"But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. 'Lord,' he said, 'why should Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?'" (Exodus 32:11) In yesterday's passage we found the Lord verbally distancing himself from people who are actively rejecting Him at this time. When giving Moses the bad news about their behavior He referred to them as "your people whom you brought out of Egypt". Moses answers by reminding the Lord that they are His people whom He brought out of Egypt. I think Moses is saying something like this, "Oh, Lord, you know how weak these people are! You know what they've been through. You know they've just recently emerged from a land where paintings and statues of false gods line the streets and fill every building. Please don't be angry with them. Please don't destroy them. If not for You they'd still be in Egypt, living the only life they've ever known, albeit a cruel and difficult life. But now they're out here in the wilderness for the purpose of being made into a great nation, and even though they've witnessed Your great power, they still need time for their faith in You to grow."
Not only are many lives at stake, but the honor of the Lord is at stake as well. If He gives up on the people now, what will the Egyptians say? That the Lord was able to take them out of Egypt but not able or willing to keep them alive in the wilderness? Will the Egyptians conclude that the Lord hates the Israelites as much as they do? "Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth?'" (Exodus 32:12a) The Egyptians already harbor a great deal of prejudice against the Israelites and if the Lord destroys the Israelites the Egyptians can say, "See? We were right all along! These people are a lesser form of human being than we are. They aren't deserving of goodness and mercy. We were right to enslave them and use them as an expendable workforce. God didn't rescue them because He loves them but because He wanted to herd them all out into one place to kill them---to make an example of them for every tribe and nation in the region to see. Even their own God wants nothing to do with them. Our treatment of them was justified. We have been vindicated!"
Lastly, Moses reminds the Lord of the promise He made on oath. "Turn from Your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on Your people. Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom You swore by Your own self: 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.'" (Exodus 32:12b-13) The Lord swore to Abraham that He would make a great nation from his descendants. As we learned in yesterday's passage. the Lord could still wipe out the Israelite camp and fulfill His promise to Abraham through Moses' family line. But it would be like starting over from scratch. There are currently about 2,000,000 people in the camp with which to form a nation but Moses has only two sons. It would take several centuries for the descendants of Abraham to reach 2,000,000 again and be able to support and protect themselves in the wilderness, to be strong enough to drive the idolatrous Canaanite tribes from the promised land, and to form a successful and prosperous society there.
After Moses completes his intercessory prayer, the Bible tells us, "Then the Lord relented and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened." (Exodus 32:14) Did the Lord really ever intend to destroy the Israelites? Would He have done so if Moses hadn't begged for mercy? Yes and no, at the same time, for as we briefly mentioned yesterday, the Lord is able to take His perfect will for mankind and the faults and failures of mankind and still cause His plans to work out exactly as He intended.
Did the Lord want to wipe out the camp? Yes, in His utter holiness He shrank back from the sin taking place in the camp. His anger righteously burned against the people for their rejection of His love and their denial of His help and their insistence that it was some other god or gods who had rescued them from Egypt. Was He really ever going to wipe them out? No, because He had chosen a man ahead of time who would intercede for them. The Lord always knew what the people were going to do and the Lord always knew Moses would stand in their place before Him and appeal to His love and mercy. The Lord always knew He would accept Moses' prayer on their behalf.
We can compare this to the plan of salvation the Lord offers us through Christ. Did the human race deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth for our sin and disobedience? Yes. Would the Lord have been within His rights and entirely without fault or blame if He had concluded we were hopeless and had made an end of us? Yes. Did He ever intend to make an end of us? No, because He had chosen a Man ahead of time who would intercede for us. The Lord always knew what we were going to do and the Lord always knew that Christ would stand in our place before Him and appeal to His love and mercy. The Lord always knew He would accept the blood of Christ in place of our own blood and in place of the eternal separation of our souls from the presence of God.
Moses mediated the first covenant between God and man with his prayers. The Lord Jesus Christ mediated the second covenant between God and man---the better covenant---with His blood. God may have wanted at times to be thoroughly done with man, but at the same time He never intended to be done with us. He always intended to accept intercession on our behalf. In the Old Testament, Moses interceded for the people as best as he humanly could. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ interceded for us perfectly, as the One who was fully man and fully God at the same time. If God was willing to have mercy on the Israelites because a mere man bridged the gap with his prayers, how much more willing is He to have mercy on anyone who puts their trust in Christ who bridged the gap with His own blood?
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