My pastor is preaching a series through the Book of Exodus. I’ve been enjoying reviewing this beloved book of the Bible: the oppression of the Jews in Egypt, the birth and calling of Moses, the ten plagues, the first Passover night, Moses parting the Red Sea, the miracles in the wilderness, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the ceremonial laws, the Mosaic Covenant, the golden calf, the Tabernacle.
…wait a minute, the golden calf? What was that all about?
The story of the golden calf in Exodus 32 is about what happened when Moses stayed too long on Mt. Sinai.
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain,they gathered around Aaron and said, Come, make us godswho will go beforeus. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we dont know what has happened to him.
Aaron answered them, Take off the gold earringsthat your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.He took what they handed him and made it into an idolcast in the shape of a calf,fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, These are your gods,Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, Tomorrow there will be a festivalto theLord.So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.Afterward they sat down to eat and drinkand got up to indulge in revelry. (Exodus 32:1-6, NIV)
The purpose of this story in Exodus is to illustrate an important point the book is making: the children of Israel had been physically and socially emancipated from Egypt, true,but they had not yet been spiritually emancipated from sin. And it was sin that had gotten them into slavery in the first place. Not until they dealt with their sin – and their sin natures – by coming clean with God could they ever be truly free.
The Bible is clear that sin always enslaves us. But when we experience the results of our sin, we think that those results are the problem and not the sin that caused them.
Jesus had to address this issue with his followers after he fed the five thousand. They thought, “Let’s make him king and we will never be hungry again.” But he pointed out that it was not their physical hunger that he came to save them from, but their spiritual deprivation.
I am the bread of life.Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died.But here is the bread that comes down from heaven,which anyone may eat and not die.I am the living breadthat came down from heaven.Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (John 6:48-51, NIV)
The gospels make it clear that Jesus could easily have made himself a physical king over a physical kingdom. But he refused to do so. He resisted the temptation and instead offered himself up as a sacrifice for our sin in order to deliver us from the penalty, power and – ultimately – presence of sin. Our problems are not physical in nature. Our problems are primarily spiritual. When we deal with the root spiritual issue first, substantial healing can come in the physical realm later.
And when that happens, we can write our own Book of Second Exodus.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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