If you were asked to name what might be the most important verse or set of verses in the entire Bible, what would you say? Perhaps you would think of John 3:16 with its short summary statement of the gospel in one verse. The good news of God giving His only beloved Son out of love for the world so that all who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life. Or, Ephesians 2:8-9 might come to your mind. It provides us with such a clear emphasis of our salvation being of grace alone apart from any works whatsoever. You may go to Romans 3:21-26 which lays out for us how God justifies or declares to be righteous those who have sinned and fallen short of His glory by His grace through their faith in His Son all on account of Jesus serving as a sacrifice for our sin turning away God's wrath. All of these are good and important verses. But if we go by how often a verse or set of verses are repeated in the Bible itself to determine what might be the most important, Exodus 34:6-7 takes the cake.
Moses had requested that God would show the man His glory (Exodus 33:18). God graciously agreed to do so by making all of His goodness pass before Moses and to proclaim His holy name to him, though Moses would not be able to see God directly (vv. 19-20). It is this passing by and proclamation to Moses which is recorded for us that turns out to be the most quoted of all of Scripture within Scripture itself. "Then Yahweh [the English translation of "LORD" signifies that it is God's covenant name, Yahweh, which is being referred to] passed by in front of him and called out, 'Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He will be no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations" (Exodus 34:6-7). These are powerful two verses not only because they provide us with a helpful summary on Who God is; a fairly comprehensive list of His characteristics or attributes, but also due to the fact that it is God Himself who tells us this. This is God telling us about God. The greatest preacher in existence would have to be God Himself and it is Him who basically gives Moses, and now in turn us, a sermon on who He is here. As C. S. Lewis put it, "Naturally God knows how to describe Himself much better than we know how to describe Him." Who better then to tell us about God than God Himself?
These two verses are repeated in some form or fashion a total of at least 27 times in the Old Testament alone and over 30 when you include the New Testament allusions or references to them. Of course, when God says something one time in His Word, it is of utmost importance because it is God who has said it. If it is said twice, it certainly must be something God wants to emphasize to us and we better be sure to be paying attention to it. But with this being repeated such a number of times, this has to be central to what God wants us to know about Him. It is something that we can't afford to forget or could ever study too much of. More than anything else, we need to know these truths about God. And everything that we can know about God stems or flows from them.
Now, as to why knowing these characteristics of God laid out in these two verses are so important to us, we just need to look at how the other authors of Scripture, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, used them in their writings. One thing we see is that it serves as a great encouragement for us to turn to God in repentance for His forgiveness. In calling the people of his day to a true repentance where they tear their hearts internally and not just outwardly their clothes only to appear to do such, the prophet Joel reminds them that God "is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting concerning evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him?" (Joel 2:13-14). This is exactly what God had told Moses earlier. If we didn't know God to be so gracious, compassionate, patient, and abounding in His loyal love, we would have no hope of Him ever accepting us in turning to Him. How could we be sure that we would ever be accepted by Him in light of our many sins and rebellion? But since such is true of Him as He makes clear to Moses, we have every confidence to run to Him in repentance when we sin and not away from Him, especially in light of all of these characteristics listed being put on display with God sending Christ to die on the cross as our substitute in the place of all of those who trust in Him. With such grace, compassion, patience, and loyal love moving the Lord to go through such great length to forgive us, why should we ever be afraid to approach Him through faith in Jesus in an attitude of repentance? Such characteristics of God are what led the entire city of Nineveh to repent and turn to the Lord, much to Jonah's dismay as He knew God's revealed character to readily receive and forgive those who repent (Jonah 3:9; 4:2). These characteristics of God show us that He is so much more willing to forgive us than we are to repent and seek His forgiveness! The only thing to hold us back from turning to Him to receive the forgiveness He is so quick to give through His Son are ourselves and our sinful pride.
These attributes or characteristics of God given to Moses also provide us with an encouragement to look to the Lord for help, strength, and rescue. David prays for the Lord to "grant Your strength to Your slave and save the son of Your maidservant" because he knew the Lord to be so "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth" (Psalm 86:15-16). He would have had no reason to request such if any of that wasn't true about the Lord or if he didn't know it.
We would have no hope to persevere in the hard times in life without this revelation from God to Moses concerning Who He is. What got the prophet Jeremiah through the very difficult moment of the destruction of his homeland and the captivity of his people by the Babylonians was that he knew "the lovingkindnesses of Yahweh indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23). Recognizing that to be true of God helped him hold on to hope of God's continual faithfulness to His people even when current circumstances called such into question. The next time the situation you find yourself in may cause you to doubt God's goodness and faithfulness, be sure to come back to these two verses which tell us what remains true about Him even in the appearance of a frowning providence or His absence.
These characteristics serve as a warning as well with the talk of His justice and wrath upon the guilty. Tagged on to Moses' reiteration of the second commandment is the reminder of what he had heard from the Lord earlier. The people were not to worship or serve any image they made because "I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Deuteronomy 5:9-10). Nahum opens his short prophecy warning the people of Nineveh of God's coming judgment for their sins by stating, taken right from these two verses in Exodus, "A jealous and avenging God is Yahweh; Yahweh is avenging and wrathful. Yahweh is avenging against His adversaries, and He keeps His anger for His enemies. Yahweh is slow to anger and great in power, and Yahweh will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Nahum 1:2-3). Such should certainly move us to run to Christ so we are not found to be guilty by God and suffer His wrath and punishment. To plead for His grace, mercy, patience, and lovingkindness that is so characteristic of Him seen in Christ's death on the cross.
Let's be sure that we do not forget such an important truth of Who our Lord is and to praise Him for all these things being true of Him as David does in Psalm 145, allowing it to convince us once again to turn to Him in repentance over our sins, seek His help, strength, and rescue daily, keep going through the difficult moments of our lives, and be sure that we are found to be righteous in His eyes through our faith in Christ alone.
Love
in Christ,
Pastor
Lee
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