And Jehovah said to Moses, Hew for thyself two tables of stone like the first; and I will write upon the tables the words that were upon the first tables, which thou hast broken.
Israel had fallen into idolatry, and Moses had smashed the stone tablets God Himself had cut. Now God calls him back up the mountain — but this time Moses must cut the stones, and God will write the same words on them again.
God spared Israel, yet the law they had broken still stood over them:
They were still left under the law which had been given. So as we open Exodus 34, we find that Moses was to cut two tablets of stone like the first. He was to come up with them again to the top of the mountain, so that God might write the words on them as He had done before. As on the first occasion, so again, no one could come near. Even flocks and herds had to stay away from the mountain. God stressed His holiness once more, but this time it was joined in harmony with His mercy.
A second set was needed because the first set never reached the people:
On the first occasion Moses came down from the mountain with the tablets of stone in his hand, but with no glory in his face (Ex. 32:15). It was pure law, making demands on man, with no revealing of the glory of God in mercy on man's behalf. As Moses draws near to the camp, he finds the people fallen into idolatry. They have broken the first commandment. To bring pure law into the middle of such a company would have overwhelmed them with instant judgment. Moses therefore "threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them." He goes among them without the two tablets. Pure law never came into the camp at all.
God does not simply say the tablets got broken. He names Moses as the one who broke them:
Part of what led me to these thoughts is the way the Lord always speaks of it — "which you broke." He takes pains to make it the act of Moses. It is a serious thing to break what God Himself has cut out. The tablets were the work of God. Moses had not consulted the Lord, though he had interceded for the people. God did not make the tablets over again — Moses was now to cut them out. There was something lost.
One detail separates this second giving of the law from the first: who cuts the stone. The words are the same, and the writing stays God's own:
The Lord commands Moses to cut two tablets of stone like the first. The Lord Himself had cut those first tablets, and Moses broke them. The first were cut from one stone, the second from two stones. The Lord let Moses supply the material for the second tablets, while He had supplied it for the first. God gave the second tablets as the result of the intercession of Moses. But God wrote the words on the second tablets of stone as He had done on the first.
With the new tablets God also revealed Himself in mercy. That addition, writers point out, does not change what law is:
And the Lord asked for fresh tablets (Ex. 34). He came down before Moses' face and revealed Himself as Jehovah, ruling in mercy and patience, yet by no means clearing the guilty. This came through Moses as mediator, and not under law on its own. How much goodness was added here! Yet this is what 2 Cor. 3 treats as the ministry of death and condemnation! If we are under law, the privileges of God's goodness only make our guilt worse. They cannot free us from its curse.
Another writer presses the same warning on anyone today:
Law in any shape or form only works wrath for man, fallen and a sinner. No one can escape this, whether they profess to follow Moses or Christ.
These second tablets ended up inside the ark, the chest at the centre of Israel's worship:
Blessed fact! "There they are." Yes, covered up in that ark which spoke of Christ. He is that blessed One who magnified the law and made it honourable. He established every smallest part of it, to the glory of God and the everlasting blessing of His people. So the broken fragments of the first tablets told the sad and humbling story of Israel's utter failure and ruin. The second tablets, shut up whole in the ark, set forth the glorious truth that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
- Broken — God cut and wrote the first tablets, but they never entered the camp. Pure law meeting a people sunk in idolatry would have meant instant judgment.
- Charged — God keeps saying "which you broke." He lays the act on Moses, and this time Moses must cut the stone himself.
- Rewritten — Moses supplies the stone. God still writes the words, and He gives the second tablets in answer to Moses' intercession.
- Tempered — Mercy and patience now come with the law. Yet writers agree that added goodness only deepens the guilt of anyone still under law.
- Kept — The second tablets were never broken; hidden in the ark, they point to the One in whom every claim of the law was met.
And be ready for the morning, and go up in the morning to mount Sinai, and stand there before me on the top of the mountain.
Israel had failed at the foot of Sinai, and the first tables of stone lay broken. God starts again here: new stone, a fixed hour, and one man called up the mountain alone.
The command comes after a broken covenant. Yet Moses must carry up the same law he carried down before.
