MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 34:5-7
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE DIVINE NAME
This was the second proclamation. The first, Exodus 3:4, was delivered to Moses for his instruction and comfort on his special mission. This was delivered for the Jewish nation and the world. Let it be remembered that this God has revealed His law, and was about to take the people into covenant relationship with Him. It was necessary, therefore, that the people should know something definite about the Being to whom they were thus intimately related and whom they professed to serve. This was the first full revelation, the last is “like unto it.” “God is love,” and they are “enough” for faith and hope and work Notice—
I. The proclamation of the Divine name.
1. The Divine name was proclaimed absolutely. What God is in and o Himself is thus defined: “The Lord, the Lord God.” The self-existent, self sufficient, all-powerful One. Connected with the subjoined revelation of His goodness, this teaches—
(1.) That as His goodness is based upon His power man must not presume.
(2.) That as His power supports His goodness man need not despond.
2. The Divine name was proclaimed relatively. This relative proclamation may be viewed as revealing God’s goodness and God’s justice.
(1.) The Divine goodness. Merciful, first because man’s misery makes him first an object of pity (Judges 10:16; Isaiah 63:19). Gracious, because unless God’s goodness was tree, spontaneous, and unconstrained, man could never enjoy it, as he has not the wherewith to purchase or deserve or draw it forth (2 Corinthians 8:9). Longsuffering, not good by spasm or effort, but patient and unwearied. “Slow to anger,” “Bears long,” even when the wrongs of His saints call for His vengeance (Luke 18:7). Stretches “out His hand all the day long,” and “waits to be gracious.” How forcibly does the history of Israel, and indeed of every individual life, bear witness to this! Abundant; to God’s goodness there is no limit. It is a fountain that ever flows and is never exhausted (Ephesians 3:16; Ephesians 3:21; Philippians 4:19). Certain. “Truth.” It is based upon the Divine immutability; “He cannot deny Himself.” Universal; “keeping mercy for thousands;” universal as regards space, universal as regards time. Active; “forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.”
(2.) The Divine justice is Inflexible. “That will by no means clear the guilty.” This inspires us with the confidence that right is the order of the universe. The guilty may be spared so that they may repent, but they will not be cleared. They may prosper for the time, but a heavy retribution awaits them. Once more the Divine justice operates through natural laws, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers,” &c. How? By the physical law of heredity. What a motive for parents! Beware how you break God’s laws; you not only entail punishment on yourself, but your poisoned blood will flow in the veins of your degenerate offspring!
II. The method of its proclamation.
1. The Divine name was proclaimed personally. “And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed.”
(1.) God is not the discovery of the unaided intellect. It was no deduction of philosophy, no imposition of priestcraft, but the revelation of the Lord (Job 11:7; 1 Corinthians 1:21).
(2.) Not an inference from the phenomena of nature. If it is contended that it was, how is it that only Jews and Christians have arrived at this knowledge of the Divine name? Others have had the page of nature spread before them, and yet have been either atheists or idolaters. Much of what is boastfully called natural theology, and the revelation of God in the universe, are but facts read into nature from the Bible and by Bible men. True, God is revealed there (Romans 1:20); but the key is wanted to decipher the hieroglyphics, and that key is the “Scriptures which are given by inspiration of God.”
2. The Divine name was proclaimed condescendingly. Although a revelation of the Divine Being was necessary, yet one so full and gracious was surely the result of the beneficent condescension of God. Another revelation has been vouchsafed since, based upon the same condescension (Philippians 2:5-8).
This proclamation is of value—
i. Apologetically. This is the authorised revelation of the character of God. Unbelievers fight shy of it, and take certain doings or commands wrested from their context, and without examination as to the reason why. All such doings, &c., must be referred to and compared with “the glories” that here “compose God’s name.” This is the God we worship, not the fiction of a disordered fancy or a diseased mind, but “the Lord, the Lord God,” &c.
ii. To the afflicted. Can this God be unkind or unjust? Then trust that what He is now doing is for your good.
iii. To the sinner.
(1) God is good, therefore repent and come to Him; but
(2) just, and therefore cannot connive at sin.—J. W. Burn.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Law-Lights! Exodus 34:1-35. Pressense says, that whatever opinions men may hold as to the integrity of that primitive witness, all must own that it contains pages in which one beholds, as it were, the reflection of the lustre which caused Moses’s face to shine when he held converse with God. It has ever been the pious mind which has through the eyes beheld the chain of revelation and the long series of Divine manifestations gradually unwind themselves. Just as they that watch for the morning gaze out from the height of the tower, longing with inexpressible desire for the approach of dawn; so does religious consciousness cast glances of fire upon the horizon as she looks out for the Divine Sunrise. The whole of the Old Testament pants and throbs with this Divine yearning, and it also shows us the finger of God writing in the heart of man the great preparation for the Gospel. The angels ever
“Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may;
The Word’s unwithered countenance
Is bright as at Mount Sinai’s day.”
—Goëthe.
Sun-Splendours! Exodus 34:1-7. Countless and ceaseless as are the benefits which are imparted to us by the bright orb of day, the human eye cannot look upon his undimmed noonday face, without being blinded. We cannot look upon him in his full brightness; but when he is passing away, we can, as it were, enjoy and wonder at the beauty he has, or the splendour he leaves behind. A gorgeous canopy of clouds—glowing in every tint of gold, scarlet, and purple over the evening sky, alone remains to bear witness to the passing sun’s magnificence. As we enjoy the vanishing glory of the sun, so did Moses exult in the vision of the Divine glory. He could not look upon the face of God; but when the Lord had passed by then he could behold and delight in the shaded vision of Jehovah’s back parts. And what sweet beauties did his eyes descry—emblems of those invisible beauties which the soul in communion with God beholds—
“The vivid brilliant streaks
Of crimson disappear, but o’er the hills
A flush of orange hovers, softening up
Into harmonious union with the blue
That comes a-sweeping down.”
