Exodus 33:12–16

For the third time in this whole episode, Moses prays in lovely intercession for Israel (v. 12). The Lord had told him to bring the people up to their land, he says. But he feels helpless to do this without the Lord's presence. Yet, he insists, the Lord had also told him that He knew Moses by name and that Moses had found grace in His sight (v. 12). Since this is true, God must have a way that He could show to Moses.

He wants first to know whom the Lord would send with him. God had said that He would send an angel (v. 2). But Moses wanted to know more. He asks for this knowledge because the Lord had said to him, "I know you by name, and you have also found grace in My sight." … Everything now depended on Moses as mediator. So he presents his own cause first, and then he brings the people before God. … It was not enough for Moses that God had appointed him to lead Israel, and that an angel should go before him on the way. He wanted to know God's way through the wilderness, not his own, so that he might also know Him.

Jehovah dealt with Moses according to his faith, according to how far he perceived and grasped God Himself. He appeared before Jehovah truly as a man. Yet he was a man so shaped by the knowledge of God that he thought, spoke and acted in perfect agreement with the mind of God. He came to Jehovah with high human dignity and holy freedom, yet always with deepest reverence. And in everything he said he carried Israel in his heart. God accepted him into a very close relationship with Himself — "I know you by name" — and God received his intercession: he found grace in God's sight.

What can be more lovely, more like Christ, than this? He uses all the personal confidence that God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the point of it all. … He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses and say, "They are the people you have brought up; they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses. "They are Yours, and You are their only hope." He will not be put off.

Moses asks for the accompanying presence of Jehovah as proof that they had found grace in His sight. If it were only a question of justice, He could only consume them by coming among them, since they were "a stiff-necked people." But as soon as He speaks of grace, through the mediator, their very stubbornness becomes the ground for demanding His presence.

Why must I insist on having God with me? Because I have this terrible flesh about me. Unless I have Him with me in His grace, I shall never get through the wilderness. My reason is this: I am so bad. And through grace He can have me with Him, despite all my weaknesses.

Yet the Lord makes clear why He answers favourably: Moses had found grace in God's sight. The same is true, in the fullest sense, of the Lord Jesus. He has above all found grace in God's sight, and God knows Him by name.

The Spirit of God leads the Christian. His heart is in those ways. As Moses says, Show me Your way — not a way, but Yours — that I may know You. If I know a person's ways, I know him.

What he had so far heard of Him would not do for him. He had already seen Him as the Lawgiver, and as the Lord of the conditional covenant... But such displays of God would not do. Moses was not satisfied. And rightly so. At that very moment Israel lay before his eyes in moral ruins. Everything was finished for them on the terms of the Law, or under their own covenant. So Moses had to see God in God's own way. He must know Him, as he now tells Him — know Him in sovereign grace.

The Lord displayed His striking acts before the eyes of Israel. These acts of power did not call for an intimate knowledge of the Lord's character; they were plain to everyone. But only the spiritual could discern the ways of God — those dealings that flow from what He is. So we read, "He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel" (Ps. 103:7).

"Show me now Your way, that I may know You." There you get knowledge. Then "That I may find grace in Your sight" — not that he had not found grace, but he wanted to know it every moment. "Consider that this nation is Your people." He never forgets God's people, though God would not call them His people. God's presence is the next thing. Moses must know God's way and have His presence.

From this moment Moses presses a new plea. He turns the people's faultiness into a reason why God should go up — the very reason that righteousness had made a ground for refusing to go with them, in case His anger should burn against such a stiff-necked people. But, argues Moses, for this very reason we most of all want the Lord's presence. The boldness of faith is astonishing; but its pleading rests on the known grace of God Himself. In the tabernacle, outside the camp, Moses was near enough to God to see His grace better than he ever had before.

