Exodus 33 – June 28

Exodus 33 opens with the aftermath of the golden calf debacle. God’s answer to their rebellion was to tell them, “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” God had been traveling in the midst of the people up to this point on their journey. In some mysterious way, His presence had been “among” them in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Moving forward, God’s presence would only be accessible at the tent of meeting and only by Moses. It was there that God would speak to Moses ‘face to face.’ 

Do you see the parallels to the Garden of Eden in these events? There was fellowship with God and a delight in His presence that was ended in one case by disobeying God by eating the fruit, in the other case it was disobeying God by worshiping a false god. Both events were a rejection of God’s rule and authority. Both of those events denied the good provision of the Lord and the perfect sustaining work He had done for His people. In both cases, the result was a departure of the presence of God from among the people. Sin separates us from God. Adam failed, Israel failed, but many years later Jesus would come and succeed in every way that they did not.

It is at the end of this chapter that we come to the pinnacle moment of Moses’ entire life. He had already experienced more incredible and miraculous events than anyone else in history has observed. God used him to turn a stick into a snake, to turn one of the world’s mightiest rivers into blood, and to part the Red Sea. Moses had seen God send food from the sky, send water from a rock, and send laws from heaven. He had experienced the presence of God in the pillar of cloud and fire. Even so, the cry of Moses’ heart was, “show me your glory.” He was not nearly as interested in the stuff that God was going to do as he was with the person of God Himself. He was hungry to know and experience the person of Yahweh to an even greater degree. 

Moses was right to recognize that it is not the choice of the individual pursuing God that can cause God’s glory to be revealed. It is only when God graciously decides to reveal Himself that He will ever be seen or known. For as the Lord says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” (vs. 19) 

In this case, there was a physical display of God’s glory. Being that “no one has ever seen God [the Father]” (1 John 4:12), this must be the pre-incarnate physical manifestation of Jesus Christ. This makes it all the more incredible that Jesus truly did one day take on human form and dwell among us. He goes from “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” to having “no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2) Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14) Or as the old song says, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, veiled incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel.” Now, as New Covenant believers, we are able to experience the glory of God at all times. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18)