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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS SHOW WE CAN SHARE IN HIS GLORYEXODUS 34:28-35INTRODUCTION Over the last two weeks I have made the point that chapter 34 is like a second wedding ceremony between two people who were divorced but had not remarried. The reason for the dissolution of their first marriage was that the wife committed adultery. The two reasons there is this second “wedding” is first, the jilted husband, God, aims to glorify his name as the God of compassion, grace, forgiveness, unfailing love and faithfulness who also is a God of justice. The second reason is because Moses has found favor in his eyes and has successfully interceded on behalf of Israel. God is not renewing his marriage covenant with these people because of what they have done but because of who he is and what Moses, his chosen mediator has done. We have noted that this second ceremony shares many things in common with the first ceremony recorded in chapters 19-31. Here in vv. 28-29 we see a couple of things that are exactly the same as in the first ceremony. Moses spends forty days and nights on the top of Mt. Sinai with God, just like the first time. He receives the Ten Commandments from God written on two stone tablets and carries them down the mountain to the people, just like the first time. Then, like before, he tells the people all that God commanded him on the mountain. However, it is at this point that the similarities stop. There are a couple of very significant differences in this ceremony as compared to the first one. First, Moses is the one who writes the Commandments on the stone tablets. In the first ceremony God did the writing. Second, here we are told that Moses engaged in a supernatural fast. We were not told this the first time he spent forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai. Third, the last time Moses came down the mountain with the stone tablets he discovered Israel committing adultery and shattered the tablets as evidence that the first marriage was annulled by God. This time he finds the people waiting to receive him and he is able to deliver the commandments to them and to tell them all God told him on the mountain. However, the main difference between the last ceremony and this one is the fact that Moses is luminescent from being in the presence of God. Moses glows with the reflected glory of God. Therefore, the people fear Moses, just like they feared God revealing himself on Mt. Sinai in earthquake, fire, cloud, etc. This did not happen in the first ceremony. Moses did not know his face glowed until the people ran away from him when they first saw him. From that time on Moses would wear a veil over his face all the time except when he was in God’s presence in the Tent of Meeting and when he was telling the people what God had told him in the tent of meeting. When he was not in God’s presence and not preaching God’s word, he would put a veil over his face. Why did Moses put the veil over his face? It cannot be because the people were afraid of him because it is very clear in both vv. 30-33 and vv. 34-35 that the people, after their original shock, were not afraid of Moses. He preached to them with his face unveiled and then when he was done he would put the veil on. The text does not answer this question. It forces us to ask the question but it does not answer the question. What is up with the veil? Moses wears this veil every day for the next 40 years while he lives among the Israelites and leads them through the desert and to the border of the land of Canaan. The only time he takes it off is when he is in the presence of the Lord or when he is speaking the Lord’s word to the people. The apostle Paul, speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in his second letter to the church in Corinth, gives God’s final answer as to why Moses wore a veil for forty years in the presence of Israel. God tells us through the pen of Paul that the main point he aims to make in causing Moses’ face to shine and then having him cover his face with a veil is to show that his covenant with Israel at Mt. Sinai is not the full revelation of his glorious name. This first covenant or Old Covenant, as it is usually called, does not expose people to his unveiled glory. Rather, this Old Covenant is a veiled glimpse of his glory that only serves to point ahead to and prepare people for the complete unveiling of his glory in the New Covenant. Let me remind you what we mean by this term “covenant”. God enters into an agreement with humans to forgive them, be with them and take them as his possession based on certain conditions. In the Old Covenant the condition of receiving God’s blessing is obedience to his law. God will bless all who obey him and he will curse all who disobey. The New Covenant is that God will forgive, bless with his presence and take as his own possession all who are united to Christ by faith because Jesus met the requirements God set forth in the covenant. God's blessings are contigent upon obedience to his law. In the NC Jesus obeyed and we get the benefits because of what he did. This passage in Exodus tells us