I studied Exodus over the summer, and as I neared the end of the study, I was struck by some thoughts regarding Moses’ request to see the face of God. The text is found at the end of chapter 33 of the book…
And [Moses] said, “I beseech thee, shew me Thy glory.”
And [God] said, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. ” And He said, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: And it shall come to pass, while My glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with My hand while I pass by: And I will take away Mine hand, and thou shalt see My back parts: but My face shall not be seen.”(Exodus 33:18-23)
Moses doesn’t ask to see God’s glory because he wants to have a great topic of conversation at the next dinner party. He doesn’t want to see it just out of raw curiosity. He certainly isn’t looking for any visual evidence to confirm the existence of God. Instead, he makes this request solely because he loves the Lord, and wants to see His face. God doesn’t outright reject the offer, but He does have to limit what Moses can see, specifically. After all, as He says “No one can see My face and live.”
Human eyes cannot behold such unfathomable Divine radiance.
So many questions are raised by this statement, but probably the most commonly asked is this: Why would God make us and yet not give us the capacity to see His face? I suppose a critic of the Bible might hold that up as a paradox that unravels the whole kit and caboodle. I don’t see it that way. In fact, humans are not unique in our inability to see God. Recall that Isaiah once witnessed the throne of God in a vision, and beheld angels with six wings orbiting His throne. With two of their wings they hid their face (Isaiah 6:2). They weren’t averting their eyes from the décor of the throne room, nor were they looking away from Isaiah. It was the face of God that they did not behold. God’s righteousness is TOO righteous, even for those made to dwell in His immediate presence.
I think the best explanation for this is found in the New Testament, where John reiterates the fact of this verse: No man has seen God at any time (John 1:18a), but the only begotten of God—Jesus—has declared Him to us (John 1:18b). Moses is not permitted to see the face of God the Father, but He has seen various manifestations of God, shown to him from God the Son, the pre-incarnate second Person of God. That same second Person would later be born of Mary, named Jesus, and would declare “to see Me is to see the Father” (John 14:9).
Jesus is the way we can see the unseeable.
Back to Moses: He is going to see SOMETHING from God the Father. The Lord provides an alternative that allows His faithful servant a way to experience as much of His glory as humanly possible: He tells Moses to go into a rock cleft and to wait there while God’s glory passes by, after which Moses will be able to see the “back parts” of God, a phrase that simply refers to an aspect of His glory that is “bearable” for human eyes to behold, and a human mind to comprehend. The Lord’s radiance will be diminished enough for Moses to see it, like looking at the sun’s corona at the apex of a solar eclipse. God allows some kind of corona, or afterglow, or radiant “part” of His glory to linger behind (“back”) after He passes by. Moses can see that, but no more.
That’s not the end of it, however.
I think it’s interesting to note that the only other event in the Bible that compares to this is the Transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 17)… and who is present at that event, standing with the glorified Son of God? Moses. The man who previously only saw the “back parts” of God because He could not see His glory was—at least in the vision seen by Peter, James, and John—depicted as conversing with Jesus. In other words, Moses saw the face of the glorified King, and since seeing the Son is the same as seeing the Father (John 14:9), in that sense Moses finally got his wish: He saw the full majesty of God as manifested in the face of Jesus Christ (Matthew 17:1-3).
That, I’d say, is a nice bit of Biblical symmetry.
~Matthew
PS: Don’t forget that, at the end of September, we will enjoy our Family Day weekend Gospel Meeting with Barry Grider. Be here on Friday evening, September 26th, at 7pm, as well as Saturday evening, September 27th, at 7pm to hear two excellent lessons from God’s Word, both in the lead-up to our big Family Day Sunday on September 28th.