Most readers agree that this was not Israel’s finest hour. Moses had been up the mountain for 40 days and the people were restless. Whilst he was getting clear plans and instructions for the proper form of worship, the people were impatient and their impatience led to sin. In the matter of a few hours, maybe a day, they managed to break at least half the commandments. They’d gone from promising total obedience to running wild in less than 7 weeks. And the consequence of this is that they also went from being “my people” to being “your people”.
As Moses smashes the copies of the Ten Commandments the realisation comes to the people that they have smashed the covenant with God. What they now deserve is judgement and rejection. What they get is mercy and grace. It doesn’t look much like mercy and grace, but all the same it is mercy and grace.
The simple truth is this: Break one commandment or break all ten, it makes no difference. As James puts it:
The person who keeps the whole law yet stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking all of it.
The question of the day becomes not why did 3,000 die but why did any survive?
In verse 10 the God who craves community cries, “I want to be alone”. Alone with his thoughts and alone with his plan. Now Moses may have thought it sounded like a good plan. Destroy this lot and start again with me, but in his heart he knew at least two things.
He knew he was no different from the rest of the people. Moses was just as stiff-necked as the rest. He could so easily fall into the same kind of pattern, and if he could then surely his descendants would too. Judgement only brings more of the same. It doesn’t transform, it cannot transform.
He knew God as a merciful and loving God.
After failure comes restorationThe one ingredient that makes restoration possible is grace. Grace turns judgement into mercy and mercy in turn triumphs over judgement. As Moses intercedes for the people, grace is his trump card. He reminds God of three things:
- His covenantal relationship with the people.
- His holiness and trustworthiness (his character)
- His promises to the Patriarchs
Moses wins the argument and God relents and does not bring the disaster on the people that he promised. He relents, not because of the eloquence of the propositions Moses puts before him, but because Moses interceded. He
sought the favour of the Lord.
In the OT God “relents” on the basis of three things:
- Intercession, for example here and in Amos 7
- Repentance (Jer.18, Jonah)
- Compassion (Deut. 32; 2Sam.24)
The people deserved judgement, they get grace. So, to quote Philip Yancey, “What’s so amazing about grace?”
The Divine do-overIn the film
City Slickers, Billy Crystal plays Mitch, one of three friends who’s lives are not altogether going to plan. One friend, Phil, works in his father-in-law’s store but has been having an affair with one of his co-workers. She arrives at a party and announces that she is having a baby and Phil’s affair becomes public.
Putting their lives on hold, the three friends set of on a western adventure that gets turned upside down when they foreman dies mid-trip and the hired hands leave them in the wilderness after a fight with guests. During the fight Phil takes control and returns to his tent having disarmed the drunken cowboys and demanded a little peace and quiet.
In the tent Mitch tries to calm Phil down as Phil talks about his life and the problems he faces. Mitch reminds him about how they used to shout do-over when things went wrong as they played baseball in the yard. “It’s like a do-over,” he tells Phil, “a second chance to start-over.”
This is how grace works, a divine do-over on offer to all who will take up the opportunity to start again with a clean slate.
Grace is the scandal of our time. Sinful, fallen, failing human beings get forgiven simply by asking God.
What was more offensive to his Jewish brothers, what was more scandalous about Paul’s message: the cross or the divine forgiveness that went with it? Where they more scandalised by the proposition that forgiveness comes through such a death or that it comes so simply?
Grace forgivesIf my people...I will not turn them away
Grace restoresPeter, Aaron
Grace aboundsWhere sin increased, Grace increased even moreGraces goes onGod never takes his grace back. Paul in Romans 8 tells us that he is convinced that
neither death nor life, height nor depth.... Nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Mike Yaconelli says that we could rephrase this:
Neither failure, poor church attendance, inadequate Bible reading and prayer, betrayal, denial, doubt,insecurity, guilt, weakness, bad theology, or even losing our temper can separate os from the love of God.
The problem of “ungrace”Philip Yancey describes ungrace as a refusal to forgive.
The problem, he argues, is that ungrace is so easily passed on through the generations. It justifies itself with the argument that forgiveness is only for those who deserve it or who ask for it. Preferably on their knees, pleading with us.
Ungrace turns forgiveness into something that works for the one who needs to forgive rather than for the one who needs forgiveness. We trade ti like a commodity. You give me humility, you take all the blame, you own up to what you’ve done to hurt me, and I might, if I think you’re sincere, if I think you really mean it, I might just forgive you, but there will be conditions. I will store up this memory and use it at my convenience to remind you of your failure.
When I make a mistake, I will use your failure to demand forgiveness for mine. I will remind you that your sin was worse than mine ever could be and that mine would not have happened if you hadn’t failed in the first place. I will shift the blame.
In short, ungrace puts a price on forgiveness.
Grace, by contrast, has already paid the price.
Living in grace
Accepting: I am forgiven. I forgive myself. Perhaps we struggle with forgiving ourselves because we know how easily we excuse our failures. Perhaps, because we don’t want to let others off the hook so easily, because in truth grace looks like an easy solution to failure, we’re unwilling to let ourselves be forgiven.
Growing: The principle of becoming more like Christ
Living out graceForgiving others.
We’ve talked about how ungrace puts us at the focal point. Grace turns things on their head.
Love, Paul tells us, keeps no record of wrongs.
ConclusionAs we come to a close, let me remind you of something very simple. There are three things you can ask form God and I can guarantee he will give them to you.
The first thing you can ask from him is justice. (Getting what you deserve)
The second thing you can ask for is mercy. (Not getting what you deserve)
The third thing you can ask for is grace. (Getting what you don’t deserve)
The choice is yours, justice, mercy or grace.
