The Propitiation for Our Sins

Grace Covenant Reformed Church

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We have entered the fateful month of October and as you are aware to the rest of the world,

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October means that we are quickly approaching a day where we celebrate candy and a lot of other things that we shouldn't celebrate.

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But amongst us, there is another event that occurred in the month of October that we should celebrate and it is the nailing of the 95 theses to the chapel door at Wittenberg Castle by Martin Luther.

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Luther never intended to spark the reformation that he did.

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However, it happened according to God's plan and in his providence.

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Now some 500 years prior to Luther nailing these theses, there lived a

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Benedictine monk named Bernard. Bernard was a young monk in Citeaux, France.

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And as a young monk, he was sent to another town called

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Clairvaux, France with the instructions to begin a monastery that would later become the

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Abbot at Clairvaux Bernard would eventually become the

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Abbot at Clairvaux Abbey and later in life he would be named

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Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Now Saint Bernard, not the dog, the man, was considered a pre -reformer in some ways.

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So much so that both Luther and Calvin quoted Bernard as a supporter of justification by faith and Calvin would later go on to quote

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Bernard in The Imputed Righteousness of Christ.

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Most of us sitting here today would not know the name Bernard Clairvaux except for the reality that many of his poems were later set to music and would ultimately become hymns, some of which we sing even today.

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One of those poems, entitled, and I will probably murder this,

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Salve Mundi Saluter, was later translated into German and then set to music.

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In 1720, Johann Sebastian Bach would harmonize this particular song into the hymn that we now sing.

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The original poem referenced seven different parts of Christ's body as he hung on the cross of Calvary.

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Today when we sing, these are the words which we sing. O sacred head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down, now scornfully surrounded with thorns, thine only crown.

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O sacred head, what glory, what bliss till now was thine, yet though despised and gory,

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I joy to call thee mine. What thou, my

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Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners' gain. Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.

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Lo, here I fall, my Savior, tis I deserve thy place.

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Look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.

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What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend, for this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end?

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O make me thine forever, and should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for thee.

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Be near when I am dying, O show thy cross to me, and for my succor flying, come,

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Lord, to set me free. These eyes new faith receiving from thee shall never move, for he who dies believing dies safely in thy love.

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Title of the hymn, in case you didn't know, is O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.

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One of the greatest realities that we come face to face with in the

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Word of God is the penalty for our sin.

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As we have discussed many times over, the Word of God is clear regarding this penalty, that it is death.

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Romans chapter 5 verse 12 reads, Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

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The good news is that in reality this is the bad news.

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What I just read in verse 12 is the bad news. That by one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned, that in our natural state we are all sinners by nature.

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But you see, the good news is that Christ came, that Christ lived, that Christ died, that Christ rose, and then that Christ ascended, and that Christ shall return.

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If you continue reading Paul's letter to the church at Rome, and you pick up immediately where we left off, in fact we're going to re -read that passage, and you read the entirety of what

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Paul has to say here, it becomes quite clear. Romans 5 verse 12, beginning in verse 12 down through verse 21,

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Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

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For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

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Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned, in the likeness of the trespass of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.

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But the gracious gift, this is the key, but the gracious gift is not like the transgression.

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For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the grace of the one man,

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Jesus Christ, abound to the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

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For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

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But on the other hand, the gracious gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

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For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one,

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Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

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For as through the one man's disobedience the many were appointed sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be appointed righteous.

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Now the law came in so that transgression would increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

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So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Christ Jesus our

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Lord. The reality is that the good news is that just as through death entered through one man,

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Adam, so righteousness enters through the one man,

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Christ. Last week, as we were looking at the events taking place at the foot of Mount Sinai, we saw

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Moses descend and dispense judgment on the people.

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A judgment that reminds us that there is one day that is coming where we will all stand before a righteous judge in Christ Jesus.

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And on that day, we will truly know what it means that Christ was the propitiation for our sin but for the people standing on the ground at the foot of Sinai, there was no perfect sacrifice.

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So if you will, turn with me once again to Exodus chapter 32.

