After Moses had Aaron and his sons kill three thousand people who had supported the making of the golden calf, he said to the people, “I am going up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Exodus 32:30. Moses pleaded with the Lord to forgive the Israelites for their idolatry, telling Him to “blot out” his name from the book of life if He would not forgive them. How did this go over with God?
“Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. Go now and lead the people where I told you. Behold, my angel shall go before you: nevertheless, in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin.” Exodus 32: 33-34.
You may recall the previous meeting when Moses had interceded, and God changed His mind about destroying the people. In His mercy, God had not wiped them out, but neither had He forgiven them. Moses went again to see if he could atone for their sin. Atonement means to set things right. Moses wanted God to forgive them, to reconcile the Israelites with God. The scripture clearly says that God refused to forgive them.
We will discover more about this shortly, but notice also that God speaks very directly to Moses about the situation. To me, God says to Moses, “I am God, and will do what I do as God. You are my servant, and you are to do what I have told you to do.” While God understood Moses’ heart in attempting to atone for Israel’s sin, only God can choose the conditions for atonement and forgiveness.
Like the blow of a heavy hammer, Exodus 32:35 concludes the narrative of the golden calf incident. “Then the Lord smote the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron had made.” What was God’s punishment on Israel for their idolatry? What did He do to them?
We are not told, but we know that although He did not destroy them, His anger or wrath toward them had not abated. We don’t hear much about God’s wrath and judgment nowadays, but wrath or burning anger is as much a part of God’s character as are love, compassion, grace, and mercy. Let’s spend a few moments thinking about God’s wrath.
What is God’s wrath?
God’s wrath or anger is His response to a person’s sin. God makes the rules about what is right and wrong, what is good and bad. The Ten Commandments are the primary example of how we are to live. They are to guide our relationship with God and our fellow human beings. Any breach of these commandments is an affront to God and produces negative consequences for ourselves and others.
We are moral beings, created in God’s image, and have choices that bring God’s approval or disapproval. What makes God angry never changes; what provokes His wrath today will provoke His wrath tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. The rules are fixed. Violate the rules, and God is angry.
What had Israel done to “get on the wrong side of God?” They worshipped an idol and gave it the glory due to God. There was no evidence of repentance or regret until God “smote” them. In other words, they weren’t sorry for the sin they committed, but for the fact that they got caught.
The issue was in their hearts. After the people had rebelled against God while Moses was on the mountain, God said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.” Exodus 32:9
Obstinate. The KJV uses the word “stiffnecked” to describe their character. In his attempt to deflect from his role in their sin, Aaron told Moses, “You know the people yourself, that they are prone to evil.” Exodus 32:22. Later, in Exodus 33:3, God told Moses to inform the people that, as they continued toward the Promised Land, ” I will not go up in your midst because you are an obstinate people, lest I destroy you on the way.”
This obstinate, hard-hearted attitude was a perpetual source of God’s anger toward the Israelites. You may recall that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years without entering the Promised Land, and only two of this older generation, Joshua and Caleb, were permitted to enter.
Sadly, the Old Testament records many instances in which the “chosen” people provoked God to wrath through their rebellion and idolatry. As a result of their willful disobedience, God’s wrath came on them in various forms of punishment, including the splitting of the kingdom, and the subsequent captivity of the northern kingdom by the Babylonians in 722 B.C., and the fall of the southern kingdom to the Assyrians in 522 B.C.
We need to understand that, while God is compassionate and merciful, He is also a God of wrath and holds us accountable for breaking His laws. Our choices will bring either His blessings or His wrath.
In His great mercy and grace, God provided a sacrificial system by which the Israelites could atone for their sins through the sacrifice of an innocent, “spotless” animal. This “perfect” sacrificial animal foreshadowed the coming of Jesus, God Incarnate, who suffered the wrath of God we deserved on the cross.
Next week, we will look further into some biblical teachings about wrath, mercy, and grace.
Grace and peace to you.