And he said, Let me, I pray thee, see thy glory.
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And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thy face, and I will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy.
Moses had just asked to see God's glory. Israel had made a golden calf and lost every claim on God. The answer Moses receives moves Israel's survival off law and onto God's free choice. It also raises the question Paul would later press: on what basis does God show mercy to anyone?
Moses asked for one thing and God gave him another.
The sovereignty of grace did appear. Their transgression and sin gave God His opportunity, if we may reverently use such a word of God. Now He could show His grace in a way not known before. Moses said, "Please show me your glory." But God said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you." Not His glory, but His goodness! Yet His goodness is His highest glory, the glory He delights in. The glory of judgment is His strange work.
Strict justice after the golden calf would have left no nation at all.
Israel had undertaken to have the promises by their obedience. If God had dealt with Israel in righteousness, every one must have been cut off. What could God do but retreat into His own sovereignty? There He had a resource. If He is to spare any of them, it must be in this way of mercy. "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." Man is entirely lost, so now God says, I will act for Myself.
The timing carries as much weight as the words. God waited until Israel had nothing left to plead.
He would have mercy (or, be gracious) to whom He would be gracious, and have compassion on whom He would. So this did not depend on what the people deserved. It was part of the Divine prerogative. God, because He is God, can act as He will. Now the reader should mark the time God chose for this revelation. Everything was lost as far as Israel was concerned, and lost by their own sin. Only then did God first speak of these feelings of His heart, His compassions. He could show them to people who had proved they deserved nothing but judgment.
Some readers hear this freedom as unfair. One writer answers that objection head on.
Is this arbitrary? Very well: who can deny God His full arbitrary rights? Does He say, four times in the space of a short sentence, "I will," and mean nothing by it? Does a wise parent consult the opinions or whims of his little child as a guide to his child's training? Does he encourage or even tolerate the child's mocking of his authority? God's "I wills" stand, and only folly dares to quarrel.
God's words to Moses did not stay in Exodus. Paul used them in Romans 9 to answer people who said God should not bless outsiders.
For the time being, Moses had to be content to know the goodness and the name of the Lord, and along with that God displayed His grace and His mercy. Here we have the statement which Paul quotes in Romans 9:15, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy;" and by this God declares His sovereignty. The point is this: Israel had lost everything under strict law, and yet God chose to show mercy and continue with them. So Israel had no ground for objecting when God showed mercy to Gentiles in these Gospel days. From the days of the golden calf they owed their own existence to the mercy of God.
Moses was asking for something no covenant or ceremony could supply. The answer he received is the answer sinners still need.
The law cannot meet a sinner's case. Neither can conditional covenants, nor shadows and ordinances, nor even promises of the highest order. His case demands "sovereign grace." And the Lord delights in such faith... Paul quotes these words in Romans 9:15 as the expression of sovereign electing grace. What satisfied Moses, Paul preaches as God's gospel for sinners.
One writer turns this into an appeal: stop fighting God's freedom, and see what it does for the worst sinner.
Beloved friends, do not set your face against God. Do not oppose God. You leave God alone to exercise what I may call the prerogative of His love, and what will He do? "I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy," is His way of meeting the guiltiest sinner that ever walked the earth.
- Ruin. Israel broke the law at the golden calf. Under strict righteousness every one of them would have been cut off.
- Retreat. With every other ground gone, God retreated into His own sovereignty. Mercy was the one resource left for sparing anyone.
- Revelation. Moses asked for glory; God showed him goodness. Goodness is the glory God delights in, while judgment is His strange work.
- Right. The repeated "I will" is God's own right, not a whim. Mercy does not depend on what people deserve, and only folly quarrels with it.
- Reach. Paul takes the same words into Romans 9. Israel had lived by that mercy since the calf, so they cannot object when it reaches the nations. What satisfied Moses is now the gospel for the guiltiest sinner.