Moses cried out, “Please show me your glory!” Much has been written about this over the years, and we must not overlook this powerful plea. Charles Spurgeon likened it to Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and seeing Him in His glory. Peter blurted out, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Can you blame Peter for wanting to make a place for these three to live? Let’s keep this glory right here! I think we see in this story, and in God’s response, that He does not rebuke His sons and daughters for having a hunger to see Him and to know Him in greater ways. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “We may have been Christians for many years, but have we ever really longed for some personal, direct knowledge and experience of God? We all ask for personal blessings, but how much do we know of this desire for God himself? That is what Moses asked for: ‘Show me your glory. Take me yet a step nearer.’”
God said yes. And He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you.” Goodness! Not justice, or wrath, or even holiness. God’s glory encompasses all of His character, but you could say that God’s glory rests in His goodness. He said to Jeremiah, “My people will be satisfied by my goodness.” If we don’t know that God is good, then we really don’t know much about Him. Remember when Susan asked Mr. Beaver if Aslan was safe? Mr. Beaver said, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he is good. He’s the king!” God is good.
Then notice God said, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” God is Lord of all creation. That gives Him alone the right to be compassionate and show mercy on those whom He chooses. And because He is good, everything He does is good. Why did God choose Abraham? Why did God choose Moses? Not because of anything He saw in them. He chose them simply because of His compassion and mercy. His goodness. If you know Christ, why did God call you out of darkness and into His marvelous light? Because of His God’s grace. His mercy.
God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, because no one on earth can see the face of God and live. I love this: Moses was protected from God by God. God covered Moses with His hand and passed by. When God passed by Moses, hidden in the rock, He took away His hand and Moses saw the back of God. Perhaps more accurately, Moses saw the after-effects of the radiance of God’s glory, since God is spirit. What was Moses’ response? We are not told. But we can guess, based on others’ responses in the Bible.
When Isaiah beheld a vision of God, he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost!” When John got a glimpse of heaven in a vision and saw the Son of Man in all His glory, John “fell at his feet as though dead.” And when Paul was caught up to the third heaven in a vision, he could barely describe it, writing of himself in third person, “He heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”
What we know of Moses’ experience with God is very limited. But what we know should call each of us into greater desire to know God more deeply. God heard Moses’ request to see His glory and rewarded his seeking heart. Seeing God’s glory assured Moses that the Lord was with him. And we need nothing more as followers of Christ and nothing more than a church than to know that God, the God who makes Himself known, is with us and will never forsake us.
Do you want to see God’s glory? I hope so! Listen beloved, what Moses experienced in the cleft of the rock does not compare to the revelation we have been given in the person of Jesus Christ. John wrote, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” You may say, but John saw Jesus, face to face! Yes, he did. But Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” And Paul wrote, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The glory of God in Jesus. Celebrate it. Tell others about it.
J. Mark Fox 