that… MAIN POINT The Old Covenant is God’s glory veiled whereas the New Covenant is God’s glory unveiled because…I. Christ is infinitely superior to Moses (vv. 28-29 with Matthew 4:1-2, 17:1ff & John 1:1, 14-18) There is no question as we read the Exodus that Moses is the central figure. The portrait we have painted of Moses is indeed a majestic one. The story makes plain numerous times that if it were not for Moses, the nation Israel would be toast, literally. This final scene in the 2 nd wedding ceremony of God with his unfaithful people serves as another evidence of the glory of Moses. He is the only person who is permitted to enter into the very presence of God and upon whom God places his mark, the reflection of his own glory. He is the one whose face continues to shine as he gives the people the commands of God. He is unlike any human being prior to him and any who follow up until Jesus Christ appears on the scene. One of the things that the biographers of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, work hard to show is that Jesus is infinitely greater than Moses. Those who wrote the rest of the NT take up this same task as well. The reason for doing this is because Moses was the most glorious human to precede Jesus. It was upon Moses and his law that Israel had set her hope for heaven. God sent his signs and wonders against Egypt at the word of Moses. He parted the Red Sea at the word of Moses. He provided food and water in the desert through Moses. He spoke with Moses face to face as a man talks with his friend. He gave the law through Moses. He caused Moses’ face to shine with his reflected glory. There has never been another human being like Moses except for Jesus. The ways in which the NT emphasizes the superiority of Jesus over Moses are numerous. I want to just point out a few of them. First, in Exodus 19:9 God says to Moses that he was going “to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” In a similar but greater way God visibly manifested his presence with Jesus in miracles and in a dove and a cloud and three times spoke something to and about Jesus that he never said to or about Moses. Three times God audibly said, “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” All of God’s words to Moses were commands to be given to the people. God never told him nor the people that Moses was his son with whom he was well pleased. As the book of Hebrews says, Moses was like a servant in the house of God; Jesus was the son, the heir of the owner of the house and therefore by right of sonship the owner. Second, just like Moses fasted for forty days and nights while in God’s presence on Mt. Sinai, so also Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry fasted forty days and nights. However, the difference is that Moses did it in the presence of God while Jesus did it in the wilderness while being tempted by the devil. Moses’ fast was a supernatural event but Jesus’ fast was significantly more difficult and therefore highlights the superiority of Jesus to Moses. Third, in Matthew 17 we have recorded for us the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain in the presence of John, Peter and James. We are told, “…he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.” Whereas Moses’ face reflected the glory of God, the face of Christ lit up with his inherent glory as the Son of God. While Moses glowed like phosphorescent paint glows for a time in the dark after being exposed to light, Jesus shown with the natural brilliance of the divine Son of God. Jesus is like my million candle spotlight while Moses is like the phosphorescent paint on my little girl's sleeping bag. He was like the Sun to Moses’ pale moon hanging in the blue sky while it waxes and wanes. Jesus did not have to go into God’s presence to get lit up; he simply lit up because he is the source of all light. He is God himself. Also, when Jesus was transfigured, Moses along with Elijah appear and they talk with him. Moses is not described at all. The glory of Christ is so overwhelming that whatever glory Moses possessed is not even worth mentioning. Fourth, the apostle John in the introduction to his gospel makes one of the most stark contrasts between the glory of Jesus and the glory of Moses. Whereas Moses gave the Law, which is the word of God, Jesus is the Word of God in human flesh. Whereas Moses told something that was external to him and had its origin in God, Jesus is full of grace and truth. Again, the glory that comes to Moses is an alien glory, it does not belong to him in his person but is given him from God. The glory of Jesus is not alien but his very own glory. We see this expressed quite plainly in Hebrews 1:3 where we are told that Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory.” In Colossians 2:9 we are told that “All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus in bodily form.” The skin of Moses’ face lights up with God’s reflected glory while Jesus, as a man, is fully indwelt by the completeness of God’s glory. His whole person blazes forth his divine nature. While there is a certain glory attached to Moses and to the covenant of which he is a mediator, yet it is nothing