They were still left under the law which had been given. So as we open Exodus 34 we find that Moses was to cut two tables of stone like the first. He was to bring them up again to the top of the mountain, so that God might write the words on them as He had done before… Once more God emphasized His holiness, but this time in harmonious connection with His mercy.
What happened to the first set decided Israel's whole standing before God.
Though the first tables of the law had been given to Moses, they never came into the camp. So Israel never was under absolute law. That would have meant death for all Israel. But the Lord instructs Moses to cut two more tables of stone. He is to come up the mountain again and meet the Lord, who would write the commandments on these stones.
God does not meet Moses in the camp. The climb answers what Moses had asked to see.
No one could see this glory from the level of the camp, only from the mountain of God. God comes down to man in grace, but to let man see His glory He brings him up to Himself. Nor was the sight to take place where Israel could see it. God permitted no one at all to be on the mountain with Moses, and Israel's flocks and herds could not even graze in front of it. He was about to show Moses His name and His glory. He revealed them to him privately and personally, and Moses passed the revelation on to others through his writings. Since the world began, no man had ever before asked the Lord that he might see His glory, and we stand amazed at the faith and the spiritual insight of this mighty servant of God.
The verse ends with a summons to stand before God. Moses answered it, stone in hand.
Moses obeyed the divine command. He presented himself with the two tables of stone, to receive again the law that God would place Israel under. So Sinai is once more the scene of his meeting with the Lord. The Lord, faithful to His promise, came down in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
Where these tables ended up matters as much as what was written on them.
In Exodus 34 God gives the second set of tables. These were not to be broken like the first, but to be hidden in the ark. Above the ark, as already noticed, the Lord was to take His place as the Lord of all the earth, in moral government… This, remember, is God as seen in His moral government of the world. It is not God as He is seen in the cross — not as He shines in the face of Jesus Christ — not as He is proclaimed in the gospel of His grace.
The law Israel lived under now had grace mixed into it. That was a great mercy to Israel — and Christians have been copying the mixture ever since.
This mingling of grace with the law is the system which Christians have accepted as Christianity. No real believer ever takes the ground of pure law. They take a mingled system; they mix up law and grace together… This was the state God put the children of Israel in here. In a certain sense it was a very great mercy for them. It is no less a misfortune for the Christian. That is because those in Christ are called neither to law, nor to law mixed with gracious care for those under it. They are called to pure grace in Christ without the law.
This second climb only happens because Israel failed.
Satan had come in, and for the moment it seemed as if he had succeeded in frustrating the purposes of God for His people. But Satan is never so completely defeated as in his apparent victories… Israel's failure becomes the occasion of the fuller revelation of God, and of His mingling grace with law. This came through the mediation of Moses, which God in His grace had provided.
- Cause — failure. Israel failed, so Moses climbs a second time. The first tables never reached the camp. Pure law alone would have destroyed the nation.
- Gift — mercy mixed in. The same law goes up the mountain. This time God joins mercy to His holiness, and that mixture spares Israel.
- Place — the summit. God comes down in grace, but He calls a man up to see His glory. The camp below cannot see it.
- Person — the mediator alone. Moses presents himself as told and receives for Israel what Israel could not come near to receive. Not even the flocks may share the mountain.
- Result — grace without law. Israel's mixed system is not the Christian's standing. Believers are called to pure grace in Christ, not to law with grace mixed in.
And let no man go up with thee, neither shall any man be seen on all the mountain; neither shall sheep and oxen feed in front of that mountain.
Israel had just made the golden calf, and now God calls Moses up Sinai again to receive the law — but the mountain must be empty. Not a man, not a flock, not even a grazing herd at its foot: why does God clear the whole landscape first?
The ban is total. One writer reads this emptiness as God's way of marking where His glory can be seen:
But this glory could not be witnessed from the level of the camp, only from the mount of God. God comes down to man in grace, but to behold His glory He brings man up to Himself. Nor was this sight to be seen anywhere Israel could take notice of it. God allowed no one at all on the mountain with Moses, and even Israel's flocks and herds could not feed in front of it.
