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Exodus Chapter
Thirty-four
Exodus 34
Chapter Contents
The tables of the law renewed. (1-4) The name of the Lord
proclaimed, The entreaty of Moses. (5-9) God's covenant. (10-17) The festivals.
(18-27) The vail of Moses. (28-35)
Commentary on Exodus 34:1-4
(Read Exodus 34:1-4)
When God made man in his own image, the moral law was
written in his heart, by the finger of God, without outward means. But since
the covenant then made with man was broken, the Lord has used the ministry of
men, both in writing the law in the Scriptures, and in writing it in the heart.
When God was reconciled to the Israelites, he ordered the tables to be renewed,
and wrote his law in them. Even under the gospel of peace by Christ, the moral
law continues to bind believers. Though Christ has redeemed us from the curse
of the law, yet not from the commands of it. The first and the best evidence of
the pardon of sin, and peace with God, is the writing the law in the heart.
Commentary on Exodus 34:5-9
(Read Exodus 34:5-9)
The Lord descended by some open token of his presence and
manifestation of his glory in a cloud, and thence proclaimed his NAME; that is,
the perfections and character which are denoted by the name JEHOVAH. The Lord
God is merciful; ready to forgive the sinner, and to relieve the needy.
Gracious; kind, and ready to bestow undeserved benefits. Long-suffering; slow
to anger, giving time for repentance, only punishing when it is needful. He is
abundant in goodness and truth; even sinners receive the riches of his bounty
abundantly, though they abuse them. All he reveals is infallible truth, all he
promises is in faithfulness. Keeping mercy for thousands; he continually shows
mercy to sinners, and has treasures, which cannot be exhausted, to the end of
time. Forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin; his mercy and goodness
reach to the full and free forgiveness of sin. And will by no means clear the
guilty; the holiness and justice of God are part of his goodness and love
towards all his creatures. In Christ's sufferings, the Divine holiness and
justice are fully shown, and the evil of sin is made known. God's forgiving
mercy is always attended by his converting, sanctifying grace. None are
pardoned but those who repent and forsake the allowed practice of every sin;
nor shall any escape, who abuse, neglect, or despise this great salvation.
Moses bowed down, and worshipped reverently. Every perfection in the name of
God, the believer may plead with Him for the forgiveness of his sins, the
making holy of his heart, and the enlargement of the Redeemer's kingdom.
Commentary on Exodus 34:10-17
(Read Exodus 34:10-17)
The Israelites are commanded to destroy every monument of
idolatry, however curious or costly; to refuse all alliance, friendship, or
marriage with idolaters, and all idolatrous feasts; and they were reminded not
with idolaters, and all idolatrous feats; and they were reminded not to repeat
the crime of making molten images. Jealously is called the rage of a man, Proverbs 6:34; but in God it is holy and just
displeasure. Those cannot worship God aright, who do not worship him only.
Commentary on Exodus 34:18-27
(Read Exodus 34:18-27)
Once a week they must rest, even in ploughing time, and
in harvest. All worldly business must give way to that holy rest; even harvest
work will prosper the better, for the religious observance of the sabbath day
in harvest time. We must show that we prefer our communion with God, and our
duty to him, before the business or the joy of harvest. Thrice a year they must
appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. Canaan was a desirable land, and
the neighbouring nations were greedy; yet God says, They shall not desire it.
Let us check all sinful desires against God and his glory, in our hearts, and
then trust him to check all sinful desires in the hearts of others against us.
The way of duty is the way of safety. Those who venture for him never lose by
him. Three feasts are here mentioned: 1. The Passover, in remembrance of the
deliverance out of Egypt. 2. The feast of weeks, or the feast of Pentecost;
added to it is the law of the first-fruits. 3. The feast of in-gathering, or
the feast of Tabernacles. Moses is to write these words, that the people might
know them better. We can never be enough thankful to God for the written word.
God would make a covenant with Israel, in Moses as a mediator. Thus the
covenant of grace is made with believers through Christ.
Commentary on Exodus 34:28-35
(Read Exodus 34:28-35)
Near and spiritual communion with God improves the graces
of a renewed and holy character. Serious godliness puts a lustre upon a man's
countenance, such as commands esteem and affection. The vail which Moses put
on, marked the obscurity of that dispensation, compared with the gospel
dispensation of the New Testament. It was also an emblem of the natural vail on
the hearts of men respecting spiritual things. Also the vail that was and is
upon the nation of Israel, which can only be taken away by the Spirit of the
Lord showing to them Christ, as the end of the law for righteousness to every
one that believeth. Fear and unbelief would put the vail before us, they would
hinder our free approach to the mercy-seat above. We should spread our wants,
temporal and spiritual, fully before our heavenly Father; we should tell him
our hinderances, struggles, trails, and temptations; we should acknowledge our
offences.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Exodus》
Exodus 34
Verse 1
[1] And
the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and
I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which
thou brakest.
Moses must prepare for the renewing of the
tables. Before God himself provided the tables, and wrote on them; now Moses
must hew him out the tables, and God would only write upon them. When God was
reconciled to them, he ordered the tables to be renewed, and wrote his law in
them, which plainly intimates to us, that even under the gospel (of which the
intercession of Moses was typical) the moral law should continue to oblige
believers. Though Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, yet not
from the command of it, but still we are under the law to Christ. When our
Saviour in his sermon on the mount expounded the moral law, and vindicated it
from the corrupt glosses with which the scribes and Pharisees had broken it, he
did in effect renew the tables, and make them like the first; that is, reduce
the law to its primitive sense and intention.
Verse 5
[5] And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and
proclaimed the name of the LORD.
The Lord descended — By
some sensible token of his presence, and manifestation of his glory. He
descended in the cloud - Probably that pillar of cloud which had hitherto gone
before Israel, and had the day before met Moses at the door of the tabernacle.
Verse 6
[6] And
the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful
and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
And the Lord passed by before him — Fixed views of God are reserved for the future state; the best we have
in this world are transient.
And proclaimed the name of the Lord — By which he would make himself known. He had made himself known to Moses
in the glory of his self-existence, and self-sufficiency, when he proclaimed
that name, I am that I am; now he makes himself known in the glory of his grace
and goodness, and all-sufficiency to us. The proclaiming of it notes the
universal extent of God's mercy; he is not only good to Israel, but good to
all. The God with whom we have to do is a great God. He is Jehovah, the Lord,
that hath his being of himself, and is the fountain of all being; Jehovah-El,
the Lord, the strong God, a God of almighty power himself, and the original of
all power. This is prefixed before the display of his mercy, to teach us to
think and to speak even of God's goodness with a holy awe, and to encourage us
to depend upon these mercies. He is a good God. His greatness and goodness
illustrate each other. That his greatness may not make us afraid, we are told
how good he is; and that we may not presume upon his goodness, we are told how
great he is. Many words are here heaped up to acquaint us with, and convince us
of God's goodness. 1st, He is merciful, This speaks his pity, and tender
companion, like that of a father to his children. This is put first, because it
is the first wheel in all the instances of God's good-will to fallen man.
2ndly, He is gracious. This speaks both freeness, and kindness: it speaks him
not only to have a compassion to his creatures, but a complacency in them, and
in doing good to them; and this of his own good-will, not for the sake of any
thing in them. 3dly, He is long-suffering. This is a branch of God's goodness
which our wickedness gives occasion for. He is long-suffering, that is, he is
slow to anger, and delays the executions of his justice, he waits to be gracious,
and lengthens out the offers of his mercy. 4thly, He is abundant in goodness
and truth. This speaks plentiful goodness; it abounds above our deserts, above
our conception. The springs of mercy are always full, the streams of mercy
always flowing; there is mercy enough in God, enough for all, enough for each,
enough for ever. It speaks promised goodness, goodness and truth put together,
goodness engaged by promise. 5thly, He keepeth mercy for thousands. This
speaks, 1. Mercy extended to thousands of persons. When he gives to some, still
he keeps for others, and is never exhausted: 2. Mercy entailed upon thousands
of generations, even to those upon whom the ends of the world are come; nay,
the line of it is drawn parallel with that of eternity itself. 6thly, He
forgiveth iniquity, transgression and sin - Pardoning mercy is instanced in,
because in that divine grace is most magnified, and because that it is that
opens the door to all other gifts of grace. He forgives offences of all sorts,
iniquity, transgression and sin, multiplies his pardons, and with him is
plenteous redemption. He is a just and holy God. For, 1st, He will by no means
clear the guilty. He will not clear the impenitently guilty, those that go on
still in their trespasses; he will not clear the guilty without satisfaction to
his justice. 2dly, He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children -
Especially for the punishment of idolaters. Yet he keepeth not his anger for
ever, but visits to the third and fourth generation only, while he keeps mercy
for thousands - This is God's name for ever, and this is his memorial unto all
generations.
Verse 8
[8] And
Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.
And Moses made haste, and bowed his head — Thus he expressed his humble reverence and adoration of God's glory,
together with his joy in this discovery God had made of himself, and his
thankfulness for it. Then likewise he expressed his holy submission to the will
of God made known in this declaration, subscribing to his justice as well as
mercy, and putting himself and his people Israel under the government of such a
God as Jehovah had now proclaimed himself to be. Let this God be our God for
ever and ever!
Verse 9
[9] And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord,
I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our
iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
And he said, I pray thee go among us — For thy presence is all to our safety and success.
And pardon our iniquity and our sin — Else we cannot expect thee to go among us.
And take us for thine inheritance — Which thou wilt have a particular eye to, and concern for. These things
God had already promised Moses; and yet he prays for them, not as doubting the
sincerity of God's grants, but as one solicitous for the ratification of them.
But it is a strange plea he urges, for it is a stiff-necked people - God had
given this as a reason why he would not go along with them, Exodus 33:3. Yea, saith Moses, the rather go
along with us; for the worse they are, the more need they have of thy presence.
Moses sees them so stiff-necked, that he has neither patience nor power enough
to deal with them; therefore, Lord, do thou go among us; else they will never
be kept in awe; thou wilt spare, and bear with them, for thou art God and not
man.
Verse 10
[10] And
he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels,
such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the
people among which thou art shall see the work of the LORD: for it is a
terrible thing that I will do with thee.
Behold I make a covenant — When the covenant was broke, it was Israel that broke it; now it comes
to be renewed, it is God that makes it. If there be quarrels, we must bear all
the blame; if there be peace, God must have all the glory.
Before all thy people I will do marvels — Such as the drying up of Jordan, the standing still of the sun. Marvels
indeed, for they were without precedent, such as have not been done in all the
earth; the people shall see, and own the work of the Lord; and they were the
terror of their enemies: it is a terrible thing that I will do.
Verse 11
[11]
Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before
thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and
the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Observe that which I command thee — We cannot expect the benefit of the promises, unless we make conscience
of the precepts. The two great precepts are, 1.
Thou shalt worship no other gods — A good reason is annexed; for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a
jealous God - As tender in the matters of his worship as the husband is of the
honour of the marriage-bed. 2.
Thou shalt make thee no molten gods — Thou shalt not worship the true God by images. This was the sin they had
lately fallen into, which therefore they are particularly cautioned against.
That they might not be tempted to worship other gods, they must not join in
affinity or friendship with those that did.