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As we continue our look here, in the next few verses, we will look at 30 through 35 this morning.

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And in them, we will see the type or shadow that Moses is that would later be perfected in Christ Jesus.

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Having found your place, I ask you to now stand for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, complete, certain, and sufficient word.

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Exodus chapter 32, beginning in the 30th verse, we read these words. Now it happened on the next day that Moses said to the people,

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You yourselves have committed a great sin, but now

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I am going up to Yahweh. Perhaps I can make an atonement for your sin.

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Then Moses returned to Yahweh and said, Alas, this people has committed a great sin and they have made gods of gold for themselves.

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But now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, please blot me out from your book which you have written.

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And Yahweh said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book.

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But now go, guide the people where I told you, Behold, my angel shall go before you.

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Nevertheless, in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin. Then Yahweh smote the people because of what they did with the calf which

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Aaron had made. Our prayer this morning is adapted from Piercing Heaven, Prayers of the

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Puritans. The prayer is entitled Such a Great Ransom by Philip Doddridge.

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Our merciful and mighty Heavenly Father, as often as we are tempted to run from serving you,

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Lord, let us remember the price with which we are purchased.

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How great a price! The thought of which fills us even with secret shame, as well as admiration and love.

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Father, we know that the Son, that He has paid such a ransom for us.

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Shall we now act as if we thought it was not enough? As if He had acquired only a partial and imperfect right to us so that we might divide ourselves between Christ and strangers, between Him and His enemies, between Christ and the world.

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Father, may we be entirely yours. And may we make it our daily business, even on the very last day and hour of our lives, to glorify you with our bodies and with our spirits, which are yours.

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Lord, we await your final salvation when we are glorified with you in eternity.

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Father, while we wait, grant us strength that we will follow your commands, that we will be filled with life by so exalted a hope as that which we find in Christ.

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Help us purify ourselves even as you are pure. Lord, we ask all of these things in the precious and holy name of Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Amen. You may be seated. As we begin our study in earnest this morning, we find that the events have progressed to the very next day, and Moses has once again risen to stand before the people.

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And so you may recall last week as we spoke that Moses last stood before the people in the gate of the city.

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And I explained to you last week that the gate of the city was the place of the, or not the city, but the encampment, the gate of the encampment was the place at which all business would occur.

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And so this was the proper place to go and make a pronouncement or some kind of statement out to the population.

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And so once again, Moses enters into that area. Last week, the question that we looked at was, who is on the

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Lord's side? We saw that the

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Levites responded to Moses, and then the destruction of approximately 3 ,000 lives occurred, and then

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Moses issued his final statement to the people to set themselves apart for Yahweh.

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Now, as Moses once again comes before the people, it is imperative of us to understand both what

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Moses does do and what Moses does not do.

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So there's a positive aspect in the sense of these are the things that he does do, and then there's the negative aspect in the sense of these are the things that he did not do.

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And so as he approached and as he stood before the people, the words that he used were a form of conviction to hold them personally responsible for the sins that have been committed.

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Now in the LSB translation that I read from, Moses' statement begins with the

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English translation, you yourself. The idea being this doubling up of the pronoun in emphasizing that it is the individual themself who is ultimately responsible, but that they are not only ultimately responsible, personally responsible, individually accountable, but they are also collectively accountable.

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Now after the events of the previous day and the slaughter of the 3 ,000, it is likely that there were many of the

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Israelites who had done something similar to what we would have done, which would have been to sit down, breathe a sigh of relief that we had not been amongst those who had been punished, and think, well everything's okay.

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But Moses' declaration before the people quickly puts an end to such thoughts.

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He cries to them, you yourself have committed a great sin.

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In Paul's letter to Timothy, he writes many exhortations from a pastor to his apprentice.

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These letters contain not only for Timothy much valuable instruction, but they also contain much valuable instruction to the church, to the leadership, to the responsibility of what it means to be a faithful steward of the word of God.

