One thing most often goes unnoticed; in scripture nearly everything has a ‘face’ as it is translated to the English. Of course, people have faces, the ‘face of the Earth’ is mentioned so many times, but also God has a ‘Face.’ For example, when Moses asked God to show him His Glory (Exod 33:18), God showed to him only His Glory. His ‘Glory’ was His Goodness (Exod 33:19) but missing was the ‘Face’ of God that Moses was not allowed to behold, to wit:
23 And I will take away Mine Hand, and thou shalt see My back
parts: but my Face shall not be seen. (Exod 33:23)
That seems obvious but scripture
mentions the face of the Earth, and obviously the Earth is without a face. Scripture
mentions the face of the waters, and neither does the waters have a face. However,
both have a backside and/or a bottom.
The face of the moon is seen, and
its backside always remains unseen, or in the dark. The Earth turns and so does
the moon and the waters. As such, it seems that God turned away, not only His Face,
but His “Presence” as the Hebrew word, panim can be defined
God, hence, may have turned His
visible side away from Moses and Moses saw only the Goodness of God.
So, what was it that Moses saw? In
the Hebrew, it was tub that Moses saw. It was not the physical Presence
of the LORD GOD but an invisible attribute. ‘Goodness” is the nature of God —
the Invisible Image of Him. It was not the time for Moses to see the visible
Presence of God, but His ‘soul’ would suffice.
“Soul?” you ask! The soul of a
being is a vessel of sorts. Jesus referred to His own body with its soul as a ‘cup’
(Mat 26:39).
One should ask, “What was the
content of the cup of Jesus?” His cup — or vessel — was filled with the Holy
Spirit of the Father, “Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan
and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1).
Right there it is… the Body of
Jesus was the ‘Presence’ of God, and the Holy Spirit was the ‘Goodness’ of God.
Moses had observed two of the
three Substances of God: (1) His Voice or Thoughts and (2) His Holy Spirit.
What Moses was not yet allowed to see was the physical Presence of God
that is called, ‘Jesus.’ Of course, God is the ‘Presence’ as “Existence’ but
the visible Presence of Him, although there, remained unseen.
Moses knew that it was Jesus who he
saw, but was not allowed to see Him, thus partaking of the visible ‘Tree of
Life’ from which He could not yet ‘eat’ for if he did so, Moses would have been
the ‘god’… “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and
live for ever” (Gen 3:22).
Eating of the Tree of Life
is not actually chewing the fruit but enjoying the Body and Goodness of God, “Jesus
took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and
said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’” (Mat 26:26).
Of course, they were to eat the
bread in remembrance of Jesus, but not physical ‘bread;’ it was to
remember His Presence, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He said (Luke 22:19). Eating
the Bread was as if eating of the Tree of Life, the Presence of which
was Jesus (Rev 2:7).
So, the ‘Face of God’ is like the
face of the Earth and the face of the waters. Both are what the
observers can sense; both the surface of the Earth and water can be seen. Moses
was allowed to see God beyond the surface, knowing all the while the surface is
there. That ‘Surface’ was Jesus who was there all the time (John
1:1-14).
With that said, the ‘Word’ — the ‘Good
News’ was the invisible God that Moses could see and was made radiant after
looking at the Glory of God — His Perfect Goodness (Exod 34:35), “And the
children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone.” Again,
it was not literally the face of Moses, but panim, his presence.
For his time on Earth, Moses was the
presence of God and where he would go, they would follow; not the golden calf,
but Moses was the image of God that God chose to represent Himself! Moses, in
his time, was the “face of God.”
Why was Moses at the transfiguration of Jesus? It was no longer himself that was the image of God who the Jews had followed until that time, but Jesus who was the True Image of God. Moses, on that mountain, saw both the “back parts” and bodily Presence of God:
5
Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud,
which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. 6
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
7 And Jesus came and touched them, and said, “Arise, and be not
afraid.” 8 And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man,
save Jesus only. (Mat 17:5-8)
John the Baptist was not an Elijah, but a type of Moses. It was John, that when he baptized Jesus alone, the people saw something:
21
Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being
baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, 22 And the Holy Ghost
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven,
which said, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” (Luke 6:21-22)
The people finally could ‘eat’ of
the Tree of Life and still live because Jesus is Life! The Tree of Life was the
visible Presence of God in the Garden of Eden. As blind Bartimaeus said to Jesus,
“I see men as trees walking” (Mark 8:24). Bartimaeus could not see the Presence
of Jesus but sensed His Spirit approaching, as if He was a tree walking.
When Jesus was baptized, “the
Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape.” The shape of the Holy Ghost was not that
of a dove, but its motion was described that way, just as Luke in the Book
of Acts described it as a “rushing mighty wind” (Acts 2:2).
The people saw something beyond
what Moses had seen on Sinai. They saw not only the ‘face’ of God but also His
Spirit, or Goodness. They were not looking at the supposed son of Jospeh and
Mary, but the actual seed of God that had grown in the world as a Man —
the ‘Last Adam’ who was the last endeavor for God to provide His Image on Earth
(1 Cor 15:45).
Moses was radiant because God had
overcome his flesh. As such, Moses was imbued (engendered) with the seed, or gens,
of God above. In English terminology, Moses was ‘born again’ on Sinai by the Spiritual
Image of God just as Christians were born again in the likeness of Jesus to be in
Christ, or in the Messiah. Jesus was the very Image of God as the ‘Last
Adam’ and was what Adam was meant to be. He was the final Divine Impulse
that was perfectly Good; compared to Moses, and even Noah and Abraham, who were
not the ‘last adama” but still Divine Impulses.
So, just as the face of the Earth
and the face of the waters are the outward surfaces that reflect light, Jesus
is the face of God that reflects the Light of God, and which Light reveals the bodily
surface of the Man. Indeed, the flesh that was sacrificed on the Cross was not human
flesh, but the Divine Flesh of the otherwise Invisible God.
It was God Himself whose Image
was Jesus, and within the Body of Christ were the Genome of God. As His Identity,
it was the DNA of God that was nailed to the Cross… the very inner “Image” of Yahweh
as was revealed by the Holy Ghost leaving the Face, or Flesh, of Jesus.
“Marvel not; you must be born
again” (John 3:70 means that you must have the gens of God from Christ
in you.
You may now understand; it was
not just a ‘good man’ that was crucified but God Himself in Word,
Spirit, and Flesh.
(picture credit; Steve's Bible Meditations)
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