when compared with the glory attached to Jesus, the Son of God who is the mediator of a new covenant. The entire OT, beginning with the five books of Moses and ending with the prophet Malachi is a veiled description of the glorious Son of David, who is the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we are not to be taken up with the laws and stories of the OT except as they reveal to us the great glory of Jesus. While it is not wrong to admire human beings like Moses who bear something of the reflection of the glory of God there is only one person with whom you and I are to be ultimately impressed with and that is Jesus Christ. Moses preaching the law to the Israelites with his face radiating the glory of God was impressive but Jesus Christ, the Son of God who suffered and died and who holds out his wounded hands to receive all who will come to him is infinitely more impressive. Does Jesus Christ impress you? Do you admire him above all others? Does he occupy your thoughts? Does growing in your knowledge of him occupy your time? This is the central evidence that you belong to God: you value Jesus Christ more than anyone or anything else because he is the most impressive person you have ever met. The Old Covenant is God’s glory veiled whereas the New Covenant is God’s glory unveiled because…
II. The OC brings condemnation and death but the NC brings righteousness and life (vv.30-32 & 34b with 2 Cor. 3:7-9) How does Israel first respond to Moses when he shows up with his face glowing? They are terrified and run away from him. They react to Moses the same way they reacted when God spoke to them out of the cloud and fire on Mt. Sinai. Why are they afraid of God and of Moses as he reflects the glory of God? What they feel is that there is no give in God. He is perfect in his holiness and his justice. He is a consuming fire who will not tolerate sin. It is only Moses’ word, speaking as the divinely appointed and received mediator, that calms them down and brings them back to him so that he can tell them all that the Lord commanded him on the mountain. What Moses tells the people when he comes down the mountain carrying the Ten Commandments on two stone tablets is this: the Ten Commandments, the book of the covenant and the instructions concerning the priesthood, the tabernacle and the sacrifices. He is telling this law to a group of people who a little over a month ago violated virtually everything that Moses is telling them. You cannot read this story correctly without recalling who it is that Moses is speaking to. This is like a judge, dressed up in his black robe, going into a prison full of convicted criminals and calling all the inmates together for a seminar entitled: "All the laws you have broken and why you deserve to be in prison". This isn’t good news for convicted criminals. The judge isn’t explaining the law at the Rotary club to a group of law-abiding citizens. He is telling lawbreakers the law they have broken. It is good news to know that God is willing to forgive them for the sake of his own name and for the sake of Moses but that is not what Moses is talking to them about. Listen carefully to me: Israel has no idea why God is willing to forgive them and enter into the covenant with them again. He is giving them the law, which they have recently broken and for which they have experienced a taste of God’s wrath in the plague and the killing of the 3000 ringleaders by the Levites. He is explaining to them the terms of the covenant. Obey this and you will live. Disobey and you will die. I want you to turn over to 2 Corinthians 3 on page 818 of the pew Bibles and see how Paul uses this passage. We have here God's explanation of what Exodus 34:29-35 means. I need to give you a little background before we jump into what he says in vv. 7-18. A major purpose of this letter from Paul is to persuade the Corinthians to not pay attention to a group of false teachers who are claiming that he is not a true apostle. In chapter 3, Paul is defending his ministry by telling the Corinthians that they are his letter of recommendation. The fact that they are Christians, born of God’s Spirit, is evidence that he is a true apostle. In v. 6 he says this, “He (God) has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” Paul is claiming that his ministry of preaching the word of God is a ministry that is based upon and in line with the new covenant. It is a ministry in which and through which the Holy Spirit is working. It is not a ministry that is based upon the law and the keeping of the law. It is not the old covenant which is based upon words on a tablet of stone but the new covenant which is by the Spirit and written on human hearts. The ministry that is based on letters written on stone tablets kills but the ministry that is based on the work of the Spirit gives life. The false teachers he is facing in Corinth are claiming their authority comes from the OT. They are claiming to represent God's original covenant and denouncing Paul as an innovator and false teacher because he does not teach the law. So Paul immediately goes from v. 6 to the OT law, into an extended reflection upon and application of Exodus 