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Over and over, Paul calls Timothy to remain faithful. One such passage that he finds, that we find in the second letter in the fourth chapter, that most of us are probably familiar with, begins in the first verse with these words,

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I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. Now, no matter what

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Paul says after this, no matter what comes next, the words that Paul begins this particular passage with are ones that should make us stand up and take note.

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Because literally Paul is saying, before the almighty God, this is the charge that I lay at your feet.

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And if you're not familiar with a charge, it is a set of instructions, a way of operating, an

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MO if you will, the way that you should move forward in completing whatever

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God has. And so he continues writing to Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom.

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And he just took that thing to a whole nother level. First of all, I'm charging you in front of almighty

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God, reminding you that is in front of the Lord Jesus Christ who will come to judge the quick and the dead by his kingdom, by his return, preach the word.

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I love that verse. So many people listen to that verse and they go, oh, whatever, it doesn't mean me, that's talking about preachers.

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No, it's not. It's an exhortation to preachers to preach the word, but brothers and sisters, we are all a kingdom of priests.

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We are all required to deliver the message of the word to those who are lost.

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That's your responsibility as a believer. Preach the word, be ready in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching.

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For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

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But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

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What does that got to do with Exodus? Well, it's got to do with Exodus because Moses' stance,

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Moses' statement before the people was a call to the people to understand their responsibility.

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Moses didn't back away. He simply tells the people, effectively, directly, calls them on their sin.

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That's our responsibility. True as the leadership of the church, the elders bear that responsibility for the congregation as part of their duty, but it goes beyond that.

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As I spoke last week, it is our responsibility to speak up, to stand firm, to stand strong, to speak out.

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And so Moses here doesn't sugarcoat it. He doesn't offer them a way out.

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He simply and boldly proclaims their sin.

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You yourself have committed a great sin.

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And so that is what Moses did with his words. Here's what Moses did not do because what he did not do is just as important.

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You'll notice that Moses did not go on and on and on and on. He didn't spell out to them every single thing.

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He didn't beat their heads over it. He didn't deliver an entire dissertation to the nature of the folly.

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But he also didn't coddle them. He also didn't allow excuses.

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And if you remember all the way back at the beginning of chapter 32, the excuses began. They began when the people approached

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Aaron. Remember they came to Aaron and their whole reason that they came to Aaron was for Aaron to make them a god.

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And their reason was because they don't know what's happened to Moses. And then when we moved down and Moses confronted

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Aaron last week, we talked about how Aaron also was filled with excuses.

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In fact, Aaron, excuses ranged from it, the people made me do it, kind of like we say the devil made us do it, to the point of it being

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Moses' fault because he was so long on the mountain to even the point of blaming

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God in such a way that he says, well, it must have been what was supposed to happen because I put the gold in the fire and out came an idol.

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These are all excuses that have been given. Excuses abound when sin is present.

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You can think of and I can think of a thousand reasons to justify any sin in our lives.

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Even if that means we lay the blame at God's feet himself. But here,

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Moses removes any excuse. And the emphasis comes on the personal responsibility and it is an imperative.

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It's a statement that drives in our confession of faith, the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith, the fifth chapter on divine providence deals with the reality that God is sovereign over all things.

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We have spent much time discussing the sovereignty of God. Very few in here have not experienced our conversations regarding the sovereignty of God.

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The first paragraph of the 1689 confession contains this statement,

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God, the good creator of all things in his infinite power and wisdom upholds, directs, arranges and governs all creatures and things from the greatest to the least by his perfectly wise and holy providence to the purpose for which they were created.

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Now oftentimes what we run into in our view of God's sovereignty and providence is when we come into contact with people who want to take and use that as an opportunity to blame

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God for the things that they are doing in their lives.

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Which is also why you should know your confession enough to know that if you go down to the fourth chapter of the same, fourth paragraph of the same chapter, you would read these words, the almighty power, unsearchable wisdom and infinite goodness of God are so thoroughly demonstrated in his providence that his sovereign plan includes even the first fall and every other sinful action both of angels and humans.

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God's providence over sinful action does not occur by simple permission but by a form of permission that God most wisely and powerfully limits and in other ways arranges and governs.

