The Worst Day

This fall we are spending seven weeks with one sentence. In Exodus 34:6–7, God describes himself: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” It is the most-quoted line about God in the whole Bible. Moses prays it back to God, David sings it, Joel preaches it, and Jonah threw it in God’s face. Israel had a creed long before the church did, and God wrote this one about himself.

But what kind of day was it when God first said it? We would guess a good one. It was the worst day Israel ever had. Forty days after promising, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do,” the people grew tired of waiting for Moses and made a golden calf. They did not think they were leaving God. They wanted a god they could see, carry, and control. And while they built it, God was on the mountain giving Moses plans for a tent so he could live in the middle of them.

Then God tells Moses to “let me alone,” leaving a door open, and Moses walks through it. He says nothing about Israel’s record. He pleads only from who God is, and the conversation that began with “your people” ends with “his people.” God’s clearest word about who he is was spoken over his people’s worst failure. So it was never a reward. If we did not earn it on our best day, we cannot lose it on our worst.

Moses even asks to be blotted out of God’s book if they are not forgiven, and God says no. Moses cannot carry their sin. Jesus did. He stood in our place, said “It is finished,” and lives now to intercede for us. That is why we do not have to get better before we come back to God. When we start keeping score again, we say the sentence. Because of Jesus, we are his people, on our best day and on our worst.

To go deeper, watch BibleProject’s six-minute Visual Commentary on Exodus 34:6–7.