This is not a new rule. God set the same bounds when He first gave the law, and He does not relax them after Israel's sin. What changes is what He now joins to His holiness:
As on the first occasion, so again, no man could come near, and even flocks and herds had to be kept from the mount. The holiness of God stood out once more, but this time in harmony with His mercy.
With everyone else shut out, Israel's whole future rests on the man climbing the mountain. One writer traces the moment Moses took the place of mediator:
Afterwards, though, the people stripped themselves of their ornaments, and Moses stood in the position of mediator. God says, "You and the people whom you have brought up." Everything now hangs upon the mediator.
Commentators see in that solitary place a picture of Christ. Of Moses standing between the Lord and Israel, one writer says he was "typical of Christ who is today the 'one Mediator between God and men' (1 Tim. 2:5). For the presence of God was forbidding then, and would be just as forbidding now if we did not have this Mediator who is the only Way of approach to God."
Moses does not just go up alone. The seclusion of the mountain reaches right into his body:
Moses stays there with the Lord. There was enough in thinking about what God was, as He had revealed Himself, to occupy him. He was not now occupied with the instructions God was giving him on the details of the tabernacle. He was occupied with God Himself, as God had revealed Himself. He neither ate nor drank. He was in a state above nature, where the flesh could not interfere, in some sense apart from humanity.
The closed mountain kept the tables in the mediator's hands:
Though God had given the first tables of the law to Moses, they never came into the camp. So Israel never was under absolute law. That would have meant death for all Israel.
What came down from the closed mountain was not law by itself:
It was not law alone, and not grace alone, but rather the mingling of grace along with law. God could not have carried on His dealings with Israel, or brought them even into the land, without this mingling of grace and mercy with law. So on this occasion the law was still committed to man. But it was shut up in the ark, not displayed with all its terrors before the eyes of men.
One commentator turns Moses' place alone with God into a lesson for us:
Only there can God's voice be heard and His mind understood. Whoever wants to know His will better and better must keep apart from the world, and even from believers, shut in alone with God.
- Empty — God clears the mountain of climbers, onlookers and even grazing animals. His glory is not seen from the level of the camp.
- Unchanged — the same bounds as the first time show that Israel's sin did not lower His holiness. Now His mercy is joined to it.
- Alone — Moses goes up by himself and neither eats nor drinks, in a state above nature where the flesh could not interfere.
- Dependent — with everyone else shut out, Israel's whole future hangs upon the mediator.
- Mingled — what comes down from that closed mountain is law mixed with mercy, shut up in the ark rather than displayed in all its terrors.
And he hewed two tables of stone like the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
Moses climbs Sinai a second time. He carries stones he cut himself, because the first set never reached the camp. He had smashed those at the sight of the golden calf. So on what terms is God taking this ruined people back?
God made the first tables Himself, and Moses smashed them before Israel ever saw them. One writer draws out what that spared the nation.
God had given Moses the first tables of the law, but they never came into the camp. So Israel was never under absolute law. That would have meant death for all Israel.
The verse turns on a small change of hands. God supplied the first tables. This time Moses does the cutting.
God commands Moses to cut two tables of stone like the first. The Lord Himself had cut those first tables, and Moses had broken them. The first came from one stone; the second from two stones. God let Moses supply the material for the second tables, while the Lord had supplied it for the first. Moses interceded, and that is why God gave the second tables. But God wrote the words on the second tables of stone as He had done on the first.
Moses goes up by himself. Not even the flocks may graze near the mountain. That rule settles where this revelation happens and who may see it.
No one could see this glory from the level of the camp, only from the mount of God. God comes down to man in grace, but to let man see His glory He brings him up to Himself. Israel was not to watch the sight from a place where they could take note of it. No one at all could be on the mountain with Moses, and even Israel's flocks and herds could not feed in front of it. The Lord was about to show Moses His name and His glory. He revealed it to him privately and personally, and Moses passed the revelation on to others through his writings.
God writes the same words on these tables. But at the top He announces Himself in terms that did not come with the law the first time.
When God gave the law a second time, He did not give it as before. The Lord proclaimed His name as One who was abundant in goodness and truth. At the same time He showed that He would by no means clear the guilty. In other words, the first time it was pure law, pure righteousness. It ended in the golden calf — that is, pure unrighteousness on the part of the people. Justice required their destruction, but at the pleading of Moses God brings in a mingled system, partly law and partly grace.
