Out came this calf? Really? There is a deep Christological term for this and it is called a "lie." Way back in verse four we saw that Aaron took a graving tool and fashioned the calf himself. I find an interesting parallel here however. We too will Christianize our apostasy. We will try and make what we know is wrong look as "pious" as possible. To give the veneer of the supernatural to avoid criticism. We do not only wrap ourselves up in Christ we dress ourselves up in His name. We want to look the part. We want to play the part. We think if we shout loud enough people will not notice that it is a calf they are dancing around. If we ramble into incoherent "tongues" then people will think we are super spiritual. If we twitch and shake at just right moment people will think it was a "God thing" instead of the flesh. If we claim divine revelation then no one can challenge us. How many pastors today preach - "God told me" instead of let us look at what God has already told us. It is astounding to me. We can correctly listen to the testimony of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, whose entire testimony us based on personal divine revelation, and dismiss it out of hand. Yet we eat up the personal divine revelation fairy tales of Joseph Prince. Paul said to follow him as he followed Christ. He said that he wanted to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. No fancy parlor tricks. No lofty speeches. No seeker friendly purpose driven marketing schemes. No beloved. None of that matters. Only Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Only the Gospel matters. All Aaron is trying to do here is the same thing false teachers do every day in this country. They try to place a supernatural veil over their own disobedience. They teach us to do the same. Especially when their sin is uncovered. When their doctrine is brought under the light of the Scriptures. Then what they crafted willfully becomes a golden calf leaping from the fire miraculously. Glory hallelujah, pass the offering plate.
A last point on this portion of verses is one we need to heed well. There are none righteous. Realize who this is that is lying right to Moses' face! This is not some random Israelite. This was Aaron. He was the brother of Moses. He was the High Priest of Israel! God appointed him as Moses' prophet. It was his rod that was turned to a snake before Pharaoh. It was his rod that was outstretched to bring forth the first three plagues of Egypt. In the battle with Amalek, Aaron held up one of the arms of Moses to lead the people to victory. His budded staff would be one of only three items to be stored in the Ark of the Covenant. It is safe to say that he was not just a random Israelite. Yet here he stood, lying through his teeth when confronted by his own disobedience. Just like Adam blamed the woman and the woman blamed the snake. Just like King Saul tried to pretend he had slaughtered the Amalekites. When our sin is exposed, we generally are not the most honest people.
I say this as a backdrop to warn against another prevalent trend in the modern church, pastor worship. We all know it is out there and growing. You can bad mouth doctrine but don't say a word about my pastor! Recently a pastor stepped down after being caught stealing $200,000 in tithe monies to cheat the NY Times best seller list. He also plagiarized nine books he had written and gleefully referred to the sheep he had hurt in his pastoral service as "dead bodies." Yet despite this, the amount of people defending him was sickening. Those who merely reported the truth were attacked as unloving. It was the bizzaro world that American Christianity has become. Where the truth is unloving, the false are celebrated, and the Word of God means nothing. This is one of the major problems with celebrity Christianity. It takes our eyes off of Christ and places them on man. But man will always let us down. Man will always fail. When faced with that failure, man will always try and cover it up. Try to blame the people. Try to claim it was an act of God. Anything than having to own up for what we are responsible for.
As we conclude this look at the story of the golden calf that is what we are left with. We need to own what it is that we do. If we are going to go every Sunday to a church we know is not serving the Lord then we cannot complain when we are asked to drink from the cup we have poured. A lot of times we stop the story here but it did not end with Moses confronting Aaron. No beloved. He then asked who would stand with him and the sons of Levi did. He then put to death many who had committed this atrocity. Many more were still visited with a plague by the Lord. I know that a great deal of modern Christianity has tried to turn God into this sugar coated fairy tale. A Santa Claus with better presents and no "naughty" list. Do not dance around that golden calf beloved. It does not end well. Do not lose sight of how we got here:
The people had quickly turned from what the Lord had commanded.
Moses smashed the stone tablets that contained what the Lord had commanded. The sin of the people was in idolatry of the calf, which represented what they wanted instead of the Word of the Lord. What they gathered around themselves to scratch their itching ears. Do not think for a second that any of this magically changes because of the new covenant. Jesus fulfills the law, not discards it. We will be judged by His blood if we are found in Him but that does not mean the rest of the Bible is marginalized. It does not mean we can craft golden calves to worship because we do not like what sayeth the Lord. Be careful what you choose to dance around beloved. An appearance of godliness is just an appearance. Do not turn so quickly from what He has commanded.
Reverend Anthony Wade - November 7, 2014
