Exodus 32:11-20
"Thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves", the LORD said to Moses (v. 7). "Not so," the latter replies. "It is ’thy people which thou has brought forth . .’ (v. 11). Because of that it is impossible for You to destroy them." In John ch. 17, Jesus, praying on behalf of His own, says the same thing to His Father: "they are thine" (v. 9).
Here Moses is a skilful advocate. He had formerly protested that he was not an eloquent man, that he was "slow of speech" (Exodus 4:10). But now his heart is moved for Israel, and out of the abundance of his heart how well he knows, by the Spirit, how to plead on behalf of the people of God! Yet all the fervour of Moses could not prevent the LORD from destroying Israel if the law which condemned them was now rigorously applied. One of these two things: the law or the guilty people, had to go. In His grace God makes provision for the law to be set aside, so that Moses, in the mind of God, breaks the two tables of stone at the foot of the mountain.
When the Lord Jesus came down into a guilty world, it was not to abolish the law. On the contrary, He perfectly fulfilled it before enduring its curse on the cross (Matthew 5:17-18; Galatians 3:13).