Exodus 32 Devotional

When Moses Offered Himself

“So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.”Exodus 32:14 (BSB)

While God is giving Moses plans for his dwelling, the people below decide Moses is gone. They demand gods to lead them, Aaron melts their gold earrings into a calf, and they hail it as the god who brought them out of Egypt (32:1-6). The first two commandments are broken before the tablets even reach the camp. God threatens to destroy them (32:9-10).

Moses pleads. He appeals to God's reputation before Egypt and to the oath he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and the LORD relents (32:11-14). Yet the sin is not brushed aside. The tablets are shattered, the calf is ground to powder, three thousand die, and a plague follows (32:19-20, 28, 35). Moses then asks to be blotted out of God's book if the people cannot be forgiven, and God refuses (32:32-33). Peter says Christ suffered for sins once for all, the just one dying for the unjust, so that he might lead us to God (1 Peter 3:18). Where Moses' offer had to be refused, Jesus' offering was accepted.

To think about: When you have failed, do you come to God through your own efforts to make up for it, or through the offering Jesus made?