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Though a complex arrangement of methods he channels sinful actions to accomplish his perfectly holy purposes.

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Yet he does this in such a way that the sinfulness of their acts arise only from the creatures and not from God because God is altogether holy and righteous.

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He can neither originate nor approve of sin.

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Now we have discussed before that this confession is a summary of what

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Scripture teaches and it's always subject to Scripture. And so just as this talks about the personal responsibility, so does

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Scripture. Consider Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 4,

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Ezekiel 18 verse 20, The soul who sins will die. The son will not bear the iniquity of the father nor will the father bear the iniquity of the son.

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The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.

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Deuteronomy 24 verse 16, Each shall sons be put to death for their fathers.

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Each shall be put to death for his own son. Psalm 32 verse 5, Psalm 51 verses 3 through 4,

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So that you are justified when you speak and pure when you judge. Romans chapter 14 verses 10 through 12,

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Finally the words of Christ, recorded for us in Matthew's gospel in the 12th chapter verses 36 through 37,

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But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.

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For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned.

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You see, each of us has a personal responsibility. We certainly could go on quoting

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Scripture after Scripture. But the point is made that just as the

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Israelites standing at the foot of Sinai had a personal responsibility for the sin that they had committed, we too have a personal responsibility.

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And with that responsibility comes the wages that are due.

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The wages? The wages are death.

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But it's more than that. You see, we have the eternal wage, which is spiritual death.

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But then there's also the physical wage, the mortal wage, the physical sufferings and pains in this world that eventually, the physical death that we all face.

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And that is the bad news. That we, in our natural state, are as Ephesians 2 verses 1 through 3 describe us, dead in our transgressions and sins in which we formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

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That's the bad news. But the good news, the good news for the people of Israel is what

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Moses demonstrated here. Notice how Moses continues. You yourself have committed a great sin, but I, I am going up to Yahweh, perhaps

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I can make an atonement for your sin.

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Moses again serves as a type or a shadow of Christ.

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Moses is willing to go before the Father. He is willing to take the punishment for their sins.

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Now what we see here is an interesting thing that occurs throughout the entirety of chapter 32.

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If you recall, during the first interaction between Moses and God, while Moses was still on Sinai, God determined to consume this people.

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In fact, in Exodus 32, verse 10, he tells Moses, Now then let me alone, that my anger may burn against them, and that I may consume them.

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And we know that God shows mercy. We know that He shows grace.

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Exodus 32, verse 14. So Yahweh relented concerning the harm which

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He said He would do to His people. And again, as we dealt with these verses, there is this magnificent display of grace and mercy that is happening towards these people.

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But if God has already shown mercy, then what is the purpose of Moses' making an atonement?

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What does Moses mean when he says perhaps he can make an atonement for the people?

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So let's begin with the atonement itself, the idea of Moses making an atonement.

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Now it is likely that the mercy that God shows the people of Israel in the earlier stages of chapter 32 are seen as the penal consequences or the penal sentence, that of death, the permanent consequences.

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Think back to the words that God used. Let me alone, that my anger may burn towards them, and that I may consume them.

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This is an idea of them being utterly wiped from the face of the earth. And then that being versus the governmental consequences or the temporary punishments.

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The idea of reaping what you sow, the consequences that we all face.

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But at the end of the day, Moses' statement regarding atonement deals with the fact that all sin incurs debt and Moses is willing to pay the debt for the people.

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That's his statement. I'm going before God. I'm gonna offer to make this payment on your behalf.

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So then the question becomes, why does he use the word perhaps?

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Or the old translations would use the grand word peradventure.

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Nobody talks like that anymore, so we take that out and we add the word perhaps. They mean the same thing, that there's this uncertainty regarding whether the atonement will be allowed.

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Not whether or not Moses is willing to make it, whether or not God will accept it.

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You see the acceptability of the wage that is to be paid lies not with the one who wants to pay it, but with the one to whom it is paid.

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For example, when I was a kid, I used to collect baseball cards. And as I would collect these baseball cards,

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I would go buy these books that would tell you how much each one of these baseball cards was worth.

