Aaron Said the Calf Came Out of the Fire on Its Own

He noticed it in a car park, which is where most of these things get noticed.

He had made a decision that week and it was a good one, and standing there with his keys in his hand he realized that the thing he had actually been weighing was not whether it was right. He had been running it past a face. One particular person, and what that person would think of it, and whether it would come back to him well.

That would be understandable enough on its own. What made him stand still was the next part, which was that he could not remember the last time he had weighed anything a different way.

And underneath that, quieter and worse, was the other half of it. He runs a small thing. There are people who do the same with his face, and he has known that for a while, and he has never once said anything about it, because he likes it.

He is not proud of that sentence. He has never said it out loud to anybody.

Aaron's excuse is one of the funniest lines in the Bible

The golden calf story is famous. What almost nobody remembers is what Aaron says afterward.

The people come to him while Moses is up the mountain and ask him to make them something. And Aaron does it. He collects the gold, he takes it, and the text says plainly, in the King James Version:

And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf. (Exodus 32:4)

Fashioned it with a graving tool. That is careful, deliberate work with an instrument, over time.

Then Moses comes down and asks him what happened, and Aaron says this:

And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf. (Exodus 32:24)

There came out this calf.

He puts it in the fire and out it walks, apparently by itself. It is the oldest bad excuse on record and it is preserved in Scripture with no comment attached, which is its own kind of comment.

And notice there are two things going wrong in that chapter, not one. The people bowing to something that cannot help them. And a man standing there letting it happen, and then describing his own part as something that occurred to him.

You are able to look at your own half of this and you were never being exposed by it. Exodus 32 shows both halves and does not spare either, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than anybody's exposure who makes a man able to see his own hands in something.

Everybody in the New Testament who got put in that seat got out of it fast

This happens repeatedly, and the response is the same every time.

Cornelius meets Peter and does the obvious thing:

And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man. (Acts 10:25-26)

I myself also am a man.

At Lystra, a crowd decides Paul and Barnabas are gods and starts organizing a sacrifice:

Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you. (Acts 14:14-15)

They tore their clothes and ran into the crowd. That is not a modest demurral. That is panic.

And it is not only men. John, at the end of Revelation, falls down in front of the angel who has been showing him everything, and does it twice:

Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. (Revelation 22:9)

See thou do it not. Every single time, the same reaction, and never once does anybody in Scripture accept the position.

You have no man standing between you and Him and you were never on a relay. Acts 10, Acts 14 and Revelation 22 all have the same refusal, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes stepping out of that seat feel like relief rather than loss.

There is one, and it is named

Paul states it in one line and leaves no room in it.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

One. And then the name.

That is the whole doctrine. It is not a criticism of anybody and it does not require a villain. It is a statement about how many seats there are, and the answer is one, and it is occupied.

And Jesus said something in the same direction about position and standing:

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren... Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. (Matthew 23:8,10)

Whatever else that passage is doing, it is not a rule about job titles and this article is not going to make it one. It is about who is standing where, and it is addressed to the people in the standing rather than to the ones looking up.

You have one mediator and you were never asked to bow to anybody else. 1 Timothy 2 gives the number and the name, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that settle in a man who has been checking a face for years.

The fear of a person is named as a trap

Proverbs puts the mechanism in six words:

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe. (Proverbs 29:25)

A snare. Something that catches an animal while it is walking normally, that it never saw, that closes.

And Paul says it about himself, plainly, in a letter where he is under a great deal of pressure:

For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

He is not describing an achievement. He is describing an incompatibility. Those two cannot both be the thing you are doing.

You are caught in a snare rather than held by a loyalty, and you were never disloyal for wanting out of it. Proverbs 29 names it, and it is the Holy Spirit rather than your own detachment who gets a man out of a trap he did not see close.

And the other half of it

Here is the part that has to be said, because half of this is about being on the other side of it.

Aaron did not build that calf alone and he did not build it against his will. He collected the gold. He worked it with a tool. He stood there.

If people have arranged themselves around a man and he has not said anything, that is the same chapter. Not because he is a monster, and not because he set out to be anybody's mediator. Because it is pleasant, and because saying something costs the pleasantness, and because it is very easy to describe your own part in it afterward as something that happened.

Peter took the man by the arms and stood him up. That is the move, and it costs something every time.

You are allowed to get out of that seat and you are allowed to take somebody else out of it. Acts 10 has a man physically lifting somebody off the floor, and it is His Spirit who makes that possible without contempt in either direction.