How should we understand Exodus 33?

Seth Erlandsson

Translated by Julius Buelow

The opposition to the “One-Sent-Out” when he came as a human “to redeem those under the law” (Gal 4:4)

Moses’ Torah concludes with the final words of the LORD to Moses and Moses’ song of farewell (Deut 31:14-32:43). In this conclusion, Moses receives the sorrowful message that the rebellion against the LORD is going to continue after his death: “You are about to lie down with your fathers, but this people will rise up and prostitute themselves to the foreign gods among them in the land they are about to enter. They will forsake me and break my covenant that I made with them” (Deut 31:16). As a witness against the children of Israel, the LORD gives Moses a song which the LORD has composed and shared with Moses for him to write down. This song, with its lofty and poetic language, is found in Deuteronomy 32:1-43! Read it! The LORD said to Moses, “So now, write down this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths so this song will be my witness against the people of Israel. 20When I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey that I promised by oath to their fathers, and they eat and are satisfied and grow fat, and they then turn to other gods and serve them, when they despise me and break my covenant” (31:19-20). “So Moses wrote down this song on that day and taught it to the people of Israel” (31:22).

In this departure song, the LORD testifies the following against Israel (among other things): “He abandoned the God who made him, and he mocked the Rock who saved him. They made him jealous with strange gods. They provoked him with abominations. …  You failed to remember the Rock who conceived you. You forgot the God who gave you birth. The LORD saw this and rejected them, because his sons and daughters had provoked him…       They have made me jealous with their non-gods. They have provoked me with their useless things” (32:15-16, 18-19, 21). There is no doubt that the rebellion from God through the original fall into sin had serious consequences. Rebellion against God is a very contagious spiritual disease. The only possible rescue from this sickness is a Savior who isn’t infected with this sickness and who can crush the cause of sin, the tempter, “the ancient serpent who is the Devil and Satan” (Rev 20:2).

Moses recorded the word of the LORD announced immediately after the fall into sin. His words to the serpent were about a Savior, a Son of Man, a descendant of the woman. “He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel” (Gen 3:15). In the last part of his Torah Moses returns to that promise of salvation and wrote down the following words from the LORD: “I will raise up a prophet for them from among their brothers like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them everything that I command him” (Deut 18:18). After Moses’ day, further information was given about the coming Savior: He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), born of a virgin and from the stump of Jesse’s stem (Isa 7:14; 11:1). Even though he is the “Mighty God” , he would come in poverty as “a root from dry ground”, “despised and rejected by men”, led away and slaughtered like a lamb, vicariously bearing all our guilt, punished for our sins so that we would have peace (Isa 53). “I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured. I will strengthen the weak. … I will establish a covenant of peace with them” (Ezk 34:16, 24). “Listen, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch”, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers” (Jer 23:5, 31:31f).

The promise of the Savior’s arrival went into fulfillment when some shepherds outside Bethlehem were the first to hear the good news: “Today in the town of David, a Savior was born for you. He is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger” (Lk 2:11-12). When Jesus grew up and the time drew near for him to publicly begin his work of salvation at the age of thirty, he took the place of all sinners by becoming baptized as their substitute. At that time the Holy Trinity clearly gave its approval to his work of atonement: The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on the Son like a dove, and from heaven came the voice of the Father: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you” (Lk 3:21-22).

But how did the leaders of the house of Israel and Judah react to the good news that the Messiah had finally arrived? John summarizes, “He came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him” (Jn 1:11). That Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and thereby one with the Father, was rejected as blasphemy (Matt 26:65). If, however, they rejected that Jesus was the promised Messiah, then the new covenant had not yet come. That would mean that they would still live under the old covenant, and they would still need to fulfill its many ceremonial laws. They would still be under “the yoke of slavery,” as the one-time Pharisee Paul expressed it (Gal 5:1).

