ANNOUNCER: On this episode, more about Jesus’ preincarnate appearances to Moses, whose face was shining when he came down from Mount Sinai. What does the New Testament teach us about this Christophany? Thank you, friend, for listening and joining us today on Grace in Focus, the ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org and these days we are inviting you to learn more about our online seminary with an MDiv degree and with full scholarships provided by our donors. Thank you donors. For those who want to study God’s word and become approved handlers and messengers of God’s word, application and registration available now for the fall semester. Come to our website, get the information you need, and get signed up. It is faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and David Renfro. 

BOB: And what do we have today? We’re talking more about Moses’ meeting with the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ. I was thinking this time we would talk about what happened to his face when he met with the Lord Jesus Christ. 

DAVID: On Mount Sinai. 

BOB: Right, and also later in the tabernacle. On Mount Sinai, there is a kind of an obscure verse in what is it Exodus 34? And what does it say? 

DAVID: And this is after the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, that Moses descends from the place where he met with the Lord and he’s coming down to the mountain to where the Israelites are, and also that wonderful golden calf that they made, little darlings. And it says, I thought this was interesting. Exodus 34:29, it says, “Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him,” capital H, with the Lord. In other words, being in the Lord’s presence made Moses face shine. 

BOB: Yeah, and the same thing appears again in verse 30. 

DAVID: Yeah, it’s almost as the skin of his face shone and they were afraid to come near him. I think I’d be afraid too. 

BOB: And then in verse 33, it talks about a veil. 

DAVID: He spoke to them, he put a veil on his face, I guess because people were afraid to go near him and he had to confront them about what was going on. 

BOB: And then again in verse 35. 

DAVID: Right, whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, the skin of Moses face shone and he would put the veil on again until he went out and to speak with Him, capital H. 

BOB: So imagine here, you’re an Israelite, Moses has come down from Mount Sinai and you’ve sinned with the golden calf, you’ve sinned with immorality in the camp, etc.

DAVID: You’ve seen lots of death. 

BOB: Lots of death. But then you see Moses’ face shining and you’re afraid of him, because it’s almost like one of these horror movies or something. You’ve got, this guy’s face is glowing. It should be inspiring, but it’s scary because they’re not seeing it with faith. In other words, if they knew the reason he’s shining is because he saw the Messiah, the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ, they would be actually embracing this. They would be drawn toward him. 

DAVID: They should drop to their knees in front of Moses saying, I’m sorry for that golden calf. In other words, they should turn back to the Lord. But what I get out of that passage is because they were afraid, they were afraid of being another one that got killed. In other words, they were going to be judged and they didn’t want to be with Mr. Shiny face and he’s going to… Just the mere fact of being in his presence because they know that it was because the Lord was with him. 

BOB: Right. Now, he also, the Lord instructed him to build a tabernacle and under Moses’ leadership, they did. The Spirit had men who, the Spirit empowered to build the tabernacle just so, and they built the tabernacle and after they built the tabernacle, Moses would meet with the Lord in the tabernacle. And evidently the same issue we have here kept happening again and again where Moses’ face would glow after he met with the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ in the tabernacle and Moses would take to putting on a veil. And we have a New Testament, correspondence to this in 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

DAVID: That’s correct. 3 verse 13. 

BOB: Well, starting earlier, look at verse 7, is it? But if the ministry of death written engraved on stones, they’re talking here about the Ten Commandments that were engraved on stones was glorious so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away. 

And so when he came down from Mount Sinai, his face was glowing and they couldn’t even look at it because it was so amazing. But then he does go on in what, verse 12 and 13 of 2 Corinthians 3? 