These tables have a different future from the first pair. They survive, and where they end up decides how to read them.
In Exodus 34 God gives the second set of tables. They are not to be broken like the first, but hidden in the ark. Above that ark the Lord was to take His place as the Lord of all the earth, in moral government… Remember, this is God as seen in His moral government of the world, and not as He is seen in the cross — not as He shines in the face of Jesus Christ — not as He is proclaimed in the gospel of His grace.
Some readers take the second giving of the law as the model to live by: rules softened by mercy. One writer traces where that thinking leads.
The law set out, not what God is, as some have said, but what man ought to be. This was fatal for man… Moses broke the first tables before they reached the camp, for he would not bring them in where the golden calf was. The second giving of the code was accompanied by a proclamation of patience and sovereign grace (Ex. 34). This is what the apostle describes as a ministry of both death and condemnation. The law, even when it comes with such a proclamation, keeps that solemn character for everyone who has to do with it. And it is undeniable that those who take up law today speak of mercy at the same time. Well, even a mingled system is ruin for man.
- Broken — the first tables never entered the camp. So Israel never stood under law in its pure form, and that alone kept the nation alive.
- Cut — Moses supplies the stone this time, but God still writes the words. The material may be man's; the standard never is.
- Alone — no one sees this glory from the camp below. God comes down in grace, but He calls a man up to Himself to see it.
- Mingled — the same commandments come back, now with goodness and truth proclaimed. Yet God will not clear the guilty. Law and grace stand side by side.
- Kept — no one smashes the second tables; they go into the ark. That pictures God's moral government of the world, not God as He is seen in the cross.
And Jehovah came down in the cloud, and stood beside him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah.
Israel had wrecked itself, and Moses had pleaded for the people. Now he climbs Sinai again, and God comes down to stand beside one man and speak His own name.
Moses is about to see God's glory. But what does grace do when a nation has ruined itself?
The sovereignty of God in grace is an essential part of His glory. Israel had destroyed itself, and their only resource remained in Jehovah Himself. When all is lost, then is the time for grace to show itself. But we must see the glory of this grace from the right standpoint. God was to put Moses in the cleft of the rock so that he could see the glory. For this purpose Moses cut two stone tablets like the first two, which were broken, and went up Mount Sinai a second time.
Notice the direction of travel. Moses climbs, but God has to come down.
What Moses saw is not stated. The Lord had come down to him and the descended Lord made known the name of the Lord. It is a most blessed hint of the incarnation of Jehovah and the making known of the name of Jehovah through Him, who is Jehovah. "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
God proclaims a name. That is more than a label — and it does not tell everything.
The Lord, faithful to His promise, descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Name in Scripture, in connection at least with God, expresses nature; and so here it means what God was as JEHOVAH. It is essential to remember that it is not the Father, but Jehovah in His relationship with Israel, who is revealed here. It is therefore not a complete revelation of God. That could not be until after the cross… The difference is between what God was as Jehovah to Israel, and what God is as the Father to His children.
Moses had pleaded for the people. This is God's answer — and it has a limit.
To this plea God answers in grace, and gives a partial revelation of Himself in His goodness, and grace, and mercy. This is a glimpse of His glory: not the law demanding what man should be, but the glory revealing what God is. … Clearly this is not pure law; neither is it pure grace — the sovereign grace of God revealed in Christ. It is rather the goodness of God in government. Under that government God will by no means clear the guilty, while under grace God can justify the ungodly.
God did not speak and then leave. So what filled Moses' next forty days on the mountain?
And what do you think Moses was doing during that second forty days? I believe that he downright enjoyed God. He enjoyed the Lord's company those forty days and forty nights… He was in the enjoyment of His grace, as well as the deep sense of the mercy of the Lord. He had the sense that God would spare His people, guilty though they were. That was a wonderful forty days for Moses.
What God proclaimed to Moses did not stop with Moses.
