Worth Repeating - October 14, 2017

Exodus 33: 18 Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.” (NIV)

We try to describe God in human terms, but God is infinitely bigger than our ability to understand.*

God had already shown Moses his favor – verse 11 says that the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. How glorious would that be? And still Moses asks that God would show him his glory. Was Moses being arrogant? Audacious? Or appropriate? 

God didn’t seem to be put-off by Moses’ request. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God showed him his goodness (verse 19). Is there a difference? If you’ve seen one attribute of God, have you seen them all? When God allowed, in verse 23, that Moses could see his back but not his face, what did Moses see? God is spirit and does not have body parts. Someone has suggested that instead of revealing his glory, God revealed his character.* Again I ask, is there a difference? 

Moses’ request to see God’s glory is typical human behavior. The more we know God, the more we want to know him. God’s response to Moses is typical divine behavior: he wants to show us more of himself. In his sermon at the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17: 16-34), Paul proclaims that everything that God has done from creation forward was for this purpose: “So that men might seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.” Turns out that Moses was not acting inappropriately when he asked to see God’s glory. It’s exactly what God wants all of us to do.

Christ only is the express image of God’s person.*