Exodus 32:31-32 And Moses returned to the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold.… There are various ways in which this passage may be understood. You may take it quite literally, and say that Moses really would sacrifice himself for a time, or fatally, but not sacrifice himself for ever. Christ made Himself a curse, but not for ever. If it would be possible to make myself a curse for a season for others, I should be within the pattern of Christ — for He made Himself for a season a curse. But I should transgress the boundary, I should go out into a sinful extravagance, if I wished to be accursed for ever — for after all I am not to love another soul more than mine — that is never commanded. And there is to be high measure of right self-love, because the love of a fellow-creature is to be proportioned to the self-love, and if I have no great self-love, I cannot have love to a fellow-creature. Therefore, I must love myself greatly — in the right way. How, then, are we to understand it? When Moses prayed that God would blot his name out of the book, it may have been out of the register of those who were to inhabit the earthly Canaan — that he would give up all the enjoyments of the land flowing with milk and honey, all the promised blessings of Palestine, for the sake of the forgiveness of the guilty Israelites. And if that was it — for securing their eternal happiness he was willing to give up all happiness here, I suppose he would not have been sinful. And I suppose our earnestness should go to that point — that I would give up all earthly happiness so that my child, my friend, my enemy, might be saved. Or, again, it may simply be the language of intensity — the expression of exceeding feeling. But, whichever it be — if you would intercede, it must not be in a light way, it must not be in commonplaces, it must not be superficial and cold. (J. Vaughan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. |
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