Verse 12
[12] Take
heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land
whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
Take heed to thyself — It is a sin thou art prone to, and that will easily beset thee;
carefully abstain from all advances towards it, make no covenant with the
inhabitants of the land - If God in kindness to them drove out the Canaanites,
they ought in duty to God not to harbour them: If they espoused their children
they would be in danger of espousing their gods. That they might not be tempted
to make molten gods, they must utterly destroy those they found, and all that
belonged to them, the altars and groves, lest, if they were left standing, they
should be brought in process of time either to use them, or to take pattern by
them.
Verse 21
[21] Six
days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time
and in harvest thou shalt rest.
Here is a repetition of several appointments
made before, especially relating to their solemn feasts: when they had made the
calf they proclaimed a feast in honour of it; now, that they might never do so
again, they are here charged with the observance of the feasts which God had
instituted. Thou shalt rest, even in earing-time and in harvest - The most busy
times of the year. All wordly business must give way to that holy rest:
harvest-work will prosper the better for the religious observation of the
sabbath-day in harvest-time. Hereby we must shew that we prefer our communion
with God, before either the business or the joy of harvest.
Verse 23
[23]
Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the
God of Israel.
Thrice in the year shall all the men-children
appear — But it might be suggested, when all the
males slain every part were gone up to worship in the place that God should
chuse, the country would he left exposed to the insults of their neighbours;
and what would become of the poor women and children? Trust God with them.
Verse 24
[24] For
I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall
any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy
God thrice in the year.
Neither shalt any man desire thy land — Not only they shall not invade it, but they shall not so much as think
of invading it. What a standing Miracle was this, for so many Generations?
Verse 28
[28] And
he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat
bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant,
the ten commandments.
He wrote —
God.
Verse 29
[29] And
it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of
testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not
that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
The skin of his face shone - This time of his
being in the mount he heard only the same he had heard before. But he saw more
of the glory of God, which having with open face beheld, he was in some measure
changed into the same image. This was a great honour done to Moses, that the
people might never again question his mission, or think or speak slightly of
him. He carried his credentials in his very countenance, some think as long as
he lived, he retained some remainders of this glory, which perhaps contributed
to the vigour of his old age; that eye could not wax dim which had seen God,
nor that face wrinkle which had shone with his glory.
Verse 30
[30] And
when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his
face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
And Aaron and the children of Israel saw it,
and were afraid — It not only dazzled their eyes, but struck
such an awe upon them as obliged them to retire. Probably they doubted whether
it was a token of God's favour, or of his displeasure.
Verse 33
[33] And
till Moses had done speaking with them, he put a vail on his face.
And Moses put a veil upon his face — This veil signified the darkness of that dispensation; the ceremonial
institutions had in them much of Christ and the gospel, but a veil was drawn
over it, so that the children of Israel could not distinctly and steadfastly
see those good things to come which the law had a shadow of. It was beauty
veiled, gold in the mine, a pearl in the shell; but thanks be to God, by the
gospel, the veil is taken away from off the old testament; yet still it remains
upon the hearts of those who shut their eyes against the light.
Verse 34
[34] But
when Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he took the vail off,
until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that
which he was commanded.
When he went before the Lord, he put off the
veil - Every veil must be thrown aside when we go to present ourselves unto the
Lord. This signified also, as it is explained, 2 Corinthians 3:16, that when a soul turns to
the Lord, the veil shall be taken away, that with open face it may behold his
glory.
──
John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Exodus》
34 Chapter 34
Verse 1
Hew thee two tables of stone.
The renewal of the two tables
I. That the moral
law is perpetually binding. Having been broken, it must be renewed.
II. That the
renewal of the moral law when broken entails duties unknown before. “Hew thee
two tables of stone”; “and he hewed two tables of stone.” This fact is very
typical and suggestive.
1. In the first inscription of the moral law upon man’s heart, the
preparation and the writing were exclusively the work of God. When our first
parents awoke to consciousness, the “fleshy tables” were found covered with the
“oracles of God.”
2. When those tables were defaced and those oracles transgressed, the
work of preparation fell largely upon man. Ever afterwards man had to prepare
himself by acts of penitence and faith--not excluding Divine help, of
course--but nevertheless those acts are acts of man.
3. But this renewal of the Divine law is accomplished in such a way
as to deprive man of all ground of glorying, and so as to ascribe all the glory
to God. The tables were of plain stone, all their embellishments were by the
Divine hand.
III. That when the
moral law is broken, God graciously offers to renew it upon man’s compliance
with the revealed condition. So when man by repentance and faith “puts off the
old man and puts on the new,” he is renewed in the image of Him that created
him, on which the moral law is inscribed (Colossians 3:9-16).
IV. That these
conditions should be complied with--
1. Speedily. “Early in the morning.”
2. Personally. This great work is a transaction between God and the
individual particularly concerned.
3. Patiently. Moses waited again forty days and forty nights.
1. The value of the moral law.
2. The importance of having that law not only on stone or paper, but
in the heart.
3. The necessity of a public and practical exhibition and
interpretation of that law in the life. (J. V. Burn.)
God re-writing the law
Can you think of a course more merciful than this? “Bring two
tables of stone just like the first, and I will write it over again; I, God,
will write over again the very words that were on the first tables that
thou brakest in pieces.” There is no mercy like the mercy of the Lord; I never
find any tenderness like His tenderness. You remember some years ago George
Peabody gave half a million of money to the London poor; and I think some
eighteen thousand people are sheltered in the houses that have sprung out of
that splendid charity. I remember that when Peabody’s charity had awakened
England to a sense of his goodness, the Queen of England rose equal to the
occasion, and she offered this plain American citizen some title, and he
declined the honour. And then she, with a woman’s delicacy of insight, and with
more than queenly dignity, inquired if there was anything that Peabody would
accept; and he said, Yes, there was, if the Queen would only write him a letter
with her own hand; he was going to pay a last visit to his native land across
the Atlantic, and he should like to take it to his birthplace, so that at any
time, if bitterness should arise between these two nations, his countrymen
could come and see that letter, and they would remember that England’s Queen
had written it to a plain American citizen. The Queen of England said she would
write him a letter, and she would do more than that--she would sit for her
portrait to be painted, and he should take that with the letter; and she put on
the Marie Stuart cap which, I think, she had only worn, perhaps, twice since
the death of the Prince Consort, and she sat day after day in her robes of state,
and the painter painted one of the finest portraits of the Queen that has ever
been executed. When it was finished she presented it to Mr. Peabody, and he
took it, with the Queen’s letter, away to his birthplace yonder. Now, suppose
George Peabody, in some fit of forgetfulness, had torn the Queen’s letter up,
and flung it into the fire, and dashed the portrait down and broken it to
fragments; and suppose that, after that, somebody had told her Majesty that
George Peabody was penitent, do you think she would have written him the letter
over again? do you think she would have sat again for another portrait to be
painted, just like the first one? Who can tell? Yet our Father in heaven, if
you have broken the tables of your covenant with Him, bring your broken heart
back again to His feet, and He will renew the covenant. (T. Guttery.)
Come up in the morning.
Be ready in the morning: an address for New Year’s eve
I. Be ready for a
conscious contact with God in the future.
1. As a duty.
2. As a privilege. “In Thy presence is fulness of joy.”
3. As a calamity. The hell of the guilty.
II. Be ready for a
conscious isolation of your being in the future. “No man shall come up with
thee.”
1. There are events which will give us a profound consciousness of
isolation.
2. There are mental operations that will give us a profound
consciousness of isolation. Remembranee of past sins, etc. (Homilist.)
Morning on the mount
I. God wishes me
to be alone with Him. How solemn will the meeting be! Father and child;
Sovereign and subject; Creator and creature! The distance between us will be
infinite, unless He shorten it by His mercy! Oh, my poor broken and weary
heart, think of it and be glad. He will shed His light upon thy tears, and make
them shine like jewels; He will make thee young again.
II. How shall i go
before God? In what robe shall I dress myself?” All the fitness He requires is
to feel my need of Him.” But when I think of Him the thought of my great sin
comes at the same time, and it is like a black cloud spread between me and the
sun. When I think of anything else, I am happy for the moment; but when I think
of God, I burn with shame and tremble with fear. This morning I must meet Him
on the mount--meet Him alone! Alone! Surely He need not have said expressly so;
for to be with God is to be in solitude, though the mountain be alive with
countless travellers.
III. God asks me to
meet Him in the top of the mount. I am called to climb as far away from the
world as I can. For many a day I have not seen the top of the mount. I have
stood on the plain, or I have gone to the first cleft, or have tried a short
way up the steep. I have not risen above the smoke of my own house, or the noise
of my daily business. Oh, that I might urge my way to the very top of the hill
chosen of God! “What must it be to be there?” The wind will be music. Earth and
time will be seen as they are, in their littleness and their meanness.
IV. The morning is
the time fixed for my meeting the Lord. What meaning there is in the time as
well as in the place! This very word morning is as a cluster of rich grapes.
Let me crush them, and drink the sacred wine. In the morning--then God means me
to be at my best in strength and hope; I have not to climb in my weakness; in
the night I have buried yesterday’s fatigue, and in the morning I take a new
lease of energy. Give God thy strength--all thy strength; He asks only what He
first gave. In the morning--then He may mean to keep me long that He may make
me rich! Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified. Successful is the day
whose first victory was won in prayer. Health is established in the morning.
Wealth is won in the morning. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Rising early for prayer
We have a saying among us, that “the morning is a friend to the
muses”; that is, the morning is a good studying time. I am sure it is as true
that the morning is a great friend to the graces; the morning is the best
praying time. (J. Caryl.)
Rising early for devotional exercises
It is told in Sir Henry Havelock’s “Life,” how he always secured
two hours for devotion before the business of the day began, even in his
busiest time, by rising at five or four, as required . . . Colonel Gardiner had
the same habit. Early rising for the objects of this world is usual enough, and
much to be commended; but the same industry that will advance a man’s temporal
interests will make him spiritually rich, and give him great treasure in
heaven, if it be used towards God . . . On the contrary, late rising in the
morning, rapid dressing, curtailing even the few moments allotted to
thanksgiving and prayer, before the plunge into the world’s affairs, deafens
our ears and hearts to things spiritual; we exchange an interview with our God,
who can give us all good, for the miserable gratification of our indolence.
Meriting prayer
Let the day have a blessed baptism by giving your first waking
thoughts into the bosom of God. The first hour of the morning is the rudder of
the day. (H. W. Beecher.)
Verse 6-7
The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious.
The name of the Lord
I. “the Lord.”
There we lay our basis. Unless you are prepared to admit the perfect
sovereignty of God, you can go no further--you will see no more.
II. Then we put it
in combination--“the Lord God.” And oh! what a combination! We put all
sovereignty with all the mystery of the Godhead--God, that unfathomable word.
But amongst all those wondrous attributes which go to make the word God, there
is one stands out--that name leads us to it. The root of the word is
kindness--God, the good. The Lord the good; the Lord--love; God. We put the
infinitude of His sovereignty in combination with the boundlessness of His
affection, and we say, “The Lord, the Lord God.”
III. But now we come
to the goings forth of that wonderful mystery of Godhead to man--mercy. You
know that the strict meaning of the word mercy is--a heart for misery. Therefore
the first thought is--the great Lord God stooping to the wretched, going forth
to the miserable.
