediator. So, when the mediator pleads for the people, he is doing exactly what the Lord has ordained, and what he has called Moses to do to prepare for Jesus.
People often make the mistake of making the Father the grumpy and reluctant and angry God and the mediator merely a shield to keep the grumpy Father away from the sinners.
That is not true. I think we’ve made that clear so far.
Just to put that idea to rest with one final gospel shot, listen to Jesus tell us about this mediating work from the Father’s perspective: John 16:26-27 (ESV) 26 In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
Moses the mediator is God’s plan. And God is holy and justly angry at sin and at Israel for participating in that sin. Both facts are true.
And the fact that God ordained in eternity past to mediate his justice for sin for those who will come to him in faith with a mediator should cause you great peace, great vigilance for holiness, and a heart set on worship.
In fact, you can say that the Father, knowing how holy he, the Son, and Spirit are, provided a salvation that would include the Son mediating their own just wrath in order to save his people who believe in him by faith. THAT is the depth, width, and height of God’s love.
Moses is that chosen mediator for Israel now in this iteration of the covenant. Moses also serves to point Israel and all of creation to Jesus who is greater than Moses, and mediates a better deal now.
In Moses’ mediating work, the Lord was preparing all of creation for the coming Son of Man, Son of God, Jesus the eternal Creator to come and fulfill what Moses was just a shadow of.
In the gift of a mediator, God shows us what he does for us in Jesus, and he shows us his love for us.
God gives us a taste of what is available in fullness for those who will come to him through the Mediator Jesus. V. 18-23
The Lord promises to Moses to keep the covenant promise in spite of Israel’s breaking of the covenant. The Lord does so because he gave Moses his favor in this special gospel moment. The Lord knows Moses, and Moses is his face to face friend.
In this moment of relief, Moses has another request: “Please show me your glory.”
Moses’ eyes have seen parts of the glory of the Lord. The burning bush. The plagues. The pillar of cloud and fire. The parted sea. The clear voice of the Lord. The presence of the Lord in the tent of meeting.
Moses wants more. And the Lord does not rebuke him for it. The Lord answers his request to the extent Moses can handle it on that side of the cross and the completed work of Jesus.
So, what does the Lord do?
The Lord lets him know he’ll make his goodness pass before Moses by putting him in a cleft in the rock, cover Moses with his hand while he passes, then remove his hand so Moses can catch a glimpse of the backside of God’s glory.
He won’t let Moses see his face because it would kill him at this point.
Before the Lord shows Moses backside glory, he preaches him a sermon to prepare his heart for what he’ll see.
So, it looks like this. The Lord and Moses go to the place the Lord tells Moses is by where the Lord is manifest at the moment, and the Lord peaches to Moses, then the Lord stations Moses in a safte place, covers him from seeing what will kill him, passes by in all his glory, then removes his hand so Moses can see the backside of God’s glory.
What does God preach? Well, we don’t have the full text of the sermon, but we do have the two points of the sermon. The Lord preaches two points: 1) His name or his character in his person and being: YHWH. 2) God’s prerogative in applying grace and mercy as his divine right as the lone Creator and Sustainer of all things.
Why did God choose to preach his name and his divine right as God before showing Moses some of his glory? Probably because Moses needed to know them and record them for us to know.
You want to experience God’s glory? Know him in his person and character, and bow the knee to his sovereign prerogative in all things and trust his just goodness.
Moses as the mediator that points us to Jesus the Son of God and Son of Man who is the Mediator of the New Covenant, gives us an incomplete shadow of what happens with Jesus.
Jesus, being Yahweh in the flesh and the distinct Son of God, sees and lives in and reflects the Father’s glory fully.
Listen to John: John 1:14 (ESV) 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Listen to Jesus: John 6:43-46 (ESV) 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.
John 14:8-9 (ESV) 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV) 1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
It’s for this reason Paul will say this to the Corinthians: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 (ESV) 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
One among the many reasons Jesus is such a big deal is that when you behold Jesus in the good news, really see him in the gospel, you have seen the face of God, the full glory of God put on display.
Why do we get to see Jesus in the gospel and not be instantly vaporized? Well, for one, God is gracious and delays that death allowing us an opportunity to repent and believe. And if we won’t repent and believe after being shown the glory of God, the payout of such rejection is an eternal death that is just and right.
We will either see the glory of God in Jesus and choose life in him, or we will see the glory of God in Christ, shrug him off and receive the consequences of shrugging him off, the forever punishment of death.
Application
1. You have been shown the glory of God in the good news of the kingdom of God through the glorious mediating work of Jesus. So, you are either moved to worship, moved to repent and believe, or walk away unfazed.
Be really careful with the decision you make today.
2. Don’t be afraid to appeal to God’s word in prayer.
Listen to David’s prayer: 2 Samuel 7:28-29 (ESV) 28 And now, O Lord GOD, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. 29 Now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you, O Lord GOD, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever.”
Nehemiah 1:5-11 records Nehemiah appealing to the Lord based on his covenant promises to “remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses...”
It’s not that the Lord forgets. It is that he expects us to pray and ask for the promises, to pray for his kingdom to come and his will to be done according to his word he has given us to shape our lives and prayers. Calling out to God on the basis of what he has said and believing him to keep his word in such a way that you rest in him when you verbalize back to God his word says is praying in faith.
Prayer in faith is God’s hard-wired means of getting tapped into the power of his kingdom.
Might he do special good for us in spite of us not asking? Sure. He has divine prerogative to show mercy in spite of my failure to ask. And he invites us to ask, seek, knock, and believe him to keep his word because he is a good Father.
A very practical parenting example of calling on God to keep his word: God’s word instructs us that he gave us the work of putting names on things and people. There is something powerful about naming something as delegated authority from the Lord to us.
When you put a name on your child call on the Lord to make that name come about according to his word that we are his ambassadors to put meaning on things and people with names and call on him to make it effective. We don’t have because we don’t ask, James said.
Gabriel – Mighty one of God, thus Lord make Gabriel a mighty man of God who speaks your word. John Mark – Yahweh is gracious and warlike, thus Lord make John Mark a man who can wage war in the gracious purposes and authority of your kingdom and power for your name’s sake. Daniel – God is judge, thus Lord make Daniel to be a man who makes sound judgments as you do and be a man sought out for sound judgment.
It’s totally appropriate to call on the Lord to pull off what he promised he would pull off when we put names on people and things. As a father, I appeal to the Lord according to his word and I wait where waiting is necessary in faith resisting doubt and fear with God’s word.
Anchor your praying in God’s word and wait in faith.
3. Take advantage of the looking into the face of God in Jesus Christ every day.
I often act like the Father is far off and has left me to myself.
When Jesus told us he was sending Holy Spirit, who did we get when we believed the good news?
Listen to Jesus: John 14:23 (ESV) 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
We have the Father and the Son with us and dwelling in us in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
In Bible reading, study, prayer, and faith we have the opportunity to look into the face of God every day. Yet we will often neglect our direct access and then wonder where God is. We wonder why we are “dry” or why we don’t hear the Lord more clearly.
Act like he is with you. Talk to him. Act like he sees everything. Give him your attention.
Give those things a try. You know how to do them, it’s just that we are so steeped in our naturalism we can’t imagine ourselves communing with the unseen God by faith and it being normal.
4. Pray
Ezekiel 36:37-38 (ESV) 37 “Thus says the Lord GOD: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock. 38 Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the LORD.” Increase us Make us act holy Send us