“How dense were these people? They had just walked through the red sea on dry land after seeing a mini-apocalypse in Egypt, and now they’re worshiping idols?” So the rant went—on and on, filled with a supposedly righteous anger, furiously condemning the Israelites of the Exodus. The presupposition was obvious: I would never have done that if I were them! I know what that speaker was assuming, for she was me. By God’s grace, I have grown older and a little wiser since then, and, with that maturing has come a realization: human nature is unchanged. We, even we who know Christ, remain prone to the same spiritual amnesia that the children of Israel exhibited in the Exodus era. There are many incidents that exhibit Israel’s sin and parallel our own, but I will focus on one. The golden calf the Israelites fell before was the first great sin of the newly liberated Israelites, and there were many facets to that transgression. Many of these aspects feel uncomfortably familiar to our day to day attitudes.
The first verse of Exodus 32 tells us how this sin began; it started with an impatient people. Moses was taking his time up on the mountain, and the restless tribes grew tired of waiting for God. They had seen Him work in the past, but it had been some time. The smoking, blazing mountain had become a common sight, and they had ceased to tremble before the sight. We Christians often fall into this same sin. The original joy of salvation slowly fades and answered prayer become a distant memory, not because God is no longer answering, but because we have ceased to pray. The blazing mountain of daily outpourings of common and special grace become so mundane we no longer even see them. And how do we respond to this dullness? How did the Israelites respond?
“Make us gods who shall go before us!” Ah, but I have never made such a demand—have I? Have you? Why do heretical books like Jesus Calling and The Shack fly off the shelves in Christian book stores? The church has determined that they need another—or a better—edition of Christ. Make us gods—Christ, the Christ of the gospel, has become inadequate. The Bible feels antiquated, and we demand more, and by more, we mean other. If we wanted more, we would dive into the Word, but we seek a god more suited to our lifestyle. In our impatience, we demand a god who will work in our time-frame.
Having expressed their desire for another god, they proceeded in their sin by making themselves one. Their chosen god was a calf—a popular object of worship in the godless culture of Egypt which they had been so miraculously freed from only a short time before. Once it was built, Aaron spoke these damning words: “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” After creating their own god, a god to suit their tastes, they ascribe to that abomination the name of Yahweh (see Exodus 32:5). This is pure blasphemy. This is modern Christianity. The pseudo Christian self-esteem movement is a prime example. We take the god of our culture—the god of self—and fall before it, claiming that we are worshipping Yahweh. Some have audacity to say that Jesus’s sacrifice made a statement of our personal worth; the glory of Christ is traded in for the glory of self. Many of us who look with scorn and hatred on the self-esteem movement still trade Christ for an idol in other areas. This is why the vast majority of our modern worship are centred on man. This is why modern Bible studies encourage us to twist Scripture to suit our desires. The God we claim to worship has been replaced with the golden calf of self.
The final sin there at the foot of Sinai that dark day was committed by Aaron as he made excuses for his own part in the business. Blame-shifting is the oldest sin in history, and it is alive and well in the church today. It is a temptation at this moment as I write this paper. I long to point the finger at culture or “mainstream Christianity” as I speak of self-worship and impatience, while the finger of God points back at me, asking the piercing question, “What have you done?” To accept the guilt of our own sin is a constant struggle. Aaron failed, and so do we. But this leads into my final point.
There is one very notable difference between us and Israel at this point. When Israel sinned, God’s just wrath descended, leaving three thousand corpses in the camp of Israel. Moses interceded for them, but Moses was a mere man, and, upon seeing the people’s sin, his plea for mercy turned to fury. When we sin, where is the wrath? Though we treasure selfish idols, we are not obliterated. Why? It comes down to the intercessor: Israel had a fallen man, but our intercessor is the perfect Great High Priest. Jesus Christ has absorbed the wrath we have earned and continue to deserve as we stumble and backslide, so there is no wrath left. There is no condemnation. Israel was under law—the very beginning of the law—but we are under grace. Praise be to God for His great grace in our great sin!