IV. And why
merciful? Because gracious. Grace is the free flowing of undeserved favour.
V. “long-suffering!”
It is the most marvellous part of the character of God--His patience--it is so
contrasting with the impetuosity, the haste, the impulsiveness of man. He is
provoked every day, but He continues patient.
VI. Now it
rises--“abundant in goodness and truth.” Abundant is enough and something
over--a cup so full that it mantles--abundant, “abundant in”--
VII. “goodness,”
and--
VIII. “truth.”
IX. “keeping mercy
for thousands.” There are thousands who do not yet see or feel their mercy, for
whom God is now keeping it in reserve--say, persons not yet converted.
X. “Forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin.” We are getting all the more now into the
work of Christ. And what distinction shall we make between “iniquity,
transgression, and sin?” Is “iniquity” acts of injustice to a
fellow-creature--and “transgression” acts of injustice towards God--and “sin,”
the deep root of all in the human heart? Or is it thus? Is “iniquity “ that
principle of all wrongness, the want of uprightness, the acting unfairly by God
or man;--and then “transgression” the act, whether it be to God or man, to God
through man, “transgression,”--and then “sin” again the inner nature from which
that transgression, which makes that iniquity, springs. I think that is the
true intention--iniquity, transgression, sin. But He pardons all.
XI. “by no means
clear the guilty.” The word “guilty” is not in the original--“by no means
clear.” Whom? He will not clear any one whom He has not pardoned. “Guilty”
means a man still subject to wrath. If a man does not accept Christ, he is
still subject to wrath--that man God will never clear.
XII. And then comes
that very difficult part--that he “visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the
children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth
generation.” It seems to me to be an ever-standing visible proof and monument
of God’s holiness and justice. He visits sin from generation to generation.
There are inherited dispensations, inherited calamities. Is it unjust? It is
the principle of the greatest justice that we read of in the history of this
world. For the atonement all depends upon that principle. If God does visit the
sin of one in the sufferings of another, has not He also laid it down that He
visits the righteousness of one in the happiness and the eternal salvation of
another? And did we do away with that principle, where would be our hope? (J.
Vaughan, M. A.)
God’s mercy
I. What the mercy
of god is.
1. That perfection whereby He assists His creatures in misery (Lamentations 3:22).
2. His mercy is infinitely great (Psalms 145:8).
3. He is the Fountain and Father of mercy (2 Corinthians 1:3).
II. To whom God is
generally and especially merciful.
1. To mankind in general (Psalms 145:9).
2. He continues life notwithstanding our sins (Psalms 86:13).
3. In delivering out of troubles (Psalms 107:13).
4. In granting all the necessaries of life (Matthew 5:45).
5. Especially is He merciful to His people (Deuteronomy 32:43).
6. In pardoning all their sins (Hebrews 8:12).
7. In quickening them to newness of life (Ephesians 2:4-5).
8. In assisting us to exercise all true grace (1 Corinthians 7:25).
9. Support under spiritual troubles (Psalms 94:17-19).
10. Blessing troubles for our good (Hebrews 12:10).
11. Bringing to heaven at last (Titus 3:8).
III. The uses that
are to be made of God’s mercy.
1. Not to abuse it to licentiousness (Romans 6:1-2).
2. We should be merciful to others (Luke 6:36).
3. Pardoning their injuries, pitying their miseries, and relieving
their necessities (Galatians 6:10).
4. We must attribute all our blessings to the mercy of God towards us
(Psalms 115:1).
5. This should teach us to love Him (Psalms 106:1).
6. Cause us to fear Him (Psalms 103:11).
7. And induce us to praise Him (Psalms 103:2-4).
8. God’s mercies are greater than our miseries (1 John 4:4).
9. They are sealed to us by Christ’s blood (Hebrews 12:24).
10. His mercy is only known by the influence of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). (T. B. Baker.)
The unveiled mystery of God
There is in man a yearning after the unseen. Every one feels, even
if he will not confess it, that another world lies, after all, behind this one.
But the world of spirits is twofold--the kingdom of the powers of darkness
below, and the kingdom of light in heaven. In man there is by nature a secret
drawing to that which is below. There is the dark point of sin in us which draws
us downward. Whoever follows this drawing goes to destruction. But there is in
man another drawing--a drawing to light, a drawing to God. For we were made for
Him. But although we have separated ourselves from Him, He has not altogether
given up His connection with us. He who would paint God, must paint love--a
fire of love which fills heaven and earth. But who can comprehend and describe
this boundless and endless love? It has collected itself, and given itself a
bodily form, in order to reveal itself to us. The heart of God has opened
itself up to us--eternal love has revealed itself to us in Christ Jesus. But it
is not in the New Testament that this is revealed for the first time. It is as
old as the revelation of God’s eternal counsel of love. Even in the Old
Testament Christ is contained, although in type and prophecy. There is darkness
round about God, He is veiled in mystery, no mortal man beholds His countenance
and lives; the eyes of Moses are holden by Jehovah, whilst He passes by him.
But a word falls upon his ear: in this word God pronounces His nature, and this
word runs thus--“God is love.” That is the unveiled mystery of God. Let us then
consider this unveiled mystery in the threefold way in which our text sets it
before our eyes.
I. In the direction
of life. God orders the vast and disposes of the most isolated object. That is
just His greatness--attention in what is little. But how often are our ways and
God’s direction of our life a mystery to us! That He leads us happily and
blessedly, we believe, although what we see often appears to us to be strange.
Yet we shall one day stand upon the heights of light and look back upon our
dark paths in the valley, and they will be light, and our understanding will
give its judgment in the praise of love. That is the unveiled mystery of God in
the direction of life.
II. We will
consider this unveiled mystery in the forgiveness of sin. For our life is full
of sins and guilt. The termination of our life is the seal of the forgiveness
of sins. We bear the law of God written on our hearts. But our sin has broken
it. We are sorry; we should like to be pious and holy. Hence we come and
present ourselves before God with new resolutions: from henceforth it shall be
otherwise with us. But how long does it continue till it is as before? It will
not come to a really new life. We amend there and then; but our moral life
remains at all times a wearying work, and never becomes a free, joyful matter,
which is understood of itself--which gushes and streams fresh and gladly out of
the heart. Whence is this? The failing is in the foundation. God must make such
an impression upon us as to win our hearts, and to make it impossible for us to
do other than love Him. By what means does God make such an impression upon us?
Not by His infinite greatness and majesty, but by His gracious love. “We love
Him because He has first loved us” (1 John 4:19). And what love is that?
It is God’s pardoning love: not the love manifested in the displays of His
goodness, in His anxiety for our earthly life. This humbles us, but it does not
yet touch our innermost being. The innermost point in us, where we are
connected with God, is the conscience. And just here we feel ourselves separated
from God. Here we must experience the love of God: that is His forgiving love.
But this is the right foundation of all moral work.
III. We will
consider this unveiled mystery in covenant fellowship. The covenant of God with
Israel rests on the forgiveness of sins. God dwells in the midst of them, He is
their God and they are His people, and He leads them on their way, and He
brings them to the goal. He thus reveals Himself to them as a covenant God. But
all this is only a prophecy of the covenant of God with us in Christ Jesus.
This rests on the true, real forgiveness of sins. But all this is but the
commencement of the completion. We wait for the fulfilment of the promise. In
hope, the abode yonder is already here. But we are not yet yonder. We are still
on our pilgrimage to the hall of blessedness. There for the first time will
there be the right celebration of the covenant. (J. C. Luthardt, D. D.)
The moral nature of God
I. The form in
which the revelation is made.
1. In the first place, it is given, not in the cold and formal terms
of a merely ethical and philosophical system, but in its warm and sympathetic
application to the needs of man’s life. The profoundest truth is here implied.
But the form of the declaration is simple, couched in the every-day speech of
men, such as all men, in any and every condition, could easily and readily
apprehend.
2. It is not only addressed to man upon the simplest side of his
nature, but it sets in the very foreground of the Divine qualities those which
have regard to man’s sinfulness, and the need in which he stands, of
tenderness, pity, and grace. What a recognition is this of the true state of
the human heart! God’s revelation is no philosophy of the “might have been,” of
the “ought to be”--dreamy, vague, hypothetic, and useless. But it is a
practical dealing with what is. It takes man just as it finds him.
II. Now, let us
inquire, what is the revelation which is thus made in so human and so gracious
a form? God declares Himself to be “merciful and gracious.” By the first
quality we understand pitifulness, a tenderness towards the weak and helpless,
with an added sense of gentleness and forgiveness towards those that are not
only weak but wicked, sinful as well as sad. And while God is this, it is all
of favour, free and unmerited. He is gracious as well as merciful. But there
are added qualities of mercy and grace beyond the mere broad and general fact
of their possession. These might be of the Divine nature, and yet their
exercise might be restrained within narrow and brief limits of occasion and
duration. But God is “longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” We
must not forget that these qualities of God’s moral being are related, as we
have said, to human conditions, especially that of sin, and in respect of that
He is “longsuffering.” For man is not merely a sinner, but he perpetuates the
sin, he continues sinning; he is alienated from God, and remains an alien, with
hard and ever harder heart, going farther away, being less accessible,
increasing his rebellion ever. And yet God’s mercy does not cease. He loses no
patience. He waits and watches. And of this mercy and clemency no one need
doubt the power or the sufficiency. God is declared further to be “abundant in
goodness and truth.” Goodness is perhaps an attribute of wider reach than
mercy, embracing mercy for the sinner and the wretched in the beneficent
relation towards all whose welfare and happiness God ever seeks. Truth is that
harmony of being upon which we may ever depend. It is order and peace, it is
fidelity and changelessness--everything that renders trust in the truthful God
a certain thing, not liable to disappointment, change, and decay. The emphasis,
perhaps, is to be placed upon the word “abundant.” God has enough and to spare.
Then, these are by no means quiescent, inoperative attributes of the Divine
nature. Men often lose themselves and the clearness of their thoughts in mere
abstract statements of the qualities of God, but in this declaration of
Himself, Jehovah shows how practical is the revelation which He gives. “Keeping
mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” The phrase
“keeping mercy for thousands” is a striking one. The term thousands is
indefinite, signifying a very large number. It may be used in contrast with the
“third and fourth generation” of the following clause, and if so, it indicates
that the mercy of God is preserved through all the ages of mankind, and remains
perpetual and ceaseless, for the universal race for ever. The forgiveness, too,
how full is this! It is not merely the single sin that is pardoned. The
continued habit of sin, the formed and indurated character of evil, the strong
and defiant wickedness, even these may find mercy and have experience of God’s
pardoning grace. It is His prerogative. It is His nature. All this is based
upon the most absolute justice and integrity of righteousness. “He will by no
means clear the guilty.” The eternal claim of moral order must be recognized,
and until guilt is purged and sin is destroyed, the sinner cannot be cleared.
Let us, now, gather up the great truths of this sublime passage, and lay their
meaning and their power to our hearts.
1. The revelation which God grants of Himself is in the sphere of
moral being.
2. This moral aspect of Deity is in complete harmony with every other
side of the Divine nature.
3. The moral being of God, as it is revealed, necessarily provides a
satisfaction of its claims of justice and rectitude.
