What is God really like? In today’s passage He both tells us and shows us. And the whole picture is at the same time comforting and sobering.

Why did Moses have to go up on the mountain to get a new set of stone tablets? Because Moses had broken the original ones, on which the Law of God was written. And why had he done that? Because the people had broken those laws, bowing down before a golden calf and claiming that it had delivered them from bondage in Egypt.

So, how does God respond to His people’s unfaithfulness? His self-description tells us. On the one hand, He is merciful and gracious to the people, in spite of their sins. Because He is slow to anger, He was patient with them. Because He abounds in steadfast, faithful, covenant-keeping love, and because He is faithful to keep His promises, He continued to guide them into the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In other words, God’s love and faithfulness are unconditional. They depend on Who He is, not on what we do. We may be faithless, but God remains faithful. We may not love Him as He deserves, but He keeps steadfast love for thousands.

But there’s a sobering side to this truth as well. If God can’t break a promise, that means He is also bound to render judgment to those who deserve it. And God says that Himself in verse 7 – He will by no means clear the guilty. In fact, He makes it plain that the consequences of sin often extend for generations into the future.

So, how can God be both righteous and loving? How can He forgive sins and yet judge the guilty as they deserve? The answer is the cross of Christ. For there, God absorbed the consequences of sin into Himself, tearing the very fabric of the Holy Trinity as the Father turned His face away from the Son. There, God’s love for sinners drove Him to take the punishment that we deserve on Himself, allowing Him to forgive iniquity and transgression while not clearing the guilty.

So, if we want to be in a right relationship with this God of perfect love and justice, we must be in a right relationship with Jesus His Son. We must trust Him as our Savior and bow the knee to Him as our Lord. Then we can be sure that God is indeed with us.

Exodus 34:1-7 (ESV)

The LORD said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
2 Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain.
3 No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.”
4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone.
5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”