—Carrington.
Divine Character! Exodus 34:6.
(1.) Simonides the philosopher, being requested to describe God, asked a week to think of it. After that, he besought a month; then a year. Even then, being still unable, he declined the task, declaring that the more he thought of God, the less was he able to describe Him.
(2.) Pagan artists depicted Jupiter with thunder in his right hand, and an eagle at his feet. Their highest conceptions were to clothe him with clouds, while the poets robed him in terrors. Woes and wonders were their sublimest ideal of God.
(3.) Revelation alone emblazons God in the full circle of His perfections. The name of the God of the Jews, who is also the God of the Christians, is “The Lord God, merciful and gracious.”
“Most glorious art Thou! when from Thy pavilion
Thou lookest forth at morning; flying wide
Those curtain-clouds of purple and vermilion.
Dispensing life and light on every side.”
—Barton.
Divine Glory! Exodus 34:6. Amongst astronomers, remarks Hamilton, it is a favourite speculation that the sun himself is something else than a mere ball of fire, and that inside of his burning atmosphere there may be a mighty globe with cool meadows, seas of glass, rivers of crystal, and every conceivable provision for a vast and rejoicing population—the possible home of even the just made perfect. True or no, the speculation illustrates our thought. God’s glory is His goodness. The holiness of God is as a consuming fire to the guilty conscience; but within this light inaccessible—within this refulgent atmosphere of truth and sanctity, is a glory more intimate and essential still, the inmost perfection and divinest beauty of the Godhead. Coming from within that light inaccessible, the only-begotten Son from the bosom of the Father declared what was there—viz., love. And so on this occasion to the meek and wistful Moses preaching the Gospel, Jehovah expanded that one word of love into the name: “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.”
“The sun has lost his rage; his downward orb
Shoots nothing more but animating warmth
And vital lustre; that, with various ray,
Lights up the clouds, those beauteous robes of heaven.”
—Thomson.
God-Goodness! Exodus 34:6.
(1.) The child’s primer on geography is a very different thing from that which the child has in mature school-days. Very simple are the words and expressions; but how detailed. The word continent requires sentence after sentence of explanation to the child-mind; but when the child has become the youthful student, three words suffice to explain the same. Even so, in Exodus 34:6, we have the lengthened explanation of the Divine glory; while in 1 John 4 there is the same and substance—the essence of all—in the three words, “God is Love.”
(2.) The savage who has never seen a rose, can only understand its nature when it is presented to him in full bloom; whereas he who knows what a rose is, realises its beauty and perfection when it is wrapped up in the bud. The petals, so to speak, of God’s goodness were set before Moses in full bloom in this verse; but in the New Testament it was sufficient to give the bud, “God is love.”
“I’ll sing it in the sinner’s ear,
I’ll tell it to the worldling,
And ask no other theme;
’Twill flow to soothe the mourner’s wail;
Children will hold the oft-told tale
Dearer than fiction’s dream.”
Grace-Revelations! Exodus 34:6-7.
(1.) These verses, as Stock says, show that the revelation of God was not merely to the outward sight, but chiefly to the heart and mind of Moses. All the previous dealings of God with Israel had been successive revelations of His attributes, embraced in the name JEHOVAH. But Moses had never had a full and wonderful view of the “Mercy and Truth” therein; therefore he here obtains a glimpse into the Divine treasury, with its boundless, inexhaustible stores of mercy—mercy ready to meet and satisfy the demands of justice.
(2.) Filled with joyful boldness, he turns the very fact of Israel’s stiff-neckedness into a plea for the presence and favour of God. As Law says, this heart is mercy. As the sun abounds in sparkling rays, the sea in drops, the sky in glittering orbs; so God is one vast treasure-house of mercy. This is the brightest jewel of His crown—overtopping the heavens, outliving all times, outshining all perfections. It is the riches of His riches.
“God’s boundless mercy is to sinful man
Like to the ever wealthy ocean;
Which, though it sends forth thousand streams, ’tis ne’er
Known, or else seen, to be the emptier.”
—Herrick.
Boundless Mercy! Exodus 34:7.
(1.) Hearken, says Law, to the melody of this sweet note. The thought may sometimes rise, that mercy visits but a favoured few, that the rare gift enriches but rare souls. Nay, mercy’s arms are very wide; mercy’s heart is very large; mercy’s mansions are very many. It has brought saving joy to countless multitudes. It has saving joy for countless yet. The doors stand open. Thousands have found mercy; but there are stores for thousands yet.
(2.) The atmosphere is sometimes terrible with thunder, and riven with lightning—impregnated with pestilence, and charged with destruction. But it is generally and chiefly a means of health, filled with beautiful sounds, fragrant with sweetest odours, the pathway of sunbeams, the source of sparkling dew, the parent of harvests and fountain of earthly life. Ay, God is indeed full of mercy’s flowers and fruits.
“O God, how beautiful the thought,
How merciful the bless’d decree,
That grace can e’er be found when sought,
And naught shut out the soul from Thee!”
—Cook.