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But the reality is, it was only worth $100 if I could find somebody who would give me $100 for it.

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You see, no matter what I thought the value was, it was in the other person's eyes. No matter how much

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Moses wanted the atonement, was willing to pay for it, the question was, would it be acceptable in the eyes of God?

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Moses went to God knowing and understanding that none other would go.

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That there was no one else that would make this journey. Look at the words he says, now I am going.

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Not we, not y 'all. Think about the words he uses. You yourself have committed the sin, but I am the one that's going to try and make the atonement.

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This is a truth that his intent was to entreat

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God that he would allow him to take the place of the people.

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This is what it meant to be a type or a shadow, to be a symbol that points to something greater.

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And this is why we should see this verse as such a beautiful verse. You see,

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Moses in his brokenness, in his inability to fully complete it, would never have been able to accomplish this.

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But Moses is pointing forward to Christ who could.

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You see, in order for Moses to be able to serve as the atonement for the people, their sin had to be placed onto him.

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So if you go back and you recall, as we work through the tabernacle and the institution of the priesthood and the absolving of the priests of their sins and even forward as we think about the sacrificial system and the day of atonement, which just passed by the way, then the people would go forward, they would lay their hands on a scapegoat.

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That goat would receive the sins of their people. Now it was symbolic, obviously nothing transferred to the goat, but it was symbolic.

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And so the idea here was, if Moses was going to serve as the sacrifice, then he had to be able to take those sins upon himself.

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Now I want you to think through this for a moment. You and I, each one of us sitting here, has a personal weight of our own sins.

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And in truth, that personal weight of our own sins is more than we can possibly bear.

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Not only is it more than we can possibly bear, it's more than we can pay for. Because you see, the reality is, is that we are eternally guilty before an eternally holy

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God. Now imagine for just a minute, that what was required of you was to not only carry your burden of sin, not only to carry your punishment of sin, but just the person sitting next to you, no one else, just the person next to you.

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You already can't bear yours. What in the world makes us think that we could bear someone else's?

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It is enough to crush any one of us. And Moses, going before God, is looking to bear the weight of the sins of this people.

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This is why we have verse 33. Look at verse 33. God tells Moses in verse 33, whoever sinned against me,

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I will blot him out of my book. Moses, you can't handle all these people. You can't handle this sin.

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You can't take this. There is this reality of a statement regarding the personal accountability of an individual.

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Because he says, whoever sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. But it also is a statement to Moses that he cannot bear the burden.

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To bear that burden meant that Moses would have to have become a curse.

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A .W. Pink writes, he could not be made a curse for them. Only the blessed one could go to that death.

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In truth, Moses simply did not have what it took to serve the penalty.

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But he was willing to try. He was willing to lay himself down for his people.

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Verses 31 and 32 are beautiful statements.

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Verse 31, Moses goes before God and he enters into the presence of God. And he says in verse 31, then

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Moses returned to Yahweh and said, Alas, this people has committed a great sin.

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And then they have made gods of gold for themselves. But now if you will forgive their sin.

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If not, please blot me out from your book which you have written.

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Now we're not even going to address the whole your book you have written thing. Because there's too many books.

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There's too many possibilities. This is not necessarily the book of life. There are other books that are mentioned in scripture.

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And the truth is, we don't know what book ultimately that God is referring to or that Moses is referring to.

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What we are going to address, however, is Moses' statement. You notice the first thing that Moses did as he entered the presence of God was to confess the sins of the people.

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He didn't refer to them as God's people. He didn't say, Alas, your people. Moses didn't claim them as his people.

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Alas, my people. He says, Alas, this people. You see, he knew that they didn't deserve the title of your people.

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He knew that that was not something that they should receive. But he did come before God and the first thing that he did was to confess the sins of the people.

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In fact, if you study through Moses' intercessory prayers, you will see that this is not an uncommon theme.

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Moses often comes, and the first thing that he does is confess the sins of the people. But you see, this is one of the dangerous realities that we have come to in our place in some of these movements that we have seen in Christianity is this idea that we no longer need to confess.