DAVID: 12 says, therefore, what’s the therefore, there for? Since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech. And of course, you know, that’s what Moses did because he was at this point, he was starting to be extremely confident that the Lord was with him and the Lord would enable him to do what the Lord wanted him to do by this time. But you know, we saw that he was kind of scary back in the early part of Exodus, but Moses has really grown in the faith over this time. And that’s what I love to see is an example of spiritual growth here in the Bible in Moses is one of them. “Therefore, since we have such a hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses who put a veil over his face. So the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away, but their minds were blinded. Until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away in Christ.”

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BOB: This veil here, you know, how like a bride will sometimes wear a veil over her face and then of course that was part of the Jewish wedding celebration is they would have a veil so that you really couldn’t see the face clearly. Moses wore this veil because the glory would fade over time. And also I assume based on the Exodus 34 passage because they were afraid of him. 

DAVID: I think they were scared because of what had just happened. If you look at the context of the judgment when Moses came down off of Mount Sinai and threw the tablets onto the golden calf and there was chaos, there was lots of death, there was lots of fear going on. So that’s the context that, you know, the aftermath, Exodus 34, there was probably fear that was rampant through that whole camp. 

BOB: But then Paul sees this incident that took place in Exodus 34 and later certainlywith the tabernacle with Moses fading glory and with the veil, he then sees that as a sort of a type of the unbelief that Israel had and he says that there’s a veil over the reading of the Old Testament that’s lifted in the Messiah. And so if you talk to Jewish people today, you will often find, they don’t think Isaiah 53 is talking about Jesus Christ. They don’t think Psalm 22 is talking about Jesus Christ. They think that the Messiah has not yet come. That’s the veil. But when Jews do come to have that veil lifted, then they do believe in the One who was prophesied in the Old Testament. 

I mean, Jesus said in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.” And then in verse 40 it says, “But these testify of me, but you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” That’s the veil. And by the way, 2 Corinthians 3:18 is a beautiful verse and Zane Hodges” book, Six Secrets of the Christian Life, he highlights this verse as a crucial verse in sanctification. And yet often we miss the unveiled face part. What does Corinthians 3 18 say? 

DAVID: “But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 

BOB: Okay. So let’s break down verse 18 in light of what we just read in the verses before it. “We have unveiled faces,” who had veiled faces? 

DAVID: Moses did. 

BOB: Moses did and then the people of Israel. Because there’s a veil over their reading of the Old Testament. 

DAVID: He had a physical veil over his face. They have a spiritual veil over their their mind. 

BOB: So they’re not grasping what the Old Testament was saying until God takes that veil away.  And He takes it away to anyone who is willing to come to Him, John 5:40, “But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” The apostles, other than Judas, were all willing. And so the veil was taken away. Mary and Martha were willing and the veil was taken away. Lazarus was willing and the veil was taken away. But lots of people were not willing. 

So verse 18 says, “But we all with unveiled face beholding as in mirror,” what’s the mirror where we see the glory of the Lord? It’s the word of God. It’s the Old Testament, it’s the New Testament. And notice what we’re seeing is the glory of the Lord. Well, the glory of the Lord was manifested in Moses face. Every time he met with Him, it’s just like the sun is what sends out the light rays. But the moon reflects the light rays. Jesus is the sun. We’re like the moon. And we can reflect His glory. And Moses was doing that. “We all with unveiled face beholding as in the mirror,” the word of God, “the glory of the Lord.” 

Hodges in his discussion of that says, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ, the same person who met with Moses, beholding as in the mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image. What image? The image of the Lord. This is a work of the Spirit of God that the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and he uses it to renew our minds, Romans 12, and when our minds are renewed, then our lives are transformed. 

So transformation doesn’t come by us gutting it out and us being determined. It comes by us sitting under solid Bible teaching and having the veil removed. And we’re seeing Jesus Christ in Scripture. And that changes us. Moses’ meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ is a powerful image of us meeting with the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. 

Well, so we’re going to try to wrap this up maybe one or two more episodes talking about appearances of the preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Let’s remember to keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: concluding this series about Jesus’ pre-incarnate appearances. Hope you’ll join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.