The Glory of God – Part I

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

Admittedly this is a passage of scripture that I have not studied before.  I’m sure those of us who’ve watched The Ten Commandments are familiar with how Moses’ face shown from the glory of God, but we may have never taken the time to truly examine these verses.  Until last week, I probably wouldn’t have looked closely at this, had it not been for a sermon I heard that I didn’t fully understand. 

Let’s first skip back a few verses and look at vs. 18 in context:

¹² Moses said to the LORD, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ ¹³ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

 ¹⁴ The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

 ¹⁵ Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. ¹⁶ How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

 ¹⁷ And the LORD said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

On the surface it’s easy to look at Moses’ motive for wanting to see the glory of God as a lack of faith.  After all, he is telling God that he needs more evidence of His presence with the Israelites.  God reassures Moses not once but twice that He will be with them.  The reason I mention that it takes the appearance of minimized faith is because how  many of us are going to ask for anything more if God says His presence will be with us?  And how many of us would lead a million people through a desert without question if God had said he would go before us?  As Christians, we have God with us, but I know I’m guilty of saying I’ll do this or that if I just have a sign from God.  In that accord, Moses needed more.  Part of me wonders that if Moses actually knew the full consequences of what he was asking would he have still asked?  I say that because no man can see the full glory of God, lest we die. Exodus 33:20 We are incapable with our sinful eyes to look upon God’s glory, yet Moses made his petition to God after he had been granted all other requests.  It’s at this point that I don’t believe Moses lacked faith, but I believe he was actually exhibiting faith beyond measure.  He asked the unaskable, the unthinkable, to see God in all His glory, to know God more than any person ever had.  God granted Moses’ request because He recognized the sincerity, but added the caveat that He would hide Moses in the cleft of the rock, allowing him only to view His back (remnant). 

If we are to exhibit great faith like Moses, how are we to ask to see God’s glory?  First we must realize that we cannot see God’s glory in the sense that it was shown to Moses.  We see God’s glory all around us in His creation.  Isaiah 6:3 We experience it every day and through His goodness and mercy His glory shines.  As Charles Spurgeon said, “The full display of the goodness of God, however, is reserved for the working of his grace in the redemption of man.”  That redemption is found through His Son Jesus. God is fully glorified through Jesus. John 1:14 NKJV says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”  In that one verse we can see God’s glory exemplified through sending Jesus to die for our sins and providing us grace when we deserved death.

For us as Christians since we have Christ as Savior we already have God’s glory in us. Ephesians 1:12 NKJV, “that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”   In order for us to “see” God’s glory we must “seek” God’s glory.  To do this, we must follow in the path of Moses and continually spend time with God.  Moses was with God for 40 days without food or drink before he came down off the mountain with a face that shone God’s glory. Exodus 34:28 Again his face showed the glory of God each time he met with the Lord in the Meeting Tent.  Yet Moses would hide his face from the Israelites with a veil, so that they might not lose heart, because over time God’s glory would fade from his face until the next time he met with Him.  Therein lies the key, if we are to see God’s glory we must constantly spend time with Him so that His glory never fades from us.  In doing so, we’ll seek to be more Christ-like everyday so that the glory that is within us shines on the outside and becomes visible to all who see us. 

Moses asked something that no one else had, to see the glory of God.  He was hidden in the cleft of the rock and allowed only to see a remnant of God’s glory.  Jesus  is the rock in which our sinfulness is hidden that will allow us to see God’s full glory in heaven.  If just a partial fleeting view of God’s glory left Moses’ face aglow, then how magnificent must His full glory be when we are united with Him in heaven.

Prayer: If the amount of God’s glory we are shown is directly proportional to the amount of time we spend with Him, then why wouldn’t we spend every waking second with Him?  What’s keeping you from doing that?  Pray that God reveals areas in your life that you need to adjust or eliminate to spend more time with Him, that He might continually reveal more of His glory until that ultimate day when you see His full glory.

Additional Study: Exodus 34:5-7     II Corinthians 4:6      Acts 7:1-56 (Acts7:54-56)