By Michael A. Graham
[Author’s Note: This is a continuation/follow-up of my thoughts from today’s Bible reading that was providentially in Exodus 25–32. In the context of yesterday’s AI article on representation and reality, I wanted to memorialize these engagements so I can keep them in mind as I continue thinking about the categories of representation and reality.]
Introduction
This morning I was reading Exodus 25 to 32.
Moses has received and given the Ten Commandments. The people didn’t want God to speak directly to them. So now Moses is up on the mountain receiving detailed explanation of the tabernacle and priests—which itself is a representation of reality given by God to His people.
And then we come to Exodus 32. While Moses is up on the mountain receiving God’s representation of reality, the people also want their own representation of reality. They gather all their resources to create their own representation.
I’ve been thinking about representation and reality—how AI simulation operates so comprehensively and rapidly that it begins to function as if it were superior to reality itself.
And as I read these chapters this morning, a pattern emerged that I hadn’t seen before.
The entire Exodus 25-32 sequence is about two competing visions of representation.
At the exact same moment, God is giving authorized representation while the people are creating unauthorized representation.
It’s as if Scripture is showing us split-screen: “This is how representation rightly relates to reality” versus “This is what humans do with representation when left to ourselves.”
What follows are reflections on what this pattern reveals—not just in Exodus, but throughout Scripture, church history, and our own sanctification.
I. Two Representations at the Same Moment
God’s Representation (Exodus 25-31)
God gives detailed, specific instructions for the tabernacle and priesthood. Every element is prescribed—the materials, the dimensions, the craftsmen, the garments, the sacrifices.
This is authorized representation:
• Given by God, not invented by humans
• Points beyond itself to heavenly realities (Hebrews 8:5 – “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things”)
• Requires skilled craftsmen filled with God’s Spirit (Exodus 31:3)
• The tabernacle will mediate God’s actual presence among them
But notice—even this divinely authorized representation doesn’t contain God.
When God’s glory fills the tabernacle, He’s not confined to it. The principle finitum non capax infiniti—the finite cannot contain the infinite—applies even here. God dwells among His people, but He is not contained by the representation.
Israel’s Representation (Exodus 32)
While Moses receives God’s instructions, the people create their own representation. They didn’t reject Yahweh outright—they were being practical. Moses was gone too long. They needed something manageable.
This is unauthorized representation:
• Invented by humans when God seems absent
• Claims to BE the reality (“These are your gods who brought you up”)
• Made by human skill alone (Aaron melts the gold)
• The calf offers manageable presence without dependence
The devastating irony: they use the gold from Egypt—the same resources God intended for building His authorized representation—to create their unauthorized representation.
The same gold that should have built the tabernacle gets melted down for the calf.
The Pattern Revealed
The simultaneity is the interpretive key. At the exact moment God is showing how representation properly works, the people are demonstrating why it’s needed—because left to ourselves, we create representation that claims too much.
God is establishing: representation points beyond itself, mediates presence, requires authorization.
The people demonstrate: representation that claims to contain, to be sufficient, to replace what it should only signify.
This becomes the canonical case study for understanding how representation relates to reality throughout Scripture.
II. The Pattern in Church History: Rome’s Error
Once you see the Exodus 25-32 pattern, you see it throughout church history. Rome’s sacramental theology is Exodus 32 applied systematically.
Transubstantiation as the Golden Calf
When Jesus said “This is my body,” He gave authorized representation—bread and wine that mediate His presence through the Spirit.
Rome took that representation and made it claim too much.
The Council of Trent (Session 13, 1551) declared: “If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist there are truly, really, and substantially contained the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ… let him be anathema.”
This is Exodus 32 language: the representation doesn’t just mediate Christ’s presence—it contains Him.
The finite bread contains the infinite Christ. The representation becomes the reality.
The Ecclesiological Root
But transubstantiation isn’t the disease—it’s a symptom. The root error is Rome’s definition of the Church itself.
Rome claims the Church doesn’t just point to Christ. The Church contains Christ’s authority so completely that:
• What the Church teaches IS what God teaches
• The Pope speaking ex cathedra IS infallible
• The priest can turn bread into Christ’s body
• Outside the Church there is no salvation
This is the golden calf principle applied comprehensively: the institutional Church is representation that claims to be, contain, and exhaust the reality it should only mediate.
Why Trent Couldn’t Reform
The Reformers said: “You’re making the same error as Israel at Sinai—claiming representation contains what it should only mediate.”
Trent responded: “Anathema. The representation IS the reality.”
They couldn’t reform because to admit transubstantiation was wrong would require admitting the entire ecclesiology was wrong. To admit the Pope could err would require admitting the Church doesn’t contain Christ’s authority the way Rome claimed.
So Rome doubled down. Permanently. Irreformably. And they remain trapped by their own logic to this day.