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I've heard it worded, well, I'm not Catholic, I don't have to confess. And I don't need you to confess to me.

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Nobody in this building needs you to confess to them. You need to confess to God. In fact, it's not just need.

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It's must. Listen to me. The gospel is repent and believe. If you don't believe that you've actually committed a sin, you're not going to confess the sin and you certainly aren't going to repent from it.

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We live our lives with this idea that we no longer need to confess our sins.

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We did our thing. We made a profession of faith. We were 10 years old. We walked down an aisle.

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We signed a card. We might have even been baptized or sprinkled. We come to church.

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We read our Bible. We study. We pray. I don't need to confess my sins before God. We tell ourselves things like,

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God is love. He's already forgiven all my sins. Why do I need to confess anything? Or what good comes from telling him something that he already knows?

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Our misconception is that these actions, this confession does anything for God.

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So often we have the opinion that when we do things like this, like confess, like repent, like believe, that we're doing it for God.

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Brothers and sisters, God is self -sufficient. He doesn't need you.

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Doesn't mean he doesn't want you. It does mean he doesn't need you. And so when we do these things, we're doing them, not because it's these actions that do something for God.

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Listen, think about this whole chapter. First one, two, three, four of chapter 32,

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God himself tells Moses, Moses, go down to those people. They're making idols for themselves.

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They have already broken the first two commandments that I gave them. And Moses, they are sinning against me.

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It wasn't that God didn't know what happened. It wasn't that he wasn't aware.

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It wasn't that he needed to be reminded. What it was, was

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Moses understanding that he was submitting to God, depending on God, and recognizing that in and of ourselves, apart from God, we fall daily.

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And this is why we confess, that Moses demonstrates before God what he expressed before the people.

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In his words to the people, perhaps I can make an atonement. They are reflected in the words, but now if you will forgive.

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I love this clause. Look at the clause for just a moment.

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Moses says, but now if you will forgive. And his words fail him.

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Brothers and sisters, it's right here that our words should fail us. Lord, if you will forgive me.

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Well, what are you going to say if not? It's not as if Moses could say, well, you know, it's okay.

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I've done this, or these people have done this, but Lord, if you'll forgive them, then they'll promise to never be bad again.

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How many of you have made statements like that, right? God, if you do this, I'll do this.

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Moses can't stand certainly on that. He can't even be apart from them 40 days without them sinning.

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But it goes beyond that. Moses realizes that not only is he inadequate, but also the people are inadequate.

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He knew that he couldn't be made a curse for them.

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He couldn't bear the weight. He had no righteousness of his own that would be sufficient before God.

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Think about this. Moses is standing in the very presence of the thrice holy

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God. What claim does he have?

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What claim do you have? Why do you think

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Paul wrote, I have no boast but that of Christ and him crucified?

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Because that's the only claim he had. That's the only claim any of us have. But what a beautiful claim it is.

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Listen, this is the type that Moses is. He points forward to Christ, but shadows and tights aren't fulfillment.

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They aren't perfection. So he points us forward to Christ who is the perfection, who is the fulfillment.

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He is the one who could have taken the sins. He is the one who could have borne them to the cross.

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He is the one who suffered fully under the wrath of almighty God and still rose victorious on the third day.

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The Holy Spirit used the pen of Paul to write one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture.

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2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. And he made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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There's a little known Puritan by the name of Obadiah Grewe.

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Obadiah wrote a small book entitled The Lord Our Righteousness. Christ is the righteousness of a sinner before God.

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I love Puritan writers. They don't shorten any titles. It's like you get the full thing. If you don't know what the book is when you pick it up, it's your fault.

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You didn't read. So we know that this passage deals with the righteousness of Christ.

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That Christ is the righteousness of a sinner before God. And Obadiah Grewe wrote this regarding this particular passage in 2

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Corinthians 5, verse 21. He, being Christ, was so not by having any sin in him, but by having all sin imputed to him.

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Now you may think, well that's kind of weird sounding. And it's a very subtle distinction.

