“And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,” (Exodus 34:6 KJV)
You know, of all the things that I would imagine God to declare of himself as He has Moses come up to rewrite the tablets that were broken; this is probably the last thing that I would expect. So many times when a parent or a coach wants to revisit something that did not go well the first time, the talk is rougher and tougher. Something like time and energy has been lost and now we need to learn what was missed and try harder next time. Some may not even give a next time. Yet before we even get back into the details of what God’s law is, or commandments are, He highlights what is really important. Knowing that God is merciful, gracious, patient, good, and faithful seem to be the lesson that we need to really learn first. Why might that be the case?
We learn these attributes of God not because it somehow softens the reality of what God requires. Nor because we have “gotten away” with something. It is because if we do not understand who God really is, how are we ever going to have a heart to want to follow Him? His commands are not to take us away from something (other than ourselves), but to really give us something (where we really discover ourselves). We are complete in Him. God does judge, and we see that in several other passages. But his judgements come upon those who reject Him. God is trying to proclaim attributes that His people need to be able to see in Him. Then as we repent and learn to trust and begin to walk with Him; we can grow. It is not so much our getting it right as learning to trust more deeply in the one who already has.
“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.” (Exodus 34:7 KJV)