Exodus 32:31 So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold.
Exodus 32:32 But now, if you will forgive their sin–but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
Exodus 32:33 But the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.
Moses has a problem. The newly formed nation, whom God has delivered out of Egypt by His mighty hand has a problem. After receiving the covenant and confirming the covenant, obligating themselves to obey the covenant delivered to them by Moses, decided to fall back to the old ways of idolatry.
Exodus 32 is the story of the golden calf and of Israel’s deliverer interacting with God Almighty on the mount, while the people, are running roughshod over the very agreement they made with God.
Consider
Exodus 32:7 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
Exodus 32:8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”
God is about to wipe the nation off the face of the earth, and speaking of replacing the nation!
Exodus 32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
Moses went down the mountain, saw what God was referring to and was furious.
Exodus 32:19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
Moses laid it out on the line for the nation. They had sinned a sin, a great sin.
Exodus 32:30 ESV – The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”
Even after undertaking such a great sin, Moses offered the hope of atonement. The hope of continuing with the Lord as a nation. Moses provided an option for the Lord, a chance for the Lord to simply take Moses and punish him instead of the entire nation. This is Moses acting like Jesus, a tremendous exercise of the love of God being offered for the rebellious people of God by Moses the mediator.
This passage speaks the truth – the one who sins will bear responsibility – he will be blotted out of God’s book. Now it bears to reason that to be blotted out of God’s book means the person was in God’s book in the first place.
It is easy, coming from my position to assume that to be in God’s book is equal to being saved, and to be removed from the book is to loose salvation. It would be easy to make the equivalent, but I think it wise to be careful, since we are speaking of a national existence and individual sinners within the nation that will have judgement fall on them.
The very next verse helps us understand the extent of the judgement, and our topic verses are directly linked to the reason for the death entering the camp.
Exodus 32:25 Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.
People died because of sin. This is the point, even for the rescued people of God. It is obvious the people of God fell under judgement, and death resulted. How we as New Testament believers are to understand this passage is worthy of pause and consideration.
Are we to consider it only a physical death that may result as in 1 Corinthians,
1 Corinthians 11:30, 32 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
Or are we to understand that, just as the people who fell in Exodus, the New Testament people of God can also loose spiritual privileges, even life with God by wanton, great sin?
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