Introduction: The relationship that Moses had with the Lord was remarkable. Moses, sinner though he clearly was, loved the Lord, trusted the Lord, and longed to be faithful to the Lord, so much so in fact that Moses repeatedly pleaded with the Lord for closeness. That is, Moses repeatedly implored the Lord to make himself visible, knowable, and immanent to him (Moses). This is important because it foreshadows the gospel of Christ who did just that. Follow me.

Moses’ Intercession

¹² Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ ¹³ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” ¹⁴ And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” ¹⁵ And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. ¹⁶ For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:12-16, ESV)

See it there? Moses says, “[P]lease show me your ways.” It’s a plea for God to become even more ‘real’, so to speak, all the previous episodes of judgment and deliverance notwithstanding.

What’s even more remarkable is that God condescends to Moses’ plea. God does it. That’s what verses 17-23 of Exodus 33 are all about. God carves out a cleft in the rock and “passes by,” if you will. Moses is able to behold some of the glory of the Lord. But God still, even for the mighty Moses, did not reveal His face. Why?

Principle: All of Scripture coheres. It’s unified; it tells one interconnected story of what God is doing through judgment to redeem a people for Himself.

Many people have a passing familiarity with the following, but I wander if they grasp the profound theology taught in them. They are from 2 Corinthians 4:

³ And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴ In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ 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. (2 Cor 4:3-6, ESV)

God reveals Himself primarily in the incarnation, Christ the Son, and in Scripture. That’s the point.

Moses pleaded to see the Lord. And in the New Testament, that is exactly what happens. God the Son takes upon Himself flesh and came as a babe in a manger, was raised as a Jewish boy, astonished the religious elites via His wisdom, raised corpses, restored sight to the blind, legs to the lame, hearing to the deaf, and granted salvation to repentant sinners.

God did answer Moses’ plea–but in greater ways than Moses could have imagined.

God reveals Himself, you see, through what He has made, through conscience, through the incarnation, through the resurrection, through the fulfillment of hundreds of precise prophecies, and through His Word. He is, to quote Francis Schaeffer, not silent. He is anything but silent.

Moses, dear, precious, mighty man of God, Moses, God answered your prayer, and all we must do is flee to Him in the gospel, and we will find Him, His glory to behold.