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But it's an important distinction. Because what it does, it says that Christ, the perfect, spotless lamb of God, had no sin.

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And because he had no sin, because he was perfect, because he was spotless, because he was without blemish, he was able to take the sins of his people, to have them imputed to himself.

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And then to impute to us his righteousness by faith.

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Unlike Moses, Christ could finish the sentence. All Moses could say is, if you forgive them, but if not,

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I'll pour myself at your feet, I'll take the hit for them. But he has no other way to finish.

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Christ completes it. He could finish, he could unequivocally state in the presence of the

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Almighty Father, forgive their sin, place it on me, I will give them my righteousness so that they stand right and holy before you.

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John's first letter, in the fourth chapter, he wrote these words in verse 10,

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In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

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That word, propitiation, there it is, your theological word for the day. It's a five dollar word that means that he paid your debt.

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He took the punishment intended for you. He paid the wages that you could not pay.

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As this account in Exodus chapter 32 closes out, Yahweh says to Moses in the last two verses,

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Go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angels shall go before you.

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Nevertheless, in the day when I punish, I will punish them for their sin. And then it says,

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Yahweh struck the people, or smote the people, because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made. Now interestingly enough, we don't have a clue what the reality of that smiting is.

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There are many theories, but we know that God smote them. What that tells us is, is that even after mercy was shown, even after grace is poured out, sin still carries a consequence.

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The golden calf that started all of this had been ground to dust.

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The sword of justice had passed through the camp, and now in some way, the arm of the

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Almighty has fallen upon them. All of these things are governmental consequences of sin.

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Temporal judgments, temporal things that remind us, while forgiveness removes the eternal penalty, sin still bears fruit in this life.

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Yet in the midst of wrath, God still speaks of this angel who would go before them.

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In the midst of the wrath, He still shows that grace glimmers against the backdrop of judgment.

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That God's justice is not canceled by His mercy, but His mercy triumphs through His justice, and the one who would come, the true mediator,

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Christ Jesus. Moses could not bear the people's guilt.

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He could not stand cursed in their place, but Christ did.

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The sin that crushed Israel under judgment, the sin that has condemned all humanity to death has been fully borne by the spotless

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Lamb of God. The wrath that should have fallen upon us fell on Him.

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On the cross, justice and mercy meet and eternal redemption is secured.

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So then, beloved, what will you do with such grace?

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Will you, as Paul writes in Romans, continue to sin so that grace may abound?

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I hope your answer is the same as Paul's. God forbid, will you stand at the foot of your own idol, excusing rebellion as weakness, or will you fall before the crucified

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Christ and say, mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain?

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The Israelites could only look at a shadow. But you and I, we have seen the substance.

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Christ stands today, the propitiation for our sin, calling sinners to repentance and faith.

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The question simply remains, will you bow before Him now in humble worship, or will you stand before Him later in holy judgment?

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Let's pray. Righteous and holy Father, Lord, as we come before You, mindful of the weight of sin and of the mercy that You have displayed through Your Son, our

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Lord Jesus Christ, Lord, we are, we have seen in Israel's rebellion a reflection of our own hearts, how quickly we turn from Your glory to the idols of our own making.

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Lord, forgive us for the ways we have excused, justified, and even hidden our sin.

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Grant us the humility of true confession, that we may know the joy of true forgiveness.

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Lord, we thank You that where Moses could only plead, Christ prevailed.

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Where the mediator of the old covenant could not bear the curse, the mediator of the new has borne it fully. You made

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Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Let that truth break our pride, melt our hardness, and awaken faith within our hearts.

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Lord, keep us from treating grace as a license to sin, but rather as the power to live in obedience to Your Word.

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May we follow where Your Spirit leads. May we rest in the righteousness of Christ.

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May we rejoice in the hope of glory. Lord, we thank You that the angel who went before Israel now leads us still.

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The Lord Jesus, the shepherd of our souls, may every heart here today stand in awe before Your holiness, find peace in Your mercy, and walk in gratitude for so great a salvation.