Moses recounts the episode of the golden calf so that the
people will recall that they have nothing to be proud of in their history. Deuteronomy is his final address to the
people and here he is attempting to put that history into the context of the
future. He has told them the importance
of remembering this history so that they never forget that it is only by the
grace of God that they have a land of their own, that they exist as a nation. The story of God’s grace to them began in
Genesis with grace extended to Abram for no apparent reason other than God knew
the man would go. That grace was also
seen in Egypt when the Lord heard their prayers and delivered them from slavery
and then, at the penultimate moment, when the covenant bargain was being struck
on the mountain between Yahweh and the representative of the people, Moses,
whom they had adjured to meet with God alone for they feared greatly, they
sinned by forcing Aaron, who sinned gravely, to make the golden calf and say,
“These are your gods that brought you up out of Egypt…” Moses reminds them that only by the grace of
God in response to Moses crying out in prayer for them do these people even
live today. We all deserve death because
we have worshipped other gods, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God. We live because of grace.
Nicodemus has no particular interest in being born
again. He won life’s lottery the first
time around by being born a Jew. He
isn’t depending on that good fortune though to assure his participation in the
covenant, he is a Pharisee who takes the Law seriously. He is, however, a genuine seeker. He comes to Jesus perhaps as a representative
of the Pharisees as he uses the first person plural pronoun to begin his
conversation with Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from
God…” He honors Jesus by calling Him
rabbi as Jesus hasn’t come up through their schools and has no rabbinic
credentials. Jesus proves that indeed He
is a teacher come from God as He speaks of things of which Nicodemus knows
nothing and leaves him stammering and confused but we also know that Nicodemus
continued to follow Jesus’ “career” and, in the end, risked everything by
asking for the body of Jesus. He was the
first man to truly identify with Jesus in His death.
“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil,
unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” I believe in the perseverance of the saints
but does that mean I fail to do what the writer says to do here, exhort one another
every day? How much of my conversation is Godly exhortation as opposed to
simply talking? When we allow our
fellowship to be simply worldly fellowship we fail to exhort one another. We are meant to be speaking to one another
about the Lord lest we fall into the same trap as the Israelites on the
mountain. Moses was away for forty days
with the Lord and Aaron apparently failed to exhort the people and they all
forgot that no golden calf had led them out, there was indeed a God who had
done so but they quickly forgot and replaced Him. Let us never allow our fellowship to become
so sloppy and forgetful.
No comments:
Post a Comment