2. Aaron was sadly ready-he feared the people.
5. "Mine eye affecteth my heart." His conscience would save itself but accredit the calf; it went on to long ages in Daniel and Bethel. Whenever we give in to the flesh in divine things, it is always naturally so, for power only can deliver from nature.
10. How beautiful han-ni-khah (leave alone). He expected Moses to love the people, and interfere, but it was a terrible word " leave me to my righteous anger."
11-14. Jehovah says "thy " according to the people's unbelief-Moses says "thy," according to faith; and so here, in the relation by the Spirit he says "His." See also chapter 34: 27, "with thee and with Israel"; they had a place by a mediator in (governmental) mercy.
31. Moses goes up specially to God here.
The character of Moses is certainly one of the most blessed in the word of God; still all man's conduct in the Scriptures is given us to judge by-to judge ourselves by—and I think I see in the breaking of the tables, man's righteousness it is true, but not a divine act—not that I think he could have done anything else then—it was surely righteous. How could he bring the precious open law of God into a camp which had already violated it, and was naked to their shame before their enemies? But I do not see that he had consulted God, in lowliness of spirit with Him, about the law, and "what am I now to do with thy law?" broken-hearted as to its honor and this result. Christ was in a different position-in the same as to Israel-but what a position He took, Himself the victim of all this! It is true He alone could, that is clear, but one feels the difference, and what a place as to the law and the condition of the people under it, He takes as victim. How, accomplishing righteousness, it sets aside the whole condition of the people by taking it in grace—this set aside all necessity of vindicating God's honor in acting as to the people—He did it gloriously, perfectly, in suffering, and accomplished all, and magnified the law and made it honorable.
I was led partly to these thoughts by the manner in which the Lord speaks always of it "which thou brakest"; He takes pains to make it the act of Moses, and it is a serious thing to break what God Himself has hewn out-the tables were the work of God. He had not consulted the Lord, though he had interceded for the people. God did not make the tables over again—Moses was now to hew them out, there was something lost; I think I see something of the same spirit in his intercession at the end of this chapter, most blessed devotedness, that which in a certain point of view the spirit of Christ must produce in us in its root and principle, that is the entire preference of God's people to self—but not the same nearness to the Lord as when he was up alone with Him, before the sin had been seen, and had excited his indignation. The effect of his hot anger seems still to cling about him in his intercession, and the Lord answers His blessed servant abruptly and shortly, according to His majesty; even in this (and not otherwise, because this blessed man was very near God) with the "froward he will use frowardness," for it was a hardy speech of Moses. Christ did it as sent—being come to do the will of God—the prince of this world had nothing in Him, but as the Father had given Him commandment, so He did; this was perfectness, divine in character, and man's place where, nothing but divine perfectness acted in Him—He alone could hold that place, but then we should hold none but obedience; thus the Lord returns, in His answer to Moses, to every man's own responsibility: " He that sins I will blot out; do thou go and lead the people according to the forgiveness I have already accorded"—for this intercession came after the forgiveness accorded on an intercession, entirely founded on God's glory and promise, not on a proposal to put himself into a place of vicarious responsibility.
In truth we have here a most important point. It was impossible to bring the law into camp-it would have been to put the law of God under the patronage of and beside a golden calf—to degrade it violated in the dust, and Him who gave it, with it. But being on earth, he cannot get out of the position of law and sin. The tables are broken, and all relation impossible—he judges the people in anger, and leaves the camp afterward. This was not God acting, after the violation of the law, according to His counsels in Christ—Christ, so to speak, when this counsel of everlasting covenant was to be accomplished, was broken-and not the tables—to make an inseparable union because founded on accomplished righteousness, and not the impossibility of association because of accomplished sin, with which the law of God could have no community. And then see the other side of this truth-the time for the accomplishment of this counsel of grace was not yet come, and therefore God does not put it into the heart of Moses on the mountain to ask: "And what am I to do now with the violated law?" but, after having broken the tables of the violated law (having received in virtue of the promise to Abraham, etc., a pardon as to God's acts of government, and afterward in hot anger broken the tables) he says: "Ye have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up to the Lord; peradventure I shall make propitiation for your sin." But the answer of God sets aside entirely the work of expiation, and casts each sinner on his own responsibility in this breaking of the tables, and proposed but rejected expiation—leaves entirely out the work of Christ, which places the Church on the ground of accomplished justice—God's justice-after a violated law.
Here God shows all grace in government-sovereignty which enables Him to spare whom He will, so that He is not forced to destroy the whole nation, but He governs, imputing to children, etc., and not holding the guilty for innocent, but He places them again under the law, which He writes anew—the commandments on tables which Moses had to make; and note here that it is this ministration which is the ministry of death and condemnation, for now it was that the veil was put on the face of Moses, to which the Apostle alludes in 2 Cor. 3
The whole of Christ's path was the inverse of Moses'; He comes down to make the expiation according to God's positive will, and presents on high the expiation accomplished, and goes up to intercede, fasts to have his extraordinary view with Satan, as Moses with the Lord.
After God has been with Moses face to face, in personal faithfulness in abandoning the camp, a nearness he never had before, he has all boldness in respect of governmental association with the Lord-but this nearness is exactly what the people cannot look at at all, his nearness in intercourse with God Himself, touching all that regarded them, for they were substantially under a violated law. Moses goes up, in a word, with a "Peradventure," which cannot be realized; each one that sins is to bear the consequence. Christ comes down to do God's will, and His offering is the accomplishment of it, Hebrews 10 (as well as keeping the law), and He goes up to present an expiation accomplished. The Church sets out on this ground; often men seek now to make grace carry on law as a rule—this was the ministration of death—grace but added to guilt, if the individual responsibility remained according to the law; and what is a rule violated? The comparison then of 2 Cor. 3 and this chapter, etc., sets this point in a most clear and striking light.
Then grace as the ground of government and actual relationship, based on mediation (for Moses had found grace as mediator, and Israel was "His” people) is most lovely. First God will come up into the midst of the people to destroy them in their humiliation and taking off their ornaments, for they were gay on leaving God. God has time, so to speak, to consider, instead of having an insult before His face, and then He will not go up with them, for their stiff-neckedness would break out again, and He would be forced to consume them—but, on grace being fully revealed—Moses demands that He should go up because they had a stiff neck, for how should he carry them up else? The only means was that God should take them entirely to Himself and possess them.
As to the act of Moses, he was in it necessarily incapable of any possibility of taking the place of Christ; as man, his devotedness to God's glory and the people was magnificent, but it was man, and absolutely impotent in the circumstances, and that is the lesson—they rest therefore, each one under his own responsibility, unhelped. God can love His people, show His grace, and those that were really saints bear, in view of the sacrifice to be offered, but there was no putting men on this ground now. Grace in government, precious as it was in the way, and understood by the saint to his heart's comfort, left the people in responsibility where they were. There is government for the saint, and responsibility for the saint, but founded on justification also—the government of God perfects life, and clears it from extraneous evil; then government, i.e., of the people, was to prove there was no justification even when that government was in grace, as all must be on God's part, seeing man is a sinner.