4. In this completeness of revelation there is an abundance of grace
and mercy which is offered to all men. This, then, is the final truth which
appears in the revelation of God. Let no man despair. (L. D. Bevan, D. D.)
God’s great goodness
I. The glory of
God is His goodness. When Moses said, “I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory,” the
Lord answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee” (Exodus 33:18-19; Exodus 34:6).
1. We see it in nature (Psalms 33:5; Psalms 145:9; Psalms 65:11).
2. We see it in providence (1 Kings 8:66; Psalms 31:19; Zechariah 9:16-17).
3. We see it in grace (Ephesians 1:7; Psalms 23:6; Jeremiah 31:14).
II. The effect of
God’s goodness upon the heart of man is meant to be.
1. Sorrow at having offended God (Romans 2:4; Job 42:5-6; Hosea 3:5),
2. Delight in praising God (Psalms 107:8; Isaiah 63:7).
3. Desire to receive God’s blessings (Numbers 6:24; Numbers 6:26; Micah 7:18-19).
4. A disposition to imitate God’s character (Luke 6:36; Ephesians 5:2; 1 John 6:11). (Clergyman’s
Magazine.)
God’s goodness
The late Dr. Samuel Martin, in a letter to a friend after Dr.
Davidson’s death, thus speaks of that pious and devoted man, whose memory is
hallowed in the minds of all who knew him:--“He studied divinity at Glasgow
College. Thomas and I lived together, companions and fellow-students; and I,
being some years older, was considered as a kind of guardian. On looking back
to that period, in reviewing fully sixty years’ intercourse and friendship, I
ever found in him, from first to last, genuine and unaffected piety, affection,
benevolence, regular, exemplary, amiable deportment. I recollect, with
pleasure, the family devotions of our little society. I well remember an
exclamation, on one occasion, to me, after rising from prayer--a striking proof
of his characteristic humility, gratitude, and tenderness of conscience, ‘Oh,
Martin, it is the Divine goodness, of all things, that humbles me most!’”
God’s forgiving mercy
I once visited the ruins of a noble city that had been
built on a desert oasis. Mighty columns of roofless temples still stood in
unbroken file. Halls in which kings and satraps had feasted two thousand years
ago were represented by solitary walls. Gateways of richly carven stone led to
a paradise of bats and owls. All was ruin! But past the dismantled city,
brooks, which had once flowed through gorgeous flower-gardens, and at the foot
of marble halls, still swept on in undying music and unwasted freshness. The
waters were just as sweet as when queens quaffed them two thousand years ago. A
few hours before they had been melted from the snows of the distant mountains.
And so God’s forgiving love flows in ever-renewed form through the wreck of the
past. Past vows and past covenants and noble purposes may be represented by
solitary columns and broken arches and scattered foundations that are crumbling
into dust, yet through the scene of ruin fresh grace is ever flowing from His
great heart on high. (T. G. Selby.)
That will by no means
clear the guilty.
God justified in man’s salvation
I. Man thinks of
God as if God were something like himself: and hence he would make God a
changeable and capricious Being; he would make Him connive at sin and make
light of transgression, accepting a few tears, or a few resolutions, or a few
alms, as satisfaction enough for him to receive pardon. All such ideas of God
are base and unwarrantable, and will cover those who entertain them with
everlasting confusion. The nature of God makes it impossible for Him to clear
the guilty. If the positive be true, that God loves holiness, the negative must
be true, that He hates iniquity.
II. And now some
will probably say, “why, this is contravening the very gospel; it is surely
favouring the notion that none can be saved, for who can be saved, when there
is no guiltless man? And if God will not clear guilty men, how is any one to
meet his Maker in peace?” The view I have of it is this--that God does not
clear the guilty; no, but I will tell you what He does, which is infinitely
more to His glory, and of necessity more for our peace--He makes the guilty
guiltless, and He makes the unrighteous perfect in righteousness. He does this
in virtue of the life laid down for the guilty, for all who in Him have
believed; in Him all have paid the penalty, all have satisfied God’s justice,
and all have perfect righteousness. (H. Stowell, M. A.)
The guilty “by no means cleared”
I. What is to be
understood by the Lord “not clearing the guilty”? When He pronounces the
sentence of acquittal, it will be in full accordance with justice. And yet the
basis of this world’s religion is nothing more than a belief that God will
“clear the guilty.” What are all the delusions of self-righteous workings? what
are all the endeavours to put off till a more convenient season comes? what is
all the resting in ordinances, forms, and external things? Just a forgetfulness
that God is a heart-searching God.
II. But now
observe, why is it true that God “will by no means clear the guilty”?
Everything in God forbids it. His very faithfulness renders it impossible. Now,
faithfulness is part of the Divine goodness. What forms the real substance of
our hope? that through God’s grace we shall be at last in heaven? God tells me,
that “he that believeth shall be saved”; He tells me, that the “blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses from all sin.” What gives us confidence? Simply, God’s
faithfulness--I believe it, because God says it. Take that away, and where is
His goodness? It is no more. Now bear this in mind, that what gives stability
to the promise gives stability to the threatening. The love of God is a holy
love. Now the great cause of all misery is sin; and that which forbids sin is a
holy love. Yes, and one may even say that the penalty, awful and fearful as it
is, is one of the great unfoldings of His love.
Conclusion:
1. The subject has a very awful look, as it regards the sinner
hardened in his trespasses. “He will by no means clear the guilty ones.”
2. The words are full of encouragement to the poor penitent
spirit--“He will by no mesons clear the guilty.” “Ah!” you are ready to say,
“how can He clear me? I am all guilt.” Thou never hadst any due conception of
thine own guiltiness, and of what thy guiltiness is before God. Yet none at all
hast thou. Why? Because it has all been transferred to Jesus. Because He has
taken it and borne it away. He has endured it. He was “not cleared,” He endured
the penalty.
3. How this truth should lead to--
Union of justice and grace in God
“Behold the goodness and severity of God,” says the Apostle Paul.
In most cases the goodness is illustrated by one kind of events and the
severity by another, but in Christ’s work the same event of His death displayed
the two sides of God’s character alike and at once, and thus pardon was never
offered to the guilty without a loud protest against sin. Now the pains taken
to inculcate both these qualities through the entire Scriptures seem to point
at something in man, some conception of character which he needs to have
impressed upon him and which he ought to realize in his own life.
I. And in pursuing
this subject we remark, first, that among men he who is capable of exercising
only hard, unrelenting justice is held to be far from perfection, and cannot be
loved; while, on the other hand, a character in which bare kindness or goodness
is the only noticeable trait secures no respect. Only where we see the two
qualities united can we feel decided confidence and attachment. They do not
check each other, as might be supposed, but add to each other’s power. The
indiscriminately kind man is felt to be weak; the harsh rigorous nature may
have intellect in abundance, but fails to warm the souls of men. When united
they form character, a character in which there is depth, the depth of
intellect resting below temper and impulse on a foundation of wisdom and true
excellence of heart. There can be no moral government among men without wisdom,
for he who makes men good must look not at immediate impressions, but at
results: he must take long stretches of time into view, and long series and
interactions of causes shaping character. When did instinctive benevolence ever
fail to thwart its own wishes and to corrupt its beneficiaries? The union of
these opposites, where alone wisdom can be found, ensures the best government,
and as every one must be in some way a governor, of a family, or a workshop, if
not of a town or state, the whole of the vast interests of mankind depend on
this union.
II. If God is to be
honoured and loved by human beings, He must present himself to our minds under
the same twofold aspect. He must be seen in the light of those qualities which
we may call by the name of justice, and of those to which we give the names of
goodness, kindness, tenderness, or mercy. Sinners are recovered and reclaimed
first by a sense of sin, and then by a perception of Divine love, and without
the latter they would not think of their sins, or grow into that filial fear,
that holy worship which the Psalmist intends. Only under this twofold aspect of
God is true religion, the religion of the soul, possible.
III. We add thirdly,
that it involves a very high degree of wisdom to know when to be just or
severe, and when to exercise goodness or grace. It is a great problem to govern
a nation; it is a greater to govern a virtuous universe; but a greater still is
presented when the element of evil is thrown into the question, and the
interests of the many come into conflict with the happiness of the sinful few.
Especially when we look on God as training His creatures up for a higher
condition; enlarging their powers, helping the strong to grow stronger, pitying
the weak and revealing Himself as their forgiving God; then above all does it
appear that the balances of the moral universe are exceedingly delicate, and
that there is need of a hand, firm and wise beyond our thought, to hold them.
No solution of the intricacies of things has been offered to man deserving of
notice but that which Christ has made. The reconciliation of holiness and love
in His work, its just, well-balanced training of the whole moral nature
challenge our respect, our admiration, even if we will stand aloof from Christ.
He is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and
redemption.
IV. And now, having
brought your minds to Christ, I close with the remark that He united the two
sides of character which we have spoken of, in their due mixture, in His one
person. And it is well worthy of being remarked that their union proves their
genuineness and their depth. He who could love so and forgive so,
notwithstanding His deep sense of the sin, what strength of character must He
have had, what a depth and truth of love, what a power of loving, what an
inexhaustible richness of soul! And He who could rebuke so and show such strong
displeasure against evil doing, how hard, humanly speaking, must it have been
for Him to love objects so far from loveliness; and if He loved them as He did,
must not His love have been of another kind than ours, one superior to personal
slights and injuries, wholly unlike instinctive kindness of temper, partaking
of a quality of lofty wisdom! (T. D. Woolsey.)
Universal redemption subversive of the assurance of salvation
Draw near and contemplate this Christian paradox; come, behold
with us, for a time, this Christian mystery, the certainty that the guilty
cannot be cleared--that God cannot do it--is the safeguard of redemption, the
guarantee of the offered atonement.
I. It is true that
this declaration of God’s character--of the impossibility of His clearing the
guilty--shuts many large and wide doors of hope. The hearts of sinners are full
of devices for salvation. They have many entrance-ways to pardon and favour.
1. There is the placability and compassion of God upon which they
largely draw. The Divine anger is thus, in their imagination, a bugbear, well
got up to scare transgressors, to keep them in check, but as to any ultimate
and eternal condemnation resulting from it, all is set aside by their
convenient doctrine of His easy and overwhelming compassion.
2. Again, there is the tempter’s suggestion of the changeableness of
God, “ye shall not surely die,” opening to many a wide door. It is not that the
veracity of God is actually questioned. But then He may take back or change His
word. These deceitful hopes are met, and the door they open for ever shut, by
the one decisive passage--“and I will by no means clear the guilty.”
II. Whilst this
passage shuts with so decisive a hand every false door of hope, and announces
in characters of light, that guilt cannot go unpunished, it yet opens a door of
hope that never can be shut, and is an immovable anchor to every soul that has
fled for refuge to the great propitiation. He can by no means clear the guilty,
therefore am I assured He can by no means punish the innocent. In Christ I am
innocent; guilt is no longer attachable to me; my soul is justified; justice,
with its sword, has no claim upon me--it is satisfied; the law, with its
penalties, has no demand against me; every jot and tittle of it is fulfilled.
“Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died.”
III. We observe that
the strong consolation drawn from this passage is warranted only on the
supposition that, in dying, Christ died as a true and real substitute in the
room and stead of His people, and for them alone. (J. Lewis.)
