Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” – Exodus 32:31, 32
Moses demonstrates an intense identification with his people in this prayer that most of us could never imagine praying. He actually requested that God damn him for all eternity for the sake of the salvation of a sinful people. This request is fresh off of the golden calf episode in which the people, who had just witnessed the most jaw-dropping demonstrations of Divine power anybody had ever seen, decided to start worshipping a statue of a cow that they had just made. They actually said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!” (Ex 32:4,8). All this insane idolatry all because Moses had been out of the office for a month and ten days. And Moses wants to go to hell in their stead so that God’s name might not be tarnished. And the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book….(Ex 32:33) In other words, God’s answer was categorically “Not a chance, Moses. I appreciate your sentiment, but my sense of justice is actually superior to your depraved perspective. I can only blot out those who deserve to be blotted out. And you do not meet the requirements.”
He’s not the only one recorded to have prayed such a prayer. Paul also shared this passion for the Jewish people:
“I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. (Romans 9:1-5)
What is going on here? Are both Paul and Moses blinded with nationalist pride or just a morbid and masochistic death wish? How and why does anyone get to such a place of kamikaze intercession? I mean, no doubt the incarnation is a baffling demonstration of humility on God’s part: Jesus, the Second Person of the Eternal Godhead chose to become human – forever. And no doubt, the cross – that bloody, naked, shameful moment of unthinkable agony but necessary atonement was a demonstration of humility on steroids: The creator of everything dwelling in the frame of the only sinless human being to ever grace the planet, taking our punishment, so that we could know eternal life. Absolutely mind-boggling. But, even Jesus didn’t request eternal damnation. So where are Moses and Paul coming from? It is their concern to see all the promises made to the Jewish people upheld (Ex 32:9-14), for Paul understood that “if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”(Rom 11:15). Though it may have been zeal without knowledge in that permission to go to hell was not granted, their pathos in prayer for the promises of God should provoke us to new levels of intercession for the lost sheep of Israel for Jesus will not come back until they invite him (Mt 23:37-39).
365 Days of Biblical Prayer 