In Deuteronomy we find Moses himself proclaiming Jehovah's name. He was made the vessel of God's testimony for that day, and he is enabled to publish it just as purely as he received it. The instruction surely is that we cannot truly preach what we have not received from the Lord. And we can only faithfully proclaim what we have received by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Descended — God came down. Moses did not climb high enough to find Him; the Lord who came down made His own name known.
- Named — In Scripture a name expresses nature. So God is telling Moses what He is.
- Partial — This is Jehovah in relationship with Israel. It is a real glimpse, not the whole; the full revelation waited for the cross.
- Governmental — God spares a guilty nation, yet He will by no means clear the guilty. The grace that justifies the ungodly comes later.
- Passed on — Moses received the name and enjoyed the Lord's company for forty days. Then he passed it on. No one can preach what he has not first received.
And Jehovah passed by before his face, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in goodness and truth,
Israel worshipped the golden calf, Moses broke the tablets, and now God gives the law again — this time speaking His own name over it. How much of God does that name reveal: the gospel arriving early, or something short of it?
In Scripture a name tells you what someone is. Here God defines Himself. One writer weighs what this name shows and what it leaves for later. ("Jehovah" below is the name the ESV prints as "the LORD.")
Name in Scripture, at least in connection with God, expresses nature; and so here it means what God was as JEHOVAH. Remember: this is not the Father revealing Himself, but Jehovah in His relationship with Israel. So it is not a complete revelation of God. That could not come until after the cross. The difference is between what God was as Jehovah to Israel, and what God is as the Father to His children.
The first giving of the law carried no such words. When the tablets are replaced, something new is spoken over them.
But now, if He gives the law a second time, He gives it with other declarations alongside it, unlike anything that had gone before. He now couples His mercy with it... It was still law — they were still under responsibility to keep it. But now He was going to exercise patience. He would forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin. And yet, at the same time, He could not clear the guilty.
One writer traces the word for "slow to anger" through the Greek Old Testament.
From Exodus 34:6 onward, the Greek Old Testament uses makrothumos again and again of God... In Proverbs 15:18 and 16:32 it answers to our "slow to anger," though the patient restraint of spirit in the word is not limited to anger... It means "a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion," and it describes God in His forbearance towards those who provoke Him.
Commentators differ on how far this proclamation reaches. One writer calls it government rather than salvation, pointing to the words that follow in verse 7.
Clearly this is not pure law; neither is it pure grace — the sovereign grace of God revealed in Christ. It is rather the goodness of God in government. Under that government, God will by no means clear the guilty. Under grace, God can justify the ungodly.
Others put the accent the other way, on what verse 6 discloses of God Himself.
In verse 6 and the first part of verse 7 the Lord is not declaring law at all. What He declares stands in contrast to law. It expresses what is actually in the heart of God. It is now shown in perfection in the person of the Lord Jesus and in His great sacrifice at Calvary.
To Moses, these qualities could have looked at odds with each other. Where the ESV says "steadfast love and faithfulness," older translations read "goodness and truth" — the wording used below.
He might have wanted to ask, If He is abundant in truth as well as goodness, how can He be gracious to a people such as we have proved ourselves to be? Or again, How can He rightly forgive iniquity and transgressions, if He will by no means clear the guilty...? Centuries later the Psalmist, writing as a prophet, looked ahead to the happy day when it would be said, "Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other" (Ps. 85:10). But even then, there was no full display of "grace and truth" until they "came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17) and were harmonized by His death and resurrection.
One writer ties this name straight to the gospel preached today.
The gospel of the grace of God is the revelation of the glory of God in the person and the work of His Son Jesus Christ. It is the perfect expression of that name which God had proclaimed to Moses.
Israel saw what God did. Moses learned why He does it — and that difference shapes Israel's future restoration.
The ways of God, made known to Moses, will bring about the blessing of restored Israel. God revealed His outward acts to Israel; to Moses He revealed the principles on which He acted. These ways are now declared to the restored nation.
- Name — God's name here is His nature put into words: this is what He is like, not just what He is called.
- Named after failure — the tablets lie broken, and God joins mercy to the law when He gives it again.
- Named in patience — "slow to anger" describes a long holding back toward the very people who provoke Him.
- Named but not finished — commentators differ over how much grace this name holds; the full display waited for the cross.