Justice and mercy not antagonistic
Now, there is no greater mistake than to suppose that the Divine
Being, as a God of justice, and a God of mercy, stands in antagonism to
Himself. Observe, I pray you, that it is not mercy, but injustice, which is
irreconcilable with justice, and that it is cruelty, not justice, that stands
opposed to mercy. These attributes of Jehovah are not contrary the one to the
other, as are light and darkness, fire and water, truth and falsehood, right
and wrong. No. Like two separate streams which unite their waters to form a
common river, justice and mercy are combined in the covenant of redemption.
Like the two cherubims whose out-stretched wings met above the ark, or like the
two devout and holy men who drew the nails from Christ’s body, and bore the
sacred burden to the grave, or like the two angels who received it in charge,
and, seated like mourners within the sepulchre, the one at the head, the other
at the feet, kept silent watch over the precious treasure, justice and mercy
are associated in the work of Christ. They are the supporters of the shield on
which the cross is emblazoned. They sustain the arms of our heavenly Advocate.
They form the two solid, immovable, and eternal pillars of the Mediator’s
throne. On Calvary, mercy and truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss
each other. (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
Visiting the iniquity of
the fathers.--
The law of heredity
We are born into a life where we cannot determine the nature of
the influences which we exert. We can repress some, modify others, and develop
still others; but we cannot determine the effect, nor change it. A certain
influence we must exert one upon another.
I. First, we will
mention voluntary influence, or the capacity which we have gained of
influencing our fellow-men by bringing power, or the causes of power, to bear
upon them on purpose. This is the more familiar form of influence. It is the
foundation of all instruction. The parent influences the child on purpose. The
teacher purposely influences all the minds that are brought under his care.
Friends influence friends. We draw men to our way of thinking, and to our way
of acting. We persuade; we dissuade; we urge; we enforce our agency; and in a
thousand ways we voluntarily draw men to and fro.
II. Then, besides
all this, besides what we do on purpose, there is the other element of
unconscious influence which men exert--that which our nature throws out without
our volition. For I hold that it is with us as it is with the sun. I do not
suppose that the sun ever thinks of raising the thermometer; but it does raise
it. Wherever the sun shines warmly, the mercury goes up, although the sun and
the instrument are both unconscious. And we are incessantly emitting influences
good, bad, or negative. We are perpetually, by the force of life, throwing out
from ourselves imperceptible influences. And yet the sum of these influences is
of the utmost weight and importance in life. A single word spoken, you know not
what it falls upon. You know not on what soul it rests. In some moods, words
fall off from us, and are of no account. But there are other moods in which a
word of hope, a word of cheer, a word of sympathy, is as balm. It changes the
sequence of thought, and the whole order and direction of the mind. Single
words have often switched men off from bad courses, or off from good ones, as
the case may be. A simple example, silent, unspeaking by vocalization, but
characterized by purity, by simplicity, crystalline and heavenly, has sweetened
whole neighbourhoods. Fidelity, disinterestedness in love, pure peacefulness,
love of God, and faith in invisible things, cannot exist in a man without
having their effect upon his fellow-men. It is impossible that one should stand
up in the midst of a community and simply be good, and not diffuse the
influence of that goodness on every side. That which is true of goodness is
true also of evil. Men who are under the influence of the malign passions are
sowing the seeds of these passions. Sparks fly out from them as from the
chimney of a forge. It is the inherent necessity of wickedness to breed
wickedness and distribute it. A man is responsible, not only for what he does
on purpose, but what he unconsciously does. And the load of responsibility
grows as you take in these widening circles. More than this, the greater the
nature, and the more ample the endowment, the more influence does a man exert
both for good and for evil. The moral tone of our literature in this respect is
exceedingly bad. There is almost a maxim that genius has a right to be lawless
as to its method of doing right things. Every man is responsible for duty; and
duty, and responsibility for it, augment in the proportion of being.
III. Our influence
is not merely voluntary, or involuntary and unconscious, but it becomes
complex, because it is compounded with the lives and the added influence of
others. We are are social. We come into relations with men. Our freedom touches
theirs. We inspire them. But we do not change their nature. We, as it were, sow
germs in their soil. These germs go on and become forces in their hands. So that
that which we do to single ones, they propagate. But men’s influence is not
limited to their voluntary action, nor to the complex social relations which
they sustain, and by which their influence is propagated indirectly.
IV. In some
respects men hold in their hands the history of the future. The very solemn
declaration of our text--“Visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the
children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth
generation”--this is the mystery of ages. If it were but on the one side; if
men, having the power of beneficence, had the power to perpetuate it, we should
admire that; but if it is a fact that men have the power of transmitting
corruption, and so of influencing after times, who can fail to marvel at that?
If that is a law, men may well stand appalled in the presence of such results
as must fall out under it. And it is a law, it is a fact. We must learn this
great hereditary law, and we must include in our purposes of benevolence the
wise selection, the perpetuity and the improvement of the race, by the
observance of this great law of hereditary transmission. The malignity of sin
is a terrible malignity, as it is revealed by this great law of the
transmission of influence to posterity, either directly and voluntarily, or
indirectly and unconsciously. There are multitudes of men that are careless of
themselves. They are said to be their own worst enemies. They are men that are
free and easy; that squander their money; that pervert their disposition. And because
they are good-natured and genial, people say of them, “They are clever fellows;
they are kind men; they do no harm; at any rate they are their own worst
enemies.” Now, a man that is spending his whole life to destroy himself, cannot
stop with himself. And the better fellow he is, the more likely is he to exert
an influence. More than that, it is not himself alone that is destroyed. The
babe in the cradle is cursed. The daughter unborn is cursed. The heir and
sequent children are cursed.
V. I will add but
a single consideration more: and that is a caution and a warning to all those
who abe consciously bearing in themselves the seed of transmissible disease. I
think there is no crime and no misdemeanour, to those that are instructed,
greater than that of forming marriage connections under such circumstances. (H.
W. Beecher.)
The organic unity of the race
I. Let us, in the
first place, observe the natural fact we may almost call it, of the unity and
solidarity of the race. The method of the preservation and reproduction of the
species, which God has appointed, is that of parentage and offspring. The
relations of the different parts of this prolonged species are such, as to
involve a certain unity. Birth and nurture, the family relation, the law of
similarity, the limits of variation, by which the children cannot diverge from
the parental type beyond a certain mark of liberty, all these are what we may
call physical and bodily elements of unity in the race. This unity is found, as
we rise to the human race, to involve the descendant in the conditions of the
parent, to a degree that is much more striking than in lower species. The human
infant remains longer in dependence upon the parent; the years of education
extend farther; the conditions of life for the offspring, in proportion as
civilization and culture make life more complicated, and more deeply affected
by the parent. That this unity of the race is taught by Scripture, no one can
doubt. It is further illustrated by the Divine treatment of individual cases,
and by the development of the Divine purpose throughout the sacred history . .
. If there be lessons in history, this lesson at least is clear. God has bound
men into the unity of their descent, and deals with man along the lines of his
generation.
II. Our text does
more than merely reveal the truth which we have stated and illustrated; it
further shows us that this organic unity of the race is of a moral quality and
involves moral discipline. God declares that He visits the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and
unto the fourth generation. We are not bound by the mere number of the descents
to which the visitation will be applied. The very form of the phrase suggests
indefiniteness. It may be that, as a matter of fact, only one generation shall
suffer, or, on the other hand, the dread judgment may descend beyond the third
and fourth line of the posterity. The law is one of the generalities of human
life, not to be measured by the accuracies of arithmetic. Man needs not to be
exalted to presumption, nor cast down to hopelessness, by the words of this
revelation. And, as we interpret the duration of the penalty in the general
sense, so we may find, in the words of judgment, something more than the mere
formula of doom. If there be a visitation of the father’s sin, there surely
must be also a benediction from the father’s virtue. These words therefore
reveal to us the moral quality of the race’s organic unity. That which is
involved in the descent of child from parent is not by way of mere natural
cause and effect. It is indeed part of the material conditioning of the
universe. But it is superintended by the God who governs, and governs not only
by physical law, but also with moral and spiritual ends. He reveals Himself as
administering it, and we know therefore that if it be a Divine visitation, it
is done with wisdom and regulative grace, it is done for the higher purposes of
character, for the evolution of good, and for the final extinction of evil, and
therefore, it must hold, blended with it, not only the designs of moral law and
the vindication of justice, but also the sublime issues of grace and salvation,
inasmuch as God is a Father as well as a Ruler, a Saviour as well as a Judge.
It is, then, not a doom, but a discipline. It is not to work itself out like
some physical mechanical law, catching you as a machine catches the unwary or
the blundering operative, and then never letting him go, until it has dragged
him through all its terrible course of wheels and rollers, cogs and crushing
pistons, to throw him out, at length, a torn and mangled dismembered,
slaughtered travesty of life and power. This is your philosophic view of human
descent, but this is not the Divine. God “visits the sins of the fathers on the
children.” We know then that He does it to discipline the race. “My Father is a
husbandman,” said Jesus, teaching us the same blessed lesson under a beautiful
figure. What, may we now ask, is the practical outcome of all this truth, man’s
organic relation, this relation divinely regulated and applied to the
discipline of the race?
1. In the first place, will it not give us a fresh sense of the
responsibility of life? We are links in the chain of human life. We receive the
influences of our fathers, we hand these on to our children.
2. Shall we then not deeply consider the tremendous responsibility
with which we are freighted? We may involve a long line of descendants in the
result of our living.
3. The import of this lesson becomes all the greater when we consider
it as it bears upon family life, and the relations which subsist between the
parent and the child. What a sanctity has not God given to the family! Nothing
must break the bond which binds society into its essential and formative
elements--the circles of home.
4. Let us, then, seek to render this Divine law of great potency in
the building of our Church and the furtherance of the kingdom of Christ as it
is given to us. “To you and to your children” is the promise.
5. And finally, let me ask you to reflect upon your relation to Jesus
Christ in the light of this organic unity of the race. (L. D. Bevan, D. D.)
The iniquity of the fathers visited upon their children
1. That this passage has no reference whatsoever to God’s treatment
of mankind in a future state. It does not mean that God will punish children in
a future state for the sins of their parents; but the visitation which it
threatens is exclusively temporal (see Ezekiel 18:20).
2. That God never visits children even with temporal judgments for
the sins of their parents, unless they imitate, and thus justify their parents’
offences. Hezekiah, Josiah, and many other pious men were the children of
exceedingly wicked parents; but as they shunned the sins of their fathers, and
were supremely devoted to God, they enjoyed His favour in a very high degree,
and were visited with no marks of displeasure on account of their progenitors.
There is, however, one apparent exception to these remarks, which must be
noticed. It is evident from facts, that even pious children often suffer in
consequence of the wicked conduct of their parents. If a father be idle, or
extravagant, his children, and perhaps his children’s children, may suffer in
consequence; nor will any degree of piety always shield them from such
sufferings. It must, however, be added, that the sinful example and conduct of
wicked parents has a most powerful tendency to prevent their children from
becoming pious, to induce them to pursue vicious courses, and thus to bring
upon them Divine judgments.
3. That our text describes God’s method of proceeding with nations,
and civil or ecclesiastical communities, rather than with individuals. I do not
say that it has no reference to individuals, but that it refers principally to
nations, states, and churches. That we may perceive the justice, wisdom, and
propriety of this method of proceeding, it is necessary to consider the
following things. It is indispensably necessary to the perfection of God’s
moral government that it should extend to nations and communities as well as to
individuals. This, I conceive, is too evident to require proof; for how could
God be considered as the moral governor of the world if nations and communities
were exempt from His government? Again, if God is to exercise a moral
government over nations and communities by rewarding or punishing them
according to their works, the rewards and punishments must evidently be
dispensed in this world; for nations and communities will not exist, as such,
in the world to come. In that world God must deal with men, considered simply
as individuals. Further, it seems evidently proper that communities as well as
individuals should have a time of trial and probation allowed them; that if the
first generation prove sinful, the community should not be immediately
destroyed, but that the punishment should be suspended, till it be seen whether
the nation will prove incorrigible, or whether some succeeding generation will
not repent of the national sins, and thus avert national judgments. Now it is
evident that if God thus waits upon nations, as He does upon individuals, and
allows them a season of probation, a space for repentance, He cannot destroy
them until many generations of sinners are laid in their graves. Besides, by
thus suspending the rod or the sword over a nation, He presents to it powerful
inducements to reform. He appeals to parental feelings, to men’s affection for
their posterity, and endeavours to deter them from sin by the assurance that
their posterity will suffer for it. (E. Payson, D. D.)
Verses 21-26
Thou shalt rest.
Sabbath rest in harvest
“Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest:
in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest”; that is, you shall not violate
the Sabbath-day because it is harvest. I have heard persons say, It has been
six days very wet; the corn is standing, and Sunday happens to be a bright
sunny day; and they say, We ought to go and cut down the corn on the
Sabbath-day. Here is a provision for this very possibility. God says, Even in
harvest and earing time you shall still keep the Sabbath sacred to God. And I
have noticed, although I admit my observation has been very limited, that that
man who has cut down his corn on the Sunday in order to get it in well, did not
succeed one whir better in the long run than he that observed the Sabbath as
holy, and waited for sunny week-days in order to do his week-day work. I admit
that there are works of necessity and mercy that are proper to be done on the
Sabbath-day; and I can conceive the possibility that a time may come--an autumn
may come when, even upon the Sabbath-day, you should be obliged to cut down the
corn in consequence of unfavourable weather on the week-days; but you should
first be well satisfied that there is no prospect of sunshine during the six
days that are to follow. Do not forget that God said--not as ceremony but morality--that
in earing time, and in harvest even, thou shalt rest, or sabbatize, or keep the
Lord’s day. (J. Cumming, D. D.)
Exemplary Sabbath-keeping
I remember one time, many years ago, I was standing out for
Sunday, but the owners could not bear the thought of the smacks laying to for
the Sabbath. Well, the owner I sailed for wanted me to work on Sunday. I felt I
could not, so I had to leave my berth. I walked about eight weeks after that in
search of employment. Several owners asked me whether I wanted a situation. I
asked them whether they wished me to fish on the Lord’s day. They said, yes. I
had to decline. Well, the money was getting short, and I used to go in the dark
places on the sands to lift up my heart to God to help me to stand against this
fierce temptation. I had no help at home. My wife, not loving my Saviour, could
not understand my objection, and I have often seen her crying to think that she
and the two little children would have no bread to eat. My faith told me that
my Father in heaven would not let them be without bread and water--that would
be sure. At length the time came when I had to take my watch to pledge to get
bread. I started with a heavy heart, and when I got to the shop I could not
gain, courage to go in for a long time. I walked up and down praying to God to
keep ms strong and faithful and able to part with everything rather than to
betray my trust. At last I went in, and there stood one of our Church helpers
behind the counter. ‘Hullo,’ says he, ‘Wilkinson, has it come to this?’ He was
a dear young Christian, and has been a minister of the gospel for many years
now. He asked me what I wanted there. Then I told him I had come to pledge my
watch to get bread for wife and children. The tears stood in both our
eyes. At last he asked, ‘How much do you want on it?’ I said, ‘I don’t know;
give me enough to get something to eat to-day; and to-morrow, perhaps, God may
see fit to give me something to do where I can still serve Him.’ Well, he gave
me some money, and he shook hands with me, and said, ‘Have faith and courage;
keep trusting in the Lord, and He will bring you through.’ And so He did. The
next week three smacks had to be sold, and a Christian man bought one. He asked
me to go as skipper of her. He told me, before I went to sea, not to do
anything on Sundays if I could help it. That is twenty-six years ago, and that
is how the Lord brought me through. (Captain Wilkinson, Mission Smack “Ed.
Birkbeck.”)
Observe the feast.
God’s provision for His people’s enjoyment
I. That seasons for
rejoicing were commanded. Let those who think that the Old Dispensation was
gloomy remember that there was Divine injunction for joy and feasting three
times a year.
II. That these
seasons for rejoicing were conveniently appointed. Not in winter, but--
1. In spring, Passover.
2. Summer, First-fruits.
3. Autumn, Ingathering.
III. That these
seasons for rejoicing had a religious basis.
1. The feasts were “unto God.”
2. Were in remembrance of Divine services which made rejoicing
possible.
IV. That these seasons
for rejoicing were connected with religious acts (Exodus 34:17-19).
1. Personal dedication.
2. Sacrifices.
V. That seasons of
rejoicing must not engender slovenliness and uncleanness (Exodus 34:18).
VI. That seasons of
rejoicing must not be desecrated by unnatural or superstitious ceremonies.
“Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk”; an outrage on nature and
connected with witchcraft. In conclusion, if Judaism was a religion of joy,
much more so is Christianity. The latter--
1. Was inaugurated as “glad tidings of great joy.”
2. Its leading fact and doctrines are grounds of joy (1 John 1:1-4).
3. Its great central and fundamental principle is an occasion of joy
(Romans 5:11).
4. The “fruit of the Spirit is joy.”
5. It provides an eternity of joy.
6. But remember the joy of the Lord’s your strength, and it is only
in the Lord that we can rejoice evermore (Philippians 4:4). (J. W. Burn.)
Thrice in the year.--
The three yearly feasts at Jerusalem
We will--
I. Draw your
attention to the institution recorded in the text. Consider--
1. Of what nature this appointment was: partly political, and partly
religious.
2. What care God took to guard against the objections to which it was
liable.
II. Suggest some
observations founded upon it.
1. The service of God is of paramount obligation.
2. They who serve the Lord shall be saved by Him. (C. Simeon, M.
A.)
Verse 27-28
He wrote upon the tables.
The second tables
The Ten Commandments were twice written by the finger of
God Himself (see Deuteronomy 10:1-3), and upon enduring
tables of stone, to show how deeply and permanently they were to be engraved
upon the heart of man. Twice written, once upon a broken and once upon an
unbroken tablet, symbolically setting forth the truth that they were once
written upon the nature before the Fall, and are to be inscribed a second time
upon that nature, which inscription is made at his regeneration. Also, as they
were once written upon stone, they were to be engraved a second time upon the
heart, as the prophet Jeremiah predicted would be, and as the apostle asserted
had been done (Hebrews 8:10). Then by special command
they were afterwards deposited for safe keeping in the ark of the covenant,
upon which rested the Shekinah of the Lord, the most inviolably sacred place
outside the courts of heaven, and by special designation were ever afterward
known as the “Tables of the Testimony.” (James Stacy, D. D.)
Verses 29-35
The skin of his face shone.
Moses transfigured
This was the transfiguration of Moses. Let us consider the
narrative as a spiritual parable, and try to read in it some of the conditions
and privileges of exalted communion with God. Communion with God is the highest
prerogative of spiritual beings. It is the instinctive craving of human souls;
it is the supreme privilege and joy of the religious life; it is the
inspiration and strength of all great service. God redeems us and saves us by
drawing us to Himself. By mysterious voices He solicits us; by irrepressible
instincts He impels us; by subtle affinities He holds us; by ineffable
satisfactions He makes us feel His nearness and fills us with rest and joy.
I. We are admitted
to fellowship with God only through propitiatory sacrifice. Moses builds an
altar under the hill, offers sacrifices upon it, and sprinkles the blood
thereof before he ascends the holy mount to commune with God. We must seek
fellowship with God through the one propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Not
only is the sacrifice of Christ the medium through which the forgiving love of
God becomes possible; it is the supreme expression of it.
II. We are
qualified for our highest intercourse with God by the spiritual grace of our
own souls; Moses was qualified for this revelation of the supreme glory of God
by his peculiar magnanimity and self-sacrifice. When God admits us to
intercourse with Himself, what we see will depend upon our capability of
seeing. Only the pure in heart can see God.
III. We are admitted
to visions of the higher glory of God only when we seek them for the uses of
practical religious duty. If selfishness be a disqualification, so is mere
sentiment. A man who seeks God for his own religious gratification merely may
see God, but he will not see God’s supreme glory. Our chief reason for desiring
to know God must be that we may glorify Him in serving others.
IV. The most
spiritual visions of God, the closest communion with God, are to be realized
only when we seek Him alone. In our greatest emotions we seek solitude
instinctively. Human presence is intolerable to the intensest moods of the
soul. No man can be eminent either in holiness or service who does not often
ascend to the mountain-top, that he may be alone with God and behold His glory.
V. The supreme
revelation of God to which we attain through such fellowship with Him is the
revelation of His grace and love. When a man sees this, the glory of God has
passed before him.
VI. The revelation
of God’s glorious goodness transfigures the man who beholds it. (H. Allon,
D. D.)
Unconscious beauty
“He wist not that the skin of his face shone.” Few and simple as
these words are, there could be none grander written to the memory of a hero.
The noblest and loftiest character is assuredly that of the man who is so
absorbed in the Divine nature of his calling, and so conscious of the need of
those for whom he labours, that he becomes forgetful of the beauty in his character
which others recognize, and almost unconscious that he is himself the worker.
I. There are many
unconscious believers and workers in the world still, who may gather helpful
thoughts from this fact concerning Moses. Much time and ability has been devoted
to discussing the question of “Christian assurance.” To say that if we do not feel
that we are saved, we are not saved, is to lose sight of what salvation
really means. It is nowhere stated in Scripture that an assurance of that
salvation which is a gradual matter, a day-by-day struggle and deliverance, is
either universal or necessary. God may think it best that some of us should not
have assurance, as on that great day He kept Moses unconscious that the skin of
his face shone.
II. Perhaps some of
us may feel that there were moments of such bright and hopeful experience once,
but they are past now, and that seems to us the saddest thought of all. Still
we need not despair. We should go back as Moses did to the mount where God had
spoken to him, to the source of the old enthusiasm and the former faith. If we
go back and stand face to face with the crucified Christ, our life will glow
anew with the radiance of His love, even though we ourselves are unconscious of
it.
III. This holds good
also regarding our work for God. Many a splendid silent work is done on earth,
and the doer is perhaps unconscious of it, and may remain unconscious till the
great day of the Lord shall reveal it. (T. T. Shore, M. A.)
Moses’ face shining: a picture of true glory
1. Man has an instinct for glory.
2. Man has sadly perverted this instinct.
3. The Bible rightly directs it.
I. The true glory
of man involves fellowship with the Eternal. The human character is formed on
the principle of imitation. To get a perfect character implies--
1. The existence of a perfect model.
2. The love of a perfect model.
3. The knowledge of a perfect model.
II. The true glory
of man has an external manifestation.
1. True glory will show itself-in the “face” of our person.
2. Language.
3. Life.
III. True glory is
never self-conscious. “Moses wist not.” There are several things that
necessitate self-obliviousness in a truly great soul.
1. His standard of judgment.
2. His circle of life. He who stands before God feels his
nothingness.
3. His spirit of life. Love is a passion that drowns the lover in the
loved. “I live, yet not!.”
IV. True glory will
command the reverence of society.
1. The law of conscience will ensure universal respect for it.
2. The law of guilt will ensure trembling homage for it. (Homilist.)
The shining face
I. The shining
face the result of his long and close communion with God. The heavenly light
within will shine out.
II. The shining
face was beheld by the people, The good man’s walk and conversation are known
of all.
III. The shining
face awed all who beheld it. The consciousness of sin makes the wicked fear
pious friends, whose presence rebukes them.
IV. Moses knew not
that his face shone. The more grace we have the less self-consciousness. The
more good others see in us, the less do we see ourselves. Application:
1. If you cannot do anything else for God, you can exhibit a shining
face.
2. Do not be discouraged because you are not conscious of any good
influence you exert. (J. L. Elderdice.)
Communion with God
I. The
distinguishing characteristics of communion with God.
1. It is mediatory.
2. It is individual.
3. It is protracted.
4. It is self-denying.
II. The irradiating
power of communion with God.
1. Its manifestation.
2. Its unconsciousness.
3. Its effect.
The Divine glory and its effects
We learn here three things with regard to the beauty of a
sanctified character.
I. The nature of
this beauty,--it is that which shines.
1. Its self-manifestation may be often a passive thing. It was Moses’
face that was the index of his mood at the time,--not his tongue nor his hands.
So with the child of God; the beauty that bathes him is matter that exists
independent of any definite words spoken, or any outward deeds done. The beauty
of the believer is the beauty of joy; and joy does not always need speech to
express itself, or the word to others, “I am glad.”
2. Then, too, we learn that spiritual beauty is often an unwitnessed
thing. It is by no means conditioned by the position a man occupies, or the
numbers that are there to see. For the glory on Moses’ face was not brought
there just that others might watch and, admire. His features would have glowed
all the same, had there been no one to watch and to marvel in all the plain;
and heaven’s own light would have glanced and flickered from his face among the
bare dead sands and unconscious stones where he trod, making the solitude
around him luminous. So again with the child of God. His shining does not need
the stimulus of spectators.
II. The secret of
this beauty. Communion with God,--that is the source it must spring from,
lending sanctity to the character, and beauty to the very face. To see God’s
face is to, shine; to keep seeing it is to keep shining. It is thus that the
marvel of the story is repeated, and God’s praying saints come forth from this
privacy with their faces aglow; and the dying grow luminous on their beds, till
the watchers wonder. Why, where is there brightness like the brightness of
heaven? They are all lustrous there! Uncover yourselves therefore to the light;
keep yourselves up where the light is shining. The struggle will be to do that,
and will be over when you have done it. So and so only will you shine
yourselves. The manner of this shining is reflection and the secret of it is
communion with God.
III. The
characteristic by which it is marked. That characteristic is unconsciousness.
“Moses,” we are told, “wist not that his face shone.” It is always most real
when it radiates unawares. Is it not the case that many an act which would
otherwise have affected us favourably, attracted our admiration, won our
esteem, is shorn of its grace and becomes worthless or worse for us, just
because vitiated by self-consciousness? For instance, I may be glad to receive
a kindness; but if the man who professes to show it me betrays so plainly that
he thinks it a kindness, and imposes a debt on myself while he does it, then I
refuse to have the favour at his hands, or I grudge the necessity that compels
me. Or I may feel that I stand in need of forgiveness; but if the brother at
whose door I am suing for it makes it clear, while he gives me his hand, that
he counts his act a magnanimous one, his forgiveness is emptied of its grace.
Why, there are books one could point to, as well as people, in whose case the
principle holds true. In language and in sentiment they are otherwise
unexceptional. They treat of moral and religious truth with a freshness of view
and a beauty of utterance which in themselves would arrest and stimulate. But
you cannot help feeling throughout them the presence of an evil underflavour
the while--the taint of the writer’s self-consciousness in it all, that maims
and defiles his message--the traces of a spiritual ostentation through the
whole, that makes you recognize while you read that the question is being asked
you--not, “What think ye of the truth merely?” but, “What think ye of me who am
saying it?” Nor is this unconsciousness without its directer proofs. Two at
least will invariably be found with it--appreciation of others, depreciation of
self. Nor is the reason of all this far to seek. This unconsciousness of grace
that we speak of, issuing not only in appreciation of others, but in
depreciation of self, may be accounted for by converse with a high ideal. For
the greater an artist’s success, the greater his sense of imperfection. The
more that he strives to attain, the further will his standard recede from him,
the more unsatisfactory will his attainments appear in the light of it. What,
then, must the ease be when the standard is an infinite one, and the mark we reach
forth to is the perfection of a God! (W. A. Gray.)
The element of unconsciousness in character
See also Judges 16:20.
I. Let us note, in
the first place, that this quality of unconsciousness is invariably connected
with a peculiar antecedent history. The facts stated regarding Moses and Samson
do not stand out in isolation in their biographies. They are in immediate
relation to the preceding incidents in their careers. The new man can form good
habits, just as the old man formed evil ones, and in proportion as these habits
gain strength, the consciousness of effort after the things which they lead us
to do begins to diminish in us. Hence in the details of daily life the
character of the believer, as he grows in holiness, shines with a radiance of
which he is largely unaware. Now this truth has another side, for it comes in
also with fearfully dangerous influence in the continued commission of sin. The
more one practises iniquity, the greater facility he acquires in committing it,
the stronger becomes the tendency to indulge in it, and the weaker ever is his
sense of its enormity. In a manufacturing town in England, some years ago, it
became necessary to do some repairs at the top of one of the tallest
smoke-stacks in the principal factory, and an expert was engaged for the
purpose. He flew his kite over it, and fixed his tackle so that he could hoist
himself up. But when he reached the summit, through some accident, the whole
tackling fell, and there he stood without any means of coming down again. Every
plan was tried to get a rope to him without success. A great crowd collected at
the base of the chimney, and among these was the wife of the unfortunate man. A
happy thought struck her, in her earnestness for her husband’s safety. She knew
that he wore at the moment stockings which her own hands had just knitted. So,
at her suggestion, they called him to undo the yarn of which they were
composed, and by and by a tiny thread came fluttering down on the breeze. When
it reached the earth, they tied it to a piece of twine, which he drew up with
the yarn. To the twine again they tied a thicker string, and then to that a
cord, and to that again a cable, and so he was saved. That was a work of deliverance.
But there is a similar gradation in the cord of evil habit by which a sinner is
bound. It is first a brittle yarn, then a tiny twine, with which a child might
play.
II. But I advance
another step in the prosecution of my theme, and remark, in the second place,
that this quality of unconsciousness marks the culmination of character either
in good or evil. The highest greatness is that which is unconscious of itself.
The very forthputting of an effort to be great in any direction indicates that
we lack that greatness. So long as we are conscious of an effort to be
something, we are not fully that something, therefore we ought to redouble our
exertions. When a venerable minister was called upon once unexpectedly to
preach, he delivered extempore a sermon of great power. It seemed to come
perfectly natural to him. There was no appearance of effort; and one hearer,
amazed at the character of the discourse, asked, “How long did it take you to
make that sermon? “Forty years,” was the reply. And there was deep philosophy
in the answer, for had “the old man eloquent” not given these forty years to
diligent study and laborious effort, he could not then have preached so easily.
Now, in the same way, our conscious endeavours after the Christian life will, if
faithfully prosecuted, lead up to a time when, in some emergency, we shall meet
it with the most perfect ease, and be hardly aware of any exertion. Let this
thought stimulate us to perseverance in our great Christian life-work of
building character. The longer we labour the less arduous will our labour
become, until by and by we shall lose the sense of labour in the joy and
liberty of our happy experience. But note again at the other end of the scale
that the deepest degradation is that which is unconscious of its dishonour.
Hence, however degraded a man may be there is hope of his recovery if he only
knows his condition. That is the handle by which yet, through the grace of God,
you may raise him, and you will succeed in lifting the fallen from their defilement
only by awakening in them that consciousness. Their fall has stunned them into
insensibility, and the first thing you have to do with them is to restore them
to consciousness. ( W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Communion with God, and its results
I. First, the converse
which Moses had with God on the top of the mountain was the cause of that glory
which rested on his countenance. There is, no doubt, a great deal of what is
miraculous in connection with this transaction; but though we are not to look
in our own particular case for anything analogous to it, yet we are to expect
something spiritually correspondent with it.
1. The first remark that I offer to your attention is, that on
ascending the mountain to hold intercourse with God, Moses observed the rites
of the religious dispensation under which he lived. A devotional spirit must be
cherished and cultivated; and it is promised, on the part of the Saviour, that
what we ask in prayer, believing, that we shall receive. But in addition to
this, God must lift the veil from His own throne. He must give utterance to the
voice of mercy and love. He must display reasons to the humble waiting spirit,
and must manifest Himself in some clear manner, before we can be made conscious
of communion with Him.
2. Moses ascended the mountain alone. This opens to us another
principle of religion. It is this--that in all respects it is personal. Our
devotional exercises are of this nature. It is true, indeed, that we meet in
public fellowship; but there is a sense in which the soul sits solitary and
alone in the midst of a mighty multitude. Here I stand, and there you sit; but
one character, one faith, one love, one hope, one joy. And our several emotions
are all personal, and belong to ourselves. You know not my feelings; I know not
yours.
3. As Moses drew a pattern from God on the mountain, so must we
derive grace to fill it up from the same source. Now as far as we are employed
in building the internal temple of Christianity, we must derive grace and
strength from intercourse with God for the discharge of this great duty; and as
Moses received the law from God, so we must receive grace and power to obey it
from the same source. This remark is applicable both to our personal and public
duties.
II. The second
general observation to be made relates to the nature of that light, and beauty,
and glory, which rested on the face of Moses. I should here remark, that there
is a great mystery in this, but that it was intended to be symbolical of a
better glory. That intercourse with God will make or cause His beauty to rest
upon the soul. There may be no external glory, such as beamed on the face of
Moses, but a spiritual glory beaming forth, instead, upon the mind.
1. There must be, for instance, rapturous joy. How can it be
otherwise? The impulses of religion, when they exist in the mind, as they
should do, by constant fellowship with the eternal Trinity, must be
transporting and animating in the highest degree.
2. Intercourse with God must have the effect of expanding the
capacity and enlarging the soul.
3. I may also add, that intercourse with God will produce, if not
external or physical beauty, yet a beauty of character. Internal purity will be
corroborated by outward conduct.
III. The final
remark which I offer for your attention, relates to the vail which moses put on
his face when he descended from the mountain to hold fellowship with the
people. There is a mystery in this; but the mystery we shall not attempt to
unravel. Allow me here to say generally, that religion in its beauty and glory
is often in the present life veiled beneath circumstances which obscure its
grandeur. (J. Dixon.)
A transfigured soul
You have heard of the marks on the bodies of Roman Catholic
devotees which go by the name of stigmatization. There appear on the hands and feet
of the rapt saint wounds similar to those inflicted on the crucified Saviour.
It is alleged that the intense brooding of their sympathetic and ravished souls
on the Redeemer’s agonies have led to their bearing about, in a literal sense,
on their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus. We shall leave physiologists to
explain the alleged phenomena, or to expose the possible imposture, and go on
to say that this physical stigmatization has a moral counterpart; that though
the wounds inflicted on the Saviour’s flesh may not be reproduced on the bodies
of His saints, the moral glory of His nature may be republished in their souls,
and through their faces may be radiated into the world, as His own glory,
usually veiled, once was allowed to burst through the environing flesh on the
Mount of Transfiguration. In meditating on this incident in the history of
Moses I suggest to you--
1. That the effulgence of his face, was the result of his eighty
days’ fellowship with God. I have read somewhere that people who live together
through long-wedded years at last grow like each other, not only in their ways
of thinking, of looking at things--in their moods and habitudes of mind--but
even in their cast of face and feature. Such power, it is said, has long and
constant fellowship to make people variously constituted of like temper, and
even appearance. I can understand it in the case of the moral and mental
dispositions. The stronger nature makes the weaker surrender its own
personality and qualities, and borrow from that by which it is swayed. It is,
indeed, by the working of this mysterious law of spirit that the Christian
believer is renewed into Christ. If, therefore, the face of the sage and seer
shone with unwonted lustre, it must have been because of a corresponding purification
of his moral nature. It is to this condition alone that a glimpse of the
beatific vision and an insight into Divine things are given. “Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God,” and discern truth.
2. Did the translucency fade away, as the golden glory fades from the
hill-tops when the sun has set; or did it last till the day of his death? Had
he ever after kept his spirit up to the moral elevation to which it rose on
Sinai’s height, the splendour of his visage would have been subject to no
eclipse or wane; it would have shone not only with an undiminishing, but with
an ever-increasing light.
3. Though the face of Moses shone, he was quite unconscious that
there was anything unusual about him; “he wist not that the skin of his face
shone when he talked”; he had no knowledge of the marvellous external results
which his eighty days’ companionship with God had wrought in his appearance.
There is a beautiful unconsciousness about the Christian. All the world is
applauding and reverencing him; blessing him for the vision of excellence with
which he refreshes it; acknowledging that his very existence fertilizes the
field of life; but were you to overhear his own estimate of himself, you would
find it other and different. Did you listen to his prayers, you would find them
full of heart-breaking confessions of unworthiness. (J. Forfar.)
The law a light
1. First, it was signified that the law proceeded from a higher world
of light, of knowledge, and of holiness, since its very gleams were to be seen outwardly
on the minister of the law.
2. Since the people could not bear the shining of the light, it
represented how fearful, condemnatory, and fatal the law was for a sinful
people. (Otto von Gerlach, D. D.)
The highest excellence is that which is least conscious of itself
The greatest achievements made by the sculptor or the
painter have been those in the production of which he has been fullest of his
conception, and had least thought of himself. I do not mean to say that the
noblest artists have not been indefatigable workers; on the contrary, they have
laboured with such persevering effort that at last they can produce, almost
without the consciousness of exertion, something that will never be forgotten;
and their supreme work is that which seems almost to have come to them of
itself, so that they were more passive than active in its transmission to their
fellows. The best sermons write themselves, and are given to the preacher
before they are given by him, so that he cannot think of them as wholly his own.
But it is the same in spiritual things. If I am conscious of an effort to be
humble, very clearly I have not yet attained to humility; while, on the other
hand, the very moment I become conscious that I am humble, I have become proud.
And so with every other grace. What a discount you take from a man’s character
when, after you have said of him, he is this, or that, or the other thing that
is good, you add, “but he knows it.” You might almost as well have taken a
sponge and wiped out all that went before. So if you know your excellence, you
have not reached the highest excellence; there remaineth yet the loftiest and
the hardest peak of the mountain to be climbed by you, and that is humility. (W.
M. Taylor, D. D.)
Light through converse with spiritual things
There is one kind of diamond which, after it has been exposed for
some minutes to the light of the sun, when taken into a dark room will emit
light for some time. The marvellous property of retaining light, and thereby
becoming the source of light on a small scale, shows how analogous to light its
very nature must be. Those who touched the Saviour became sources of virtue to
others. As Moses’ face shone when he came from the mount, so converse with
spiritual things makes Christians the light which shines in the dark places of
the earth. “Let your light so shine before men.” (Weekly Pulpit.)
Moral illumination
The spaces between the windows of one of the rooms of a famous
palace are hung with mirrors, and by this device the walls are made just as
luminous as the windows, through which the sunshine streams. Every square inch
of surface seems to reflect the light. Let your natures be like that--no point
of darkness anywhere, the whole realm of the inward life an unchequered blaze
of moral illumination. (T. G. Selby.)
The outshining of a joyful heart
Moses came down from the mount, when, like the bush of Horeb, he
had been in the midst of the fire and was not consumed, and as he came, the
light of his soul transfigured his face, “the beauty of the Lord our God was
upon him,” and the ninetieth Psalm seemed to be shining through it. As the
brightly-coloured soil of volcanic Sicily makes flowers of the brightest tints,
so there was a garden in the prophet’s face, glorified by the outshining of his
joyful heart. (Christian Age.)
The after-glow of devotion
One of the most solemn and delightful privileges of the traveller
is to watch the after-glow upon the mountains when the sun has disappeared.
This was accorded to us on several occasions, but was never more impressive
than in the valley of Chamounix. To see the hoary head of Mont Blanc, and even
the pointed aguiles of the locality, too steep to allow the snow to settle on
them, all aglow with rosy tints, made us feel as though by some transformation
scene we were inhabitants of another world, or as though heaven had come down
to earth, and the tabernacle of God had been pitched among men. (G. Kirkham.)
Light reflected from the cross
With much pathos Mr. Varley once told the story of Sybil, a
negress slave, whose mistress said to her: “When I heard you singing on the
house-top I thought you fanatical, but when I saw your beaming face I could not
help feeling how different you were to me.” Sybil answered, “Ah, missus, the
light you saw in my face was not from me, it all came ‘fleeted from de cross,
and there is heaps more for every poor sinner who will come near enough to
catch de rays.”
Exhortation to humility
I charge you, be clothed with humility, or you will yet be
a wandering star, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Let
Christ increase, let man decrease. Remember, “Moses wist not that the skin of
his face shone.” Looking at our own shining face is the bane of the spiritual
life, and of the ministry. Oh! for closest communion with God, till soul and
body, head and heart, shine with Divine brilliancy! But oh! for a holy ignorance
of their shining! (R. McCheyne.)
The absence of self-consciousness
Near the close of the summer season, in a pleasant summer
retreat, a new-comer found the entire company of the little hotel preparing to
give a fete in honour of a young lady who was about to leave them. The young
men had hired a band, marquees were erected on the lawn, the house was wreathed
with flowers; everybody had some little farewell gift ready for “Miss Betty.”
The stranger was curious. “This Miss Betty is very beautiful?” he asked. “No, I
think not; it never occurred to me before, but I believe she is homely.” “A
great heiress, then?” “On the contrary, a poor artist.” “Brilliant? Witty?
Highly intellectual?” “No, indeed; she never said a fine thing in her life. But
she is the best listener I ever knew. Neither is she learned or clever or
fascinating; but she is the most lovable girl in the world.” “What is the
charm, then?” Betty’s friend looked perplexed. “I do not know,” he hesitated,
“unless it is that she never thinks of herself.” The charm of this woman was an
absolute absence of all self-conscious- ness. She was neither vain nor modest.
She simply forgot that there was such a person as Betty Gordon, and with her
warm heart and quick sympathies threw herself into the lives of others. It was
a peculiar, powerful attraction, and brought the little world about her to her
feet.
He put a vail on his face.
The vailed face
It appears to be a law of our being, and the being of all material
things, that everything grows like to that with which it is conversant and
familiar. It is a law ruling all creation. We find it in the Arctic regions and
we find it in the tropics--namely, life assimilates itself to the nature which
is around it. Friendship, the intercourse of common friendship, will affect the
countenance. When we go to moral life, there is its evil and its blessed
application. Those who frequent the good gather the image of their goodness;
and those who deal much with God, they grow God-like.
I. What was the
glory on Moses’ face? St. Paul gives us a remarkable answer to this question.
He says, “They could not look steadfastly to the end of that which is
abolished.” “That which is abolished” is the law, and the end of the law is
Christ; therefore the glory upon Moses’ face was the Lord Jesus Christ.
II. It was not in
compassion for the weakness of the israelites that Moses put a vail upon his
face. The jews had lost the power to see the end of that which is abolished, to
see the glory of God in Jesus Christ reflected in the law. The vail was
judicial, the consequence of sin; it was interposed between them and the
beauty, the lustre, of the mighty glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
III. There are vailed
hearts among us now; and the reason of the vail is sin. Do you think that like
those Israelites you have committed some sins under the mount? It will quite
account for the vail, and the vail will be proportioned to that state of life.
Every wilful disobedience of conscience, every going against a conviction, will
thicken your vail. It will be God’s retribution to you--the intellect dulled,
the mind warped, the heart hardened, the Spirit hindered, by the sin. What is
the remedy? “When it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.”
Then Christ is the remedy. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Moses’ vail
The vail which Moses put on his face, when he perceived that it
shone--
1. Teaches us a lesson of modesty and humility: we must be content to
have our excellences obscured.
2. It teaches ministers to accommodate themselves to the capacities
of the people, and to preach to them as they are able to bear it.
3. The vail signified the darkness of that dispensation in which
there were only “shadows of good things to come.” (A. Nevin, D. D.)
The vail on Moses’ face
St. Paul, in the New Testament, makes large use of this narrative
of the glory that shone on Moses’ face as he came down with the renewed
covenant. Thus he employs it as in a typical sense an emblem of the relative
glories of the old legal and the new evangelical dispensation (2 Corinthians 3:10-18). Even as a
rhetorical figure, how beautiful is this application of the narrative of Moses
to the purpose of setting before Jewish Christians the relation of the new to
the old dispensation. Moses, with his vail, stands as a symbol of his own
dispensation, which was, in fact, the gospel under a vail. And the symbol is
represented as having a threefold significancy, when contemplated in its
different parts. First, the symbol points out the intrinsic excellence and
glory of the old dispensation, even though far less glorious than the new. But
as the glory of Moses’ face was absorbed and lost when he entered “the tent of
meeting,” to commune with God, so the brightness of the old dispensation of
Moses is eclipsed in the transcendent brightness of the gospel. Again, the
narration of the veiled Moses, in the apostle’s view, symbolizes the
comparative obscurity of the old exhibition of the way of salvation. The vail
represents the indistinct view which the Israelites had through the ritual
teachings of the law; the brightness of the gospel light was covered up by
rites that their minds did not penetrate. Nor will many of them now lift the
vail, as the new dispensation invites them to do. Hence, again, this vail typified
the blindness and ignorance under which the Jewish mind laboured, even in the
time of the apostle. They had so long looked at Moses vailed that they now
seemed to think the very vail an essential part of the system of salvation. (S.
Robinson, D. D.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》