34:29-35. What I want you to notice first is what he says about the OC. It is a ministry that brought death and it is a ministry that condemned men. The covenant that is written on stone tablets which is all of the OT law, including the Ten Commandments and exemplified in them has the effect of condemning and killing people. Just as I said in the beginning of this point, when Paul reads about Moses preaching the law with his face ablaze with the glory of God he sees the effect of Moses ministry is condemnation and death. The reason is not that the law is bad but because the people are bad. The law cannot help lawbreakers it can only condemn them as guilty and sentence them to death. On the other hand notice that he calls the new covenant a ministry of the Spirit by which he gives life. It is also a ministry that brings righteousness. The OC proves that people are unrighteous and condemns and kills them for it. The new covenant, by the Holy Spirit, gives people the very righteousness of Christ. The lawbreakers who are condemned and sentenced to death by the letters on stone are made righteous and declared not guilty by means of the life and death of Jesus who seals the new covenant with his blood. The OT law is glorious but it is nothing compared to the glory of this new covenant whereby we are given life through the Holy Spirit and made righteous in God’s sight. The OC tells us of the righteousness of God and then condemns us for our unrighteousness. The NC, sealed with the life and death of Christ, gives us the righteousness of God and eternal life. To be impressed with the OT law and not with the NC in Christ is to be like a person who is standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon but who doesn't look at it but at pictures of the Grand Canyon. It makes no sense. The Old Covenant is God’s glory veiled whereas the New Covenant is God’s glory unveiled because…
III. The OC is hidden in its meaning and temporary but the NC is the permanent revelation of the glory of God (vv. 33-35 with 2 Cor. 3:10-18, 4:6) Notice in v. 8 that Paul says the glory that was on Moses’ face was fading away. Then again in v. 11 he says that as soon as the law was given it was already fading away. The fading glory on Moses’ face was evidence that the entire OC was temporary, that it was from the beginning destined to fade away. The contrast in v. 11 is that the NC is permanent. The glory of the NC does not ever fade away. Then in v. 13 Paul tells us why Moses wore the veil over his face for forty years. He did it to keep the Israelites from seeing that the glory on his face was not permanent. The veil concealed the fact that the glory that Moses reflected each time after he left the presence of the Lord was not permanent, but temporary. Notice then in v. 14 that the minds of the Israelites from then until now have been made dull. I know that most people do not like grammar but here we are confronted with a verb tense that must be understood if you are going to understand Paul’s point. “Were made dull” is a past passive verb. In other words at a point in the past someone made the hearts of the Israelites dull. They didn’t make their hearts dull, someone else made them dull. Then, in parallel with this past passive verb Paul says that the dullness is due to a veil that lies over their heart when the OC is read. God is the one who has made their hearts dull. What were the hearts of the Israelites made dull to? To have a dull heart is to not understand that the OC is temporary. That is what the veil on Moses’ face hid from the Israelites. The Lord was hiding the temporary glory of the OC from Israel. He was hiding the fact that his full glory could not be found in the law but in the one to whom the law pointed. In the same way God has placed a veil over the hearts of all Israel so they do not understand that the OC is temporary. The meaning of the OC is hidden from them. God has not taken the veil away from their hearts and thus they do not see the glory of Christ in the NC because they still cling to the OC. Jesus said this many times. Listen to this prayer he prays in Matthew 11, "I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. For this was your good pleasure." What this means is that the reason people do not believe in Christ is because they naturally believe they can make themselves acceptable to God, which is the condition of the OC. This is God’s curse on the world of human beings as Paul says in another place, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes so they could not see and ears so they could not hear to this very day.” Humans naturally believe they are acceptable to God by their own person and effort and therefore are blind to the glory of Christ who only saves those who know they are not acceptable to God. Notice that in the NC the veil is taken away (vv. 14&16), another passive verb. God takes away the veil for all those who trust in Christ, who turn to the Lord. The Holy Spirit takes away the veil and our dull minds and gives people the ability to perceive the glory of Christ and thus we become free from the death and condemnation that is in the OC. He enables us to understand that the