tonement for your sin."
Then he said to their offended Creator, "Oh, this people have sinned a
great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt,
forgive their sin."

Here Moses, as is obvious, shadows out the true Mediator between God and
man, who is ever at the right hand of God making intercession, for us;
but the parallel is closer still than appears at first sight. After
Moses had said, "If Thou wilt, forgive their sin," he added, "and if not,
blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book, which Thou hast written." He was
taken at his word. Observe, rather than Israel should forfeit the
promised land, he here offered to give up his own portion in it, and the
exchange was accepted. He was excluded, dying in sight, not in enjoyment
of Canaan, while the people went in under Joshua. This was a figure of
Him that was to come. Our Saviour Christ died, that we might live: He
consented to lose the light of God's countenance, that we might gain it.
By His cross and passion, He made atonement for our sins, and bought for
us the forgiveness of God. Yet, on the other hand, observe how this
history instructs us, at the same time, in the unspeakable distance
between Christ and Moses. When Moses said, "Blot me, I pray Thee, out of
Thy book," God did not promise to accept the exchange, but He answered,
"Whosover hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book." Moses
was not taken instead of Israel, except in figure. In spite of Moses,
the sinful people were plagued and died[13], though their children
entered the promised land. And again, Moses, after all, suffered for his
own sin. True, he was shut out from Canaan. But why? Not in spite of
his having "done nothing amiss," as the Divine Sufferer on the cross, but
because he spake unadvisedly with his lips, when the people provoked him
with their murmurings. The meek Moses was provoked to call them rebels,
and seemed to arrogate to himself the power and authority which he
received from God; and therefore he was punished by dying in the
wilderness. But Christ was the spotless Lamb of God, "who, when He was
reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but
committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously." And His death is
meritorious; it has really gained our pardon.

Moreover, it is well to observe now apparently slight a fault it was for
which Moses suffered; for this shows us the infinite difference between
the best of a sinfu