Exodus 34:5

In the following verses God is speaking to Moses. The Bible says in Exodus 34:5-7, “And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” In Exodus 34:6 God gave us five characteristics about Himself. God is merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abundant in goodness and abundant in truth, but then in verse 7 God expands just one of those characteristics: His mercy. God’s mercy is listed first in the list of these five truths. We need to experience the mercy of God through faith in Christ before we can know about any of the other truths of God.

God makes an emphasis on how great is His mercy. God describes Himself as “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin:” a three-fold forgiveness by way of explanation and for emphasis. One thing that you can be sure of: God will always forgive. There is no sin too great that He will not forgive it, except for the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit which happens when someone finally and completely rejects the Holy Spirit’s invitation to come to Jesus. And no one has sinned so many times that he cannot be forgiven. God always forgives, no matter how great is the sin, and no matter how many times the person has failed. Some people fall out of the fellowship with Jesus because they stop believing this great and wonderful truth. Of course, the reason that God can forgive us is because of the greatness of the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. In order to teach us to forgive, and in order to teach us how much God is willing to forgive the Bible tells us in Matthew 18:21-22, “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”

God described Himself in Exodus 34:5 as “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” The word “forgive” is a wonderful word. In this verse it comes from a Hebrew word that means “to bear” or “to lift up.” If you are forgiven, the sins that once were on you are now lifted off from you. God carries them off and takes them. This concept fits well into the New Testament truth that Jesus carried our sins to the cross of Calvary. It says about the Messiah in Isaiah 53:4-5, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

God’s forgiveness is eternal because He is eternal and because His love is eternal. We can assuredly say: “once forgiven, always forgiven.” The Apostle Paul quotes Psalms chapter 32 in Romans 4:6-8 that says, “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” Forgiveness covers past and future. What a blessedness for those who have found forgiveness in Jesus.

But forgiveness does not mean that there is a license to sin. God is still holy, and God is still the Judge of the whole earth, including those who are forgiven. That is why the Bible says to Christians in Hebrews 10:30-31, “For we know him that hath saith, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And it says in Galatians 6:7-8, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.“ It says in First Peter 4:17-19, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”

God is a loving and forgiving Father, and Jesus is a loving and forgiving Savior, but He is still a holy Judge. He forgives, but there are still consequences to sinful deeds. God said about Himself in Exodus 34:7, “and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” God’s reaction against our sinfulness is real. We are sinful, and God is holy, and He must make decisions based upon His holiness. One example of just how terrible our sins are is exactly what God tells us in Exodus 34:7, “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” There are consequences to sin because God is holy, and He must judge sin. Those consequences can be so serious that they not only affect our lives, but they also affect the lives of four generations after us. That is what it says in Exodus chapter 34. The best advice that can be given about sin is as follows: repent of sin and ask forgiveness, run from sin, avoid sin at all cost, and yes, hate sin. God hates it, and God judges sin. Your life will prove that God judges sin. There are many reasons for sorrows and difficulties in life. One of the reasons has to do with the consequences of sin. This is an important spiritual truth to understand about the holiness of God, and it is a truth that the entertainment industry is ignorant of. If you want to have the best life possible, then avoid sin, and thereby avoid its consequences and its judgment as much as possible. The happiest person in this world is usually the holiest. Of course, there are exceptions, as in the case of Job during his trials and sorrows.

The Bible says in Exodus 34:8-9, “And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.” Moses was concerned, very concerned. And so he should have been. The people had sinned, and Moses knew it, and the people had committed one of the greatest of all sins: being stubborn or “stiffnecked” against God. This sin of stubbornness against God is closely related to what Jesus said was the unpardonable sin. Although, only an unsaved person can commit the unpardonable sin, but any Christian can commit the sin of being stiff-necked. Jesus said in Luke 12:8-10, “Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.” “To blaspheme” means “to speak against,” with an emphasis on the word “against.” The way that salvation works is this: before we are saved the Holy Spirit comes to us to draw us to Christ. But there is always the danger that a person will resist the Holy Spirit in a final way to the point of “blaspheming” the Holy Spirit; and thus that person will never get saved, and thus that person will never be forgiven. For a Christian to be stiff-necked means that after that person is saved, he or she for some reason starts having a resistance to the will of God. That is a great sin and will have some severe consequences if that Christian continues in such a terrible spiritual condition.

In Exodus 34:8-9 basically Moses was asking for assurance. Moses started having doubts about what God was going to do with the children of Israel. The people had sinned, and God is a holy God. Too bad that Moses did not remember more clearly the unconditional promises that God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob about the future of Israel. Too bad that Moses did not remember more clearly how gracious God had already been to him. Notice the word “if” when Moses said in Exodus 34:8, “If now I have found grace in thy sight…” People who lack assurance often are in the same situation that Moses was in. There are sins that start piling up, they become guilty in face of the holiness of God, and they start losing sight of the promises of God. One thing that Moses did correctly when he needed assurance was that he went to the Lord and asked God for assurance. Jesus gives salvation, and He also gives assurance. If you are one of those people who just cannot seem to get assurance, then go to God with all of your heart, and ask Him for assurance. You are much more likely to find assurance if you talk to Jesus about it than if you talk to people about it. Read and read again the verses in the Bible that talk about salvation. The Word of God will give you assurance. Here is just one verse from Romans 10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Of course, when we speak of assurance, primarily talking about assurance of salvation. We call this eternal security: the truth that once a person is saved through faith in Christ, that person is always saved. They cannot lose their salvation. When they die, they will go to heaven. They can suffer chastisements in this life, and they can lose rewards, but they cannot lose their salvation. This doctrine can be found in almost every part of the Bible. First of all eternal security has to do with how a person is saved. We do not save ourselves. Jesus saves us. Jesus said in Luke 19:12, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” If you have been saved, then Jesus saved you. You did not save yourself. Therefore, you cannot cause yourself to become lost later on. The love of Christ is an eternal love. He does not stop loving you, not even when you have hurt Him or displeased Him. It says in Romans 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Some of the verses that show us very clearly that we can lose rewards, but not salvation are found in First Corinthians 3:11-15, “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”

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