Saturday, September 17, 2016

THE PURE LOVE OF GOD

33:20 "NO ONE MAY SEE ME AND LIVE."


Sooner or later it comes to this: Conversation with God leads to the desire to see God. To hear the words of life is to want to see the Speaker. That is where Moses is in this text. Hymn writer Frederick Faber was thinking thoughts like Moses' when he wrote:

How wonderful, how beautiful,
The sight of Thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power,
And awful purity!

But no one can see God and live: We may see his goodness, but not his face (see 33:19-20). The expression in verse 11 - "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend" – means that God communicated with Moses directly – but without visually showing his "face."

Moses asked to see God, and God said no. However, there is a sense in which God answered Moses’ prayer in a special way hundreds of years later on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus was there, and "his face shone like the sun" (Matthew 17:1-5). Moses was able to witness this miraculous display.

St. Augustine preached a sermon he titled, "On the Pure Love of God." In his message, he proposed a Faustian kind of offer from God: You can have everything you want, nothing will be held back from you; there will be no negative consequence for anything you do, and you’ll live forever. The price? 

"You will never see my face." Would you, make that exchange: everything – without God? If your answer is "NO," you have the pure love of God. Augustine asked, "Did a chill arise in your heart when you heard the words, "You will never see my face?

That chill is priceless; it is the pure love of God?




In Christ,

Playwright Janet Irene Thomas
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of
Fine & Performing Arts




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