- Name fulfilled — love and truth stand together in the verse. At the cross they meet, and the gospel becomes the perfect expression of this name.
keeping mercy unto thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but by no means clearing [the guilty]; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth [generation].
Israel had made the golden calf, and Moses went back up the mountain to receive the law a second time. There God proclaimed His own name, and it holds together two things that seem to pull apart: free forgiveness of sin, and no clearing of the guilty.
In Scripture a name says what someone is. Here God makes Himself known as Jehovah — the name of His relationship with Israel.
Name in Scripture, at least in connection with God, expresses nature; and so here it means what God was as Jehovah. Remember: the One revealed here is not the Father. It is Jehovah in His relationship with Israel. So this is not a complete revelation of God. That could not come until after the cross... "It is not at all the name of His relationship with the sinner for his justification. It is the name of His relationship with Israel for His government. Mercy, holiness, and patience mark His ways with them, but He does not clear the guilty."... He did have a heart of love for His people. But that love waited, so to speak, until atonement was complete. Then God could righteously justify the ungodly.
The verse falls into three parts. The first says something pure law could never say.
Moses broke the first tablets at the foot of the mountain, and they never reached the people, who had already made the golden calf... This is the law God gave Moses the second time, in Exodus 34. It was a softened law, offered to man to keep, if his flesh had been able to keep at least what is relatively good. It proclaimed first of all what pure law could in no way show: the mercy and the grace of the Lord... Second, it proclaimed righteousness: He "will by no means clear the guilty." Third, it announced repayment under the government of God on earth.
Commentators give one warning again and again. Readers take this verse for a picture of the gospel. It is not.
People often bring this passage forward as a display of grace. It is entirely a display of government... Treat it as God presented in the gospel, and we would have a very limited view of what the gospel is. The gospel speaks like this: "in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). "Visiting iniquity" and "not counting" it are two totally different things. The first is God in government; the second is God in grace. It is the same God, but a different showing of Himself.
One writer answered a reader who stumbled over the closing clause. He traced the trouble to what the reader expected to find there.
The reader's difficulty comes from looking for the gospel plan of salvation in this text. It is the proclamation of the name of Jehovah in His government of Israel... God displayed precious goodness and patience here, no doubt. But this was for His people still under the law, so in the end it could only bring condemnation and death. The essence of the gospel is different. It comes to the sinner on the very ground that he is lost, and it plainly justifies the ungodly.
So how can God forgive and still refuse to clear the guilty?
There seems a contradiction here at first sight. Here is God declaring that He is ready to show mercy to thousands, to forgive sins, and yet declaring that He will by no means clear the guilty. How can this seeming contradiction be explained?
The answer is not that justice steps aside so mercy can win.
Justice never gives up its claims, and it cannot. But Christ satisfies it. Justice is not pushed into second place, even though grace reigns. God showed Moses governmental goodness, but justice kept its claims. There was no atonement, and each soul had to answer for itself.
The closing clause describes something still visible in ordinary life.
Exodus 34 does not show sovereign grace bringing a soul to eternal life. It shows governmental power, and we can see it at work every day around us. For if a man wastes his fortune, or ruins his health by any kind of excess, his children suffer for it. This is an invariable principle.
But Scripture also guards this warning against a misreading.
He has Himself told us that He visits "the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation." But He adds words that guard this from being misread: "of those who hate Me." Israel picked up a proverb from just such a misreading, and elsewhere the Lord condemns it in the strongest terms: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezekiel 18). He does not only say it; He swears it. They will have no reason to use that proverb.
- Name. God says what He is like. He speaks as Jehovah, dealing with Israel for His government — not as the Father who justifies a sinner.
- Mixture. The verse is neither pure law nor pure grace. It holds mercy for thousands, righteousness that will not acquit, and repayment under God's government on earth.
- Reach. That government runs down the generations. But God guards it: He visits iniquity "of those who hate Me," and swears the sour-grapes proverb has no ground.
- Limit. In the gospel God does not count trespasses. Here in His government He visits them. Read this verse as the gospel and you shrink the gospel.
- Resolution. Justice never gives up its claims. Christ satisfies them, and so God can forgive iniquity and still refuse to clear the guilty.