way of lawkeeping is not the way to God. The way to God is through Jesus who obeyed the law in our place. Verse 18 is the culmination of this amazing NC. First, notice that all who have unveiled faces are beholding the Lord’s glory. Every Christian has had the veil taken off their hearts that kept us from seeing that our righteousness was not sufficient and that Christ’s righteousness was our only hope. Therefore, since we do not have anything veiling our sight we gaze fully upon the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. We behold his glory. The result of beholding the glory of Jesus is that we are transformed into the likeness of Jesus. We, unlike Moses, upon whose face the glory faded, have the glory of Jesus made greater and greater to us and in us. Moses would go into the tent of meeting and take off the veil and be exposed to the glory of the Lord. He would come out and preach the law to the people with is face unveiled and glowing. Then he would cover his face because the glow of the glory of God would fade until he returned to the tent and got a new shot of God’s glory. That’s not how it is with us. For all who are in Christ we are gazing upon his glory all the time and as a result are continually taking on more of the glorious character of Jesus. The NC is so much greater than the OC because the glory never fades but only gets stronger. We become brighter images of Jesus the older we get. This transformation takes place by the Lord who is the Spirit. In other words this work takes place because Jesus, by his death secured the NC promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit who is changing us more and more into the image of Jesus. The way he does this is by making Christ appear more and more glorious to us. Again, notice this is not something you and I do. This is something that is done to us by the Spirit. The veil is taken away in Christ and we always behold the glory of Christ. We always see him as the one who obeyed the law for us and who died for us and who lives for us and who intercedes with the Father for us. What v. 18 tells us is that the way we grow as Christians is not by our disciplined self effort. The main way that you know you are making progress in the Christian life is not by looking at your behavior. We grow to be like Christ, loving God and people by gazing upon the glory of Christ. The question is this: is Jesus more important to you today than he was when you first became a Christian? The chief mark of spiritual growth is your affection for and dependence upon Jesus. Does Jesus mean more to you today than he did a year ago? The focus of the Christian life is Christ, not your service for Christ, not your discipline at reading the Bible, not anything that you do. Rather, are you increasingly delighted with and impressed with Jesus? Everyone becomes like those whom they admire. So the Holy Spirit is in the business of enabling all who have turned to the Lord, who have unveiled faces and thus always gaze upon the Lord Jesus, to know and understand more deeply how awesome is this Lord Jesus Christ. Warren Wiersbe says it like this: “When a child of God looks in the word of God and sees the Son of God, he is changed into the image of God by the Spirit of God to the glory of God” It is so easy to lose heart in the Christian life. We are such failures at loving God and people. So little seems to change in me. It is often hard to see God’s hand in the chaos and misery that is in this world. However, it is more than evident to me that Jesus appears to me as more glorious now than he did when I first believed. I really can say that I love him more now than when I first believed. I am more impressed with him now. This is the work of the Holy Spirit who is the agent of the NC. It is his work inside of me that makes all the difference in the world. The word of God is no longer an external word given by a human prophet who is losing his glow. Rather the word is in me by the Spirit and by this internal word I grow to know and love Jesus more and more, from one glory to the next. This vision of Christ that the HS is now giving to every Christian spiritually will one day be realized in physical and spiritual sight. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 13, "Now we see as in a dark glass, then we will see face to face." Or as John says in his first letter, "…we know that when he (Jesus) appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." At the end of the ages, when I see Jesus as he is and all the vestiges of sin are eradicated from me, I will become like Jesus fully because I will see him as he actually is. This is why I long for the return of Christ and the new heavens and the new earth, to behold fully the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and in beholding, to become like him. We are not like Moses who saw it and glowed with the reflected glory of God for a short time but we see Christ by the Spirit now and one day face to face. The Old Covenant is God’s glory veiled whereas the New Covenant is God’s glory unveiled because…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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