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John 14:8 "Adoni, show us the Father,” The Children of Israel blew it. Impatient for the return of Moses they make themselves a god of gold. It is not that they transferred their loyalty to an idol, it is that being unfamiliar with the idea of an unseen god with no image or temple, they concretized the unseen One who had qualified Himself as He who took them out of Egypt into the similitude of a calf. The Father seems to have an issue with identity theft. Israel played the harlot during her betrothal. God called off the wedding. The first covenant made at Sinai is now broken. Israel, the bride is technically allegeable to the death penalty. Justice is an invariable concept. When justice is not paid, we give way to injustice and God cannot be found to be unjust. Justice has to be given its due but it doesn’t really matter by whom. In this case, Moses negotiates with the Father. Moses drives a hard bargain. Knowing that the Father wants to destroy Israel but that he also himself found favor in the sight of God, Moses places himself on the side of Israel. He stops talking in “I ‘, ‘You’, and ‘them’, but uses ‘we’ and ‘You”. If God kills Israel, He has to also kill Moses. Basically Moses wins the day by identifying himself with Israel, therefore putting his own life on the line. By the righteousness of one, the whole nation was saved, a very important concept foreshadowing Messiah’s mission. Having heard Moses’ pleas, the Father will now show His True nature. He will renew the broken covenant. It will be the same covenant, renewed, not a new covenant. It carries the same terms of the first one. God will do so because of His own character and desire. In the third chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Almighty Creator of the Universe starts revealing His identity to Moses. He uses the words “HEHIYEH ASHER HEHIYEH”, or “I Will Be That I Will Be” (Exodus 3), something to the essence of “I Am the Eternal Existential Being and I keep Covenant Forever’. In Exodus thirty-four, the Father continues revealing His identity. He does so using a list of thirteen attributes. These attributes represent the Father’s compassionate nature and are a central motif in Jewish liturgies. Because God is forgiving and compassionate, there will be a wedding in Horeb after all. It is so funny that so many people think that grace and forgiveness is something initiated by Yeshua, and that it didn’t exist before. Yeshua’s grace was only a reflection of the Father’s willingness to atone and forgive. Yeshua came to show and represent the Father to us. Do we forget that it is actually God who so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)?
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