The Shining Face of Moses

29 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. 30 So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned to him; and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. 34 But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out; and he would come out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. 35 And whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with Him. Exodus 34:29–35 (NKJV)

"Now it was so when..." - This is another of the several types of connecting phrases in the OT that join one part of the narrative to another.  Here it indicates a temporal relationship (and a rather obvious one at that) between the prior section (the giving of the Law to Moses on the mountain of Sinai) and the display of the effect that that  delivery of the Law had on Moses, and subsequently on the people of Israel as they beheld Moses as he came down off the mountain.

"Moses did not know" - It is interesting that the effect of the exposure to the Truth of was so immensely profound on Moses that changed his very physical presence, yet Moses was not personally aware of that effect.  Thus we see, throughout the OT, Moses portrayed as the meekest man ever.

What a wonderful example of the manner of believers.  A genuinely, even profoundly spiritual man, in real and profound contact with God, with one of the most profound and important thing to communicate to His people in the history (past and future), commissioned by God to do a great thing and yet completely UNAWARE of the grand and life-changing effect that this has had on him personally.  He did not come down from the mountain, in his mind, as THE vessel of God to speak to the people.  I can't tell you how very important this is.  Humility is one of the foundational keys to effective leadership and to being to God's people all that He intends