Jesus came as the fulfillment of all the messianic prophesies of the Old Covenant, on order to inaugurate a new covenant with them (Jer 23:5, 31:31f) and to redeem them from the old covenant “which they broke.” As the substitute in the place of sinners, the Messiah “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13). He redeemed us from the curse which rests over all who break the demands of God’s law to love God and our neighbor perfectly. But they could not accept that Jesus was the Messiah that the prophesies of the Old Covenant had said would come. They were blind to the fact that the many ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant concerning clean and unclean and concerning the details of what, when and how of the offerings—all those laws had now fulfilled their purpose as shadows of the purification and atonement which would happen through Jesus Christ. To Christians who, provoked by the Pharisees and the Scribes interpretation of the Old Covenant still being in effect, Paul wrote, “You carefully observe days, months, seasons, and years. I am fearful about you, that somehow my labor for you was wasted” (Gal 4:10-11). “Do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again” (Gal 5:1). Peter said, “Now then, why are you testing God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).

Doubting Jesus’ Divinity

When the Pharisees and the Scribes studies Moses’ Torah they were blind to the fact that the “One-Sent-Out by the LORD” was one with the Father, just as much YHWH as the Father was (see Ex 3:14-15 et al). They wanted to stone him for “blasphemy, because although you are a man, you make yourself out to be God” (John 10:33). They did not understand that the only true Elohim is triune. That is why Jesus points to what should be a clear conclusion from the teachings of Moses about the LORD and his Mal’ach (“Messenger”). Jesus had not blasphemed when he, both in word and deed, showed that he was the One-Sent-Out by the Father, one with him, both true God and true man. “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me,” says Jesus (John 5:46). Moses wrote again and again about the “Mal’ach of the LORD”, who came to Abraham (Gen 18), and Moses (Ex 3), and who wrestled with Jacob (Gen 32:22-31, Hos 12:3-4) and who was one with the LORD. Here are several examples of how Jesus repeatedly underscores that he is the “One-Sent-Out by the LORD”:

• “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. Indeed, the Son does exactly what the Father does” (John 5:19).
• “For the works that the Father gave me to carry out, the very works that I am doing, these testify about me that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36-37).
• “This is the work of God: that you believe in the one he sent” (John 6:19).
• “I have come down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).
• “Then Jesus called out as he was teaching in the temple courts, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is real. You do not know him. I know him because I am from him, and he sent me” (John 7:28-29).
• “That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM the one, you will die in your sins… But the one who sent me is true. And what I heard from him, these are the things I am telling the world.” They did not understand that he was talking to them about the Father” (John 8:24, 26-27).
• “The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone” (John 8:29).
• “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I came from God and I am here. Indeed, I have not come on my own, but he sent me” (John 8:42).
• “Then Jesus called out, “The one who believes in me does not believe in me only, but in him who sent me” (John 12:44-45).
• “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I am telling you I am not speaking on my own, but the Father who remains in me is doing his works” (John 14:10-11).

Conclusion and Application

This article has tried to show how difficult it is to understand that the LORD, who is a consuming fire against all sin, can at the same time be the Savior of sinners through the promise of the Son and his work of atonement. The Father comes to us through the Son whom he has sent. The Son is the way to the Father and the Holy Spirit is the one who reveals this truth so that the spiritually blind can see it. If one remains blind to this truth, it will lead to trying to avoid judgment through one’s own deeds, which is impossible. Religio, that is, the attempt to “reconcile oneself” with God apart from the Son, always leads to a law-based religion. “No one will be justified by the works of the law” (Gal 2:16). Only God’s Word, the Biblical instruction through Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, can reveal that God is triune and that the Son is the only way to the Father. If one denies that the only true God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one Godhead, then many Biblical texts become difficult to interpret and the wonderful good news of the Bible about the only way to salvation is abolished.

Jesus said, “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. If you know me, you would also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him. … The words that I am telling you I am not speaking on my own, but the Father who remains in me is doing his works” (John 14:6-10). All religions that deny the Triune God take a strong stand against these words of Jesus. Thereby they distance themselves from the gospel, and become unable to discern between and rightly apply law and gospel.

It is tragic that both Judaism and Islam passionately deny that God could be Triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Son, one with the Father, is the only way to the Father. The Quran teaches that Jesus is a prophet but rejects his divinity and thinks that he was never actually crucified. The Apostle Paul was for a long time a passionate Pharisee and eagerly persecuted those who believed in Jesus Christ. After he came to faith in Jesus, he wrote, “We preach Christ crucified—which is offensive to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. We preach Christ crucified, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:23-25).