It was not enough for Moses that God had appointed him to lead Israel, and that an angel should go before him on the path. He wanted to know God's way through the wilderness, not his own, so that he might also know Him. Nothing less than knowing God and God's way could satisfy him — if he were to lead up the people. This is what every believer needs, and there is nothing beyond while in the wilderness.

But then the Lord added something that devastated Moses: "I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people" (v. 3). Could Moses think of leading the people on these terms? Suppose the Lord told us as believers to make our way to heaven as best we can, without His presence. How should we react? If that is how it would be for us personally, how much more helpless must Moses have felt, having to lead over two million people through the wilderness?

It is painful, and yet also beautiful, to see how God dealt with Moses after the people made the golden calf. While everything lay in ruins, faith under grace can have closer fellowship than when there was no ruin. Moses never had such close fellowship with God as now, when the people had made the calf. And the calf was still in the camp. The way God meets Moses is beautiful: "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." Then Moses grows bolder still, and says, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here."

He uses all the personal confidence God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the point of it all. He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses, and say, "They are the people you have brought up: they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses, "they are Yours; and You are their only hope." Nothing puts him off.

This comforted and emboldened his heart, and he replied, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here." (v. 15.) Now he identifies himself with the people. This intense love of Moses for Israel is no small picture of the heart of Christ. He links them with himself in his place of favour before God.

Grace had come in during the interval; God's goodness had passed before him. This changed everything. Because the people were so stiff-necked, Moses says, we cannot do without God. So once grace is the foundation, Moses takes the very condition of the people and makes it his argument. That condition would have led God to consume them, or at least to keep Him from going among them. Now it is the reason for God to go up among them. The moment grace comes in, we feel that our very sinfulness is a reason why we cannot do without the presence of God.

He claims, as it were, as proof of divine favour — of restored favour — God's own presence with His people. Nothing else could make it known. His presence would separate them from all other people. It is the same in principle today. The presence of the Holy Spirit on earth, building His people into a dwelling place for God, separates them from everything else.

Who but the God of all grace could meet the ten thousand needs of wilderness life? Moses had said well, at the very beginning, "If Your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here." He was right and wise to put it that way. God's presence was the only answer to the demand of such a congregation. But that presence was an all-sufficient answer. God's treasury never runs out. He can never fail a trusting heart.

He uses all the personal confidence that God had in him on behalf of the people. That is the bearing of it all... "Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight... consider that this nation is Yours." He will not give up his love and desire for Israel. God may treat them as the people of Moses, and say, "They are the people you have brought up: they are your people." "Oh no," says Moses, "they are Yours; and You are their only hope."

Now he identifies himself with the people... And not only so, but, rising higher, he now links them again with God. We have remarked that God took Israel on their own ground. Since they had rejected Him, He had said to Moses, "your" people. But now — now that Moses, acting as mediator, has gained the ear of God, he says again "Your" people... So he claims, in effect, as proof of divine favour — restoration of favour — God's own presence with His people. There was no other way to know it.

God had first threatened to consume them by coming up among them in a moment. Then He said, "I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people." Yet Moses says in chapter 34:9, "If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go up among us, for it is a stiff-necked people." In between, grace had come in; God's goodness had passed before him. This changed all... The moment grace comes in, even in the way God governs us, we feel this: our very sinfulness is a reason why we cannot do without the presence of God.

To be God's people meant that they had to dwell alone. He lived among them and went with them. That was the principle and the cause of their being separated from all people on the face of the earth (Exodus 33:16). It is ever so. There is the broad road of the world, and the narrow and separated path which leads to life. We cannot walk in the two at once.

The people dwell alone. They are separate from others, because God has marked them off. They are not counted among the nations... That they are not counted among the nations comes from God's side. It is His grace and His gift. The people might not be true to their calling; nor were they: the Church of God has not been true to hers. This does not lessen the value of the truth.

The Lord makes it clear that His reason for a favourable answer is that Moses had found grace in God's sight, just as is true above all of the Lord Jesus. He has above all found grace in God's sight, and God knows Him by name.