Exodus 32:15-35 - Homilies By J. Urquhart

Judgment and mercy.

I. THE DESCENT or MOSES THE EMBLEM OF THE LAW 'S ENTRANCE INTO A WORLD OF SIN ( Exodus 32:15-29 ).

1 . He came with tables written by God's own finger. The Divine origin and claims of the law are still attested by its own nature and by man's conscience.

2 . He was met by the exhibition of gross and defiant sin. The law does not come to a people waiting to receive the knowledge of God's will, but busy with their idolatry and breaking what they already know to be his will.

3 . The law's advent, therefore, is in wrath ( Exodus 32:19 ).

II. THE INTERCESSOR .

1 . His deep consciousness of the evil of their sin ( Exodus 32:30 , Exodus 32:31 ). The intercessor cannot make light of man's iniquity. He who bore our burdens felt their weight and terribleness as we have never yet done.

2 . His love. Though he hates their iniquity, his life is bound up with theirs ( Exodus 32:32 ).

III. THE TERRIBLENESS OF SIN AS SEEN IN THE MIRROR OF THE DIVINE ANGER .

1 . The impossibility of ransom. "Whosoever hath sinned against me him will I blot out of my book." There is but one sacrifice which avails, and that reaches the heart of the sinful and changes it.

2 . Mercy to the unrenewed only means a delayed judgement: "Nevertheless, in the day when I visit I will visit their sins upon them."— U .