Moses saw God’s glory in two ways. First, God passed him by in the cleft of the rock. Immediately after that, Moses saw God’s glory in His character. He gave Moses six ways to know Him and thereby to love Him.
The first thing God revealed about His character is His compassion for His people. David compared it to an earthly father when he wrote, “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” There’s something sad about a father or a mother who is always looking to punish or embarrass or shame their child. God is not petty or cruel. He is full of compassion.
Second, the Lord is gracious. To those of us who can never measure up, and I am one, He gives grace. I am so thankful for God’s grace, paid for by Jesus. Maxie Dunnam tells the story of a woman who took her friend with her when she went to a photographer to have her picture taken. The beauty parlor had done their best for her. She took her seat in the studio and fixed her pose. Then she said to the photographer, ‘Now be sure to do me justice.’ The friend who had come with her said with a twinkle in her eye, ‘My dear, what you need is not justice but mercy.’” That’s what we all need as we are always before the eyes of the Lord who sees us and knows all about us. We need God’s grace and mercy. As you may have heard before, grace is God giving us what we do not deserve, and mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve.
Third, the Lord is slow to anger. To those who are rebellious, this is good news. The literal translation of “slow to anger” in Hebrew is “long of nose.” We sometimes say an angry person has a short fuse, and someone who is more patient has a long fuse. But there were no fuses or bombs in ancient Israel, so why “a long nose?” Many believe the idea is that this person takes a long and deep inhale. He can wait. One commentator said it may be because short-nosed animals are the ones that snort. Think of pigs, grunting and snorting. That’s not God. When something sets us off, we may blow up, but God does not. His patience is perfect.
Fourth, the Lord abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands. The Pacific Ocean is so deep at the Mariana Trench that if Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, were placed into it, the peak would still be more than a mile underwater. We cannot fathom that depth, no pun intended, but the steadfast love of the Lord makes the Pacific Ocean look like a plastic kiddie pool. The love of the Lord never ceases and has no bottom floor.
Fifth, the Lord forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. The word forgive means “to lift or carry.” For the repentant, God lifts their sins from them and carries them away. He forgives iniquity, which is turning aside from what we know is right. He forgives transgression, which is rebellion, open opposition to God, sometimes called treason. Paul was guilty of that: he was a treasonous rebel, hell-bent on destroying Christians and Christianity. After God apprehended him on the Damascus Road, Paul referred to himself as the chief of sinners. For the rest of his life he held up the unsearchable riches of Christ’s forgiveness. God also forgives sin, which refers to all sin, or, our sin nature. Remember, we aren’t sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
Sixth, the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. The same God who forgives sin also condemns the guilty. The sins of the fathers are passed down from generation to generation. That does not mean that a grandchild is punished for something his grandfather did. It means the patterns and the cycles of sin continue from one generation to the next.
God is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving, and just. We cannot pick and choose which attributes we believe in or even which attributes we like. They are all true or none of them are true. God is who He says He is or we are all without hope.
My hope is in God.
J. Mark Fox 