Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” 

Exodus 33:3

God says to the Israelites while in the desert, “go on your way, but I’m not joining.  You are stubbornly turned away from me, so I cannot go with you.”  What does it mean to be stiff-necked?  It means to be stubborn.  It means the people don’t look to God and also that they won’t.  It’s a bleak view of the people.  And on account of this condition, God says he won’t go.

However, Moses has a relationship with God though, and he implores God: 

And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” 

Exodus 34:9

He tells God, “no, please go up with us for the precise reason that we are stiff-necked––and pardon our sin.”   

What a bold and incredible request.  Of course it is grounded in God’s promise that he clings to (undoubtedly based primarily on the important revelation of God’s name in between these verses), but it is opposite what we would expect.  God himself says, “I’m not going. You are stiff-necked.” Moses says, “no that’s precisely why we need you.” 

God is both the deliverer and the justifier.  The people could not go up in their own strength and deliver themselves in order to see God put them in right-standing.  Nor could the people justify themselves by righteousness in order that God might go with them to deliver them.  God does both.  He delivers, and he justifies.  

Moses’ response to God’s challenge and self-proclamation is full of faith in Grace.   

God is both your deliverer and your justifier.