A Golden Calf and God's Wrath ~ Bible Study blog for September 11

Tonight, our study continued beyond the giving of the Ten Commandments to the Israelites.  The Commandments lay down God’s demands, in order that the Israelites may receive the fulfillment of the promise made to their ancestor Abraham to receive land and become a great nation.  The people gladly promise to obey.  God then calls Moses back up to Mt. Sinai, where he remains for forty days and nights.

With Moses absent, the nation quickly descends into chaos.  Since Egypt, Moses has been their intermediary with God.  Even though all could see the glory of the Lord “looking like a consuming fire” atop the mountain, the people begin to act that they’ve lost God, since Moses is absent for a long time.  They actually give credit to Moses (and not God) for bringing them up out of Egypt.  So they complain to Moses’ brother Aaron, and ask him to “make gods who will go before us.”  So Aaron gathers up the people’s gold (which was plunder from Egypt; their God-given reparations for their generations of slavery), and he fashions a golden calf.  The people declare the golden calf as the god who brought them up out of Egypt.  This is a blatant violation of the first commandment.

In fashioning the idol and declaring it to be their god, they are refashioning the God into something that God is not—a God whom they can see, touch, and even control.  God has forbidden the Israelites the ability to look directly at God and learn the divine name.  God simply declares, “I will be who I will be.”  By fashioning and worshipping the idol, the people are declaring to God: “you will be what we want you to be.”  Idolatry is any sin that treats God as a means to human ends, rather than God’s ends. 

Needless to say, God is angry and prepared to destroy the entire nation for their idolatry.  Moses intercedes on behalf of the people, and God relents.  But God still punishes the people: the Levites strike down three thousand people, and scores more are struck down by a plague.

God’s punishment of the people is deeply disturbing—and we will see God striking down many more of his own people as the wilderness journey continues.  What kind of God are we to see in the story?

God may appear quite cruel—but we must look at the bigger picture.  God has chosen the Israelites out of all the peoples of the world, in order to reclaim it from the forces of evil that are made manifest through the idolatrous peoples of the world.  Many of these false gods were worshipped with violent and disgusting acts that included human sacrifice.  On the other hand, the Israelites are set apart to be a light to the nations, revealing God’s grace, mercy, peace, and justice.  They are blessed to be a blessing. 

All of God’s acts, even striking down God’s own people as punishment, serve the greater purpose of God’s redemption.  They are struck down so that God’s promises to Israel may come down to fulfillment.  Their punishment serves as an urgent warning to any who would reject God’s graciousness.  God does not take joy in the death of the wicked, but desires for all sinners to come to repentance.  But the door of opportunity does not remain open indefinitely.  God’s Kingdom comes, and nothing can stop it.  Now is the time to be drawn into God’s Kingdom through grace and transformed by it—lest we reject it and become swept away by it.  

Our next Bible study is Thursday, September 18.