God told Moses of the judgment that must come upon the people because of their sin in worshiping the golden calf, but—blessed be His name— the judgment which we deserved has fallen upon Christ. He bore it for us, but let us remind any unsaved reader that if you continue to reject the grace of God as revealed in Christ you will surely come under His judgment. When He “visits” your sins upon you it will be a solemn day — or rather a solemn and eternal night.
God had not forgotten His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but any hope of the children of Israel getting into the land on the ground of their own faithfulness was gone. God then told Moses to lead them into the land by himself, for if God came among them in His glory there would be judgment. Moses became the mediator for the people, a figure (as we shall see later) of the true Mediator — Christ Jesus.
Remove the Ornaments
The people then, at the command of Moses, stripped themselves of their ornaments. This symbolizes that it is most necessary that the sinner take his true place as guilty if he is to get any blessing from God. Anything that might adorn him must be laid aside, for man is guilty, ruined, and undone. And even we who are saved need to remember the great distance which we were from God when He saved us. We ought to set aside anything and everything which exalts the flesh or would attempt to make it fair and beautiful. Even God-given gifts should never be used for the exaltation of self.
Out to Him
Moses then took the tabernacle and pitched it “afar off from the camp” (ch. 33:7). If God could not be among them in the camp because of their sin, faith on Moses’s part led him to pitch the tabernacle outside of it, and the glory of God appeared to him there. All those who sought the Lord went out to the “Tabernacle of the congregation” (ch. 27:21) outside the camp. Moses went back into the camp, for he was the mediator who typified Christ, who is ready to meet the sinner where he is, or even to meet the saint who is in a wrong position.
Joshua, however, a beautiful type of Christ in the midst of His people, remained outside the camp in the tabernacle of the congregation, and how sweet it is to faith to know that there is an outside place — a place of reproach — where the Lord is in the midst of His own (Hebrews 13:1313Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (Hebrews 13:13)). Most of the people, sad to say, chose to worship at their tent door, remaining in the camp, in the place where the golden calf had been chosen instead of Jehovah. How often we see the same thing today, and how many there are who, though they have found the Lord as their Saviour, fail to seek out the place where He is in the midst. They prefer to remain in the camp than to bear His reproach in the outside place.
Moses then asked the Lord to reveal to him the way by which he was to lead the people through the wilderness. He does not think of himself alone, but identifies himself with the people, calling them “Thy people” — God’s people. Moses knew that he himself had found grace in the sight of the Lord, but now he says, “I and Thy people” (ch. 5:16). May we, like Moses here, have more of the heart of Jesus, who loves His people no matter how badly they have failed. They are God’s people and He will never give them up. Let us then be willing to love and serve them for His sake until He calls us to our home above!
Further Meditation
1. What does Moses represent in this story?
2. Moses represents Christ in several different roles throughout this book of Exodus. What are they?
3. Leaving Us an Example by C. H. Brown provides some much-appreciated remarks on Moses and His service to God’s people for God’s sake.