III. The Regulative Principle of Worship
The Exodus 25-32 pattern establishes another crucial principle: in worship, we may only do what God has authorized.
The Regulative Principle isn’t arbitrary strictness. It’s the fence around Exodus 32. It says: “Don’t make golden calves” applied to every element of worship.
The Pattern in Scripture
Leviticus 10—Nadab and Abihu offer “unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.” Fire from the LORD consumes them.
1 Samuel 13—Saul offers sacrifice because Samuel is delayed. It costs him his dynasty.
2 Samuel 6—Uzzah touches the ark to steady it. Good intention. Unauthorized method. God strikes him dead.
The pattern: God is jealous about how representation functions in worship. Not arbitrary—but because unauthorized representation teaches lies about who God is and how we relate to Him.
Two Principles
The Normative Principle (Rome, most evangelicals): Whatever God hasn’t forbidden is permitted. We have liberty to add elements to worship.
The Regulative Principle (Reformed): Whatever God hasn’t commanded is forbidden. We have liberty only within what God has authorized.
If we can add whatever God hasn’t forbidden, then Aaron’s golden calf was fine. God never specifically said “don’t make a golden calf.”
But God’s response shows: you don’t get to reason your way to authorization. Either God commanded it, or you don’t do it.
IV. Priesthood and Office
The Old Covenant priesthood was authorized representation that pointed to reality (Christ). But it was always temporary, typological, pointing forward.
Hebrews makes this explicit: “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood… what further need would there have been for another priest to arise?” (Hebrews 7:11)
When Christ comes, the representation is fulfilled. The reality has arrived. The priesthood doesn’t continue—it’s completed.
The Priesthood of All Believers
1 Peter 2:9: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.”
This doesn’t mean everyone is now a priest the way Aaron was. It means: because Christ is the true High Priest, all believers have direct access to God through Him. We don’t need a human mediatorial priesthood.
The priesthood of all believers means:
• Direct access to God—no human mediator needed
• Offering spiritual sacrifices—praise, service, lives offered to God
• Interceding for one another—because we all have access through Christ
The Two Offices: Elder and Deacon
Reformed churches typically have two offices: elder and deacon. These are NOT continuation of Old Covenant priesthood. They’re New Covenant offices for the body of Christ.
Elders: shepherd, teach, oversee. NOT mediators. NOT offering sacrifices. NOT having special access to God that others lack.
Deacons: serve the physical and mercy needs of the body. NOT mediators. NOT priests.
Rome’s error: continuing the priesthood after Christ fulfilled it.
Making representation continue after reality has arrived—which makes representation rival reality rather than point to it.
V. Melchizedek: The Priest-King Type
Melchizedek raises a unique question about representation and reality.
He appears suddenly in Genesis 14—priest-king of Salem, blessing Abraham, receiving his tithe.
Then Melchizedek vanishes from the narrative.
Hebrews 7 makes him central to understanding Christ’s priesthood.
But what kind of representation is Melchizedek?
The Unique Presentation
Hebrews 7:3 says Melchizedek is “without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God.”
Key word: resembling. Not “is the Son of God” but “resembling.”
Melchizedek is most likely human, but Genesis presents him in a deliberately mysterious way—no genealogy, no death recorded—to show Christ’s priesthood is unique.
Why This Matters
The Law separated priest and king. Priests from Levi. Kings from Judah. When kings tried to be priests (Saul, Uzziah), God judged them.
But Melchizedek was BOTH.
Before the Law. Before the separation. Melchizedek shows there was a time when priest-king was the pattern—and points forward to when the offices will be reunited in Messiah.
Jesus from Judah fulfills the kingly representation.
But He’s priest “after the order of Melchizedek”—not Aaron.
Jesus Christ unites what the Law separated.
Melchizedek is unique representation that shows the offices CAN be united, and WILL be united in Christ.
Melchizedek is the hinge figure in redemptive history showing this is God’s plan all along.
VI. Anthropology: You Are Representation
Now the pattern reaches its deepest level: what does it mean that YOU are created in God’s image?
Genesis 1:26-27: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’… So God created man in his own image.”
You are representation of God. Not in the sense that you point beyond yourself to something else. But in the sense that you are meant to reflect, to image, to represent God’s character and nature in creation.
But—and this is crucial—you are finite representation of the infinite reality.
Finitum non capax infiniti applies here too. You are made in God’s image, but you don’t contain God. You represent truly, but partially.
What Is Sin?
Sin is the representation claiming independence from, superiority to, or equality with the reality it’s meant to image.
The Fall (Genesis 3) is the paradigm. The serpent’s promise: “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
The temptation: representation (humanity) claiming to BE the reality (God), or at least claiming independence FROM the reality.
This is the golden calf pattern at the anthropological level:
• Pride: I am the reality; I don’t need God
• Autonomy: I determine truth; I don’t need God’s revelation
• Idolatry: I’ll worship representation rather than Reality
• Self-sufficiency: I can save myself; I don’t need grace
All sin is representation (humanity) forgetting it’s representation and acting as if it’s autonomous reality.
What Is Righteousness?
Righteousness is the representation rightly relating to the Reality, imaging it truly, depending on it properly.
Christ is the true image of God (Colossians 1:15, Hebrews 1:3)—not just a representation pointing to reality, but the Person in whom representation and reality converge perfectly.
And righteousness for us is being conformed to Christ’s image:
Romans 8:29: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all… are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
Righteousness is being restored as proper representation of God. Being conformed to Christ. Reflecting God’s character truly. Depending on God appropriately. Living in right relationship with Reality.
VII. Simulated Righteousness: The Galatian Error
This brings us to the pastoral application: the good face of the flesh in Galatians 3 is simulated righteousness.
The Galatians were creating a representation of righteousness (law-keeping, rule-following, religious performance) that operated so comprehensively it began to function as if it WERE righteousness itself.
But it wasn’t real righteousness. It was simulation.
Paul’s Diagnosis
Galatians 3:3: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
What they started with (real righteousness):
• Received through the Spirit
• Christ’s righteousness credited to them
• Union with Christ by faith
What they drifted to (simulated righteousness):
• Generated through their own self-effort
• Their performance creating their standing
• Law-keeping as the means
Why Simulated Righteousness Is So Seductive
It looks like righteousness:
• It has the appearance of godliness
• You can measure progress
• It feels responsible
• It seems mature
This is the “good face of the flesh”—it LOOKS like righteousness. It’s a convincing simulation.
But Paul says it’s still flesh trying to perfect flesh.
Jack Miller’s Warning: Risk or Rust
Jack Miller articulated this pattern through a stark binary: “The choice is simple: risk or rust.”
Simulated Righteousness Is Rust:
• Self-managed holiness
• Looks responsible, mature, serious
• But it’s spiritual death because it abandons dependence on the Spirit
Miller: “Rust isn’t neutral; it’s rebellion. It’s functional atheism.”
Real Righteousness Is Risk:
• Spirit-dependent steps when you can’t control outcomes
• Looks weak, uncertain, insufficient
• But it’s spiritual life because it requires dependence on Christ
Miller: “The more I look inside myself for faith, the less faith I find.”
Faith comes from preaching the gospel to yourself and stepping out in dependence—not from comprehensive self-analysis or optimized sanctification techniques.
The Contemporary Application
We do the same thing whenever we:
• Trust our systems more than the Spirit
• Measure holiness by metrics rather than union with Christ
• Optimize our spiritual lives rather than risk depending on God
• Generate transformation through technique rather than receiving it through grace
All simulated righteousness. All representation operating so comprehensively it masquerades as the real thing—while removing the dependence that’s essential to actual righteousness.
Conclusion: The Pattern Throughout
What began as this morning’s reading (following yesterday’s article) in Exodus 25-32 has revealed a pattern that seems to run throughout Scripture, church history, and our own sanctification.
At every level, the similar temptation:
• Cosmological: Created things claiming to be God (idolatry)
• Anthropological: Humans claiming independence from God (sin)
• Ecclesiastical: Church claiming to contain Christ (Rome)
• Sacramental: Bread claiming to be Christ’s body (transubstantiation)
• Liturgical: Unauthorized worship claiming to honor God (Regulative Principle)
• Soteriological: Self-effort claiming to produce righteousness (Galatians)
• Technological: AI simulation claiming superiority to reality (another gospel)
All the same pattern: representation claiming what only reality can be.
And at every level, the gospel answer:
• Creation points to Creator
• Humans are restored to imaging God through Christ
• Church points to Christ, doesn’t contain Him
• Sacraments mediate Christ through Spirit, don’t become Him
• Worship follows God’s authorization, not human invention
• Righteousness comes through receiving Christ, not generating it ourselves
All the same pattern: representation acknowledging Reality, depending on Reality, pointing to Reality.
This morning’s reading in Exodus then becomes sort of an interpretive lens for Scripture and life.
The split-screen of Exodus 25-32—God giving authorized representation while the people create unauthorized representation at the exact same moment—reveals the fundamental choice in every domain:
Will representation acknowledge its representation and point beyond itself in dependence?
Or will it claim to be, contain, or function as superior to the Reality it’s meant to signify?
The first is authorized, God-honoring, life-giving.
The second is the golden calf in every form it takes.
And the principle that governs it all: Finitum non capax infiniti—the finite cannot contain the infinite.
Not in the tabernacle, not in the sacrament, not in the Church, not in us, not in any representation we create.
Only in Christ do representation and reality converge perfectly.
Only in Him is the image the reality.
Only through Him are we restored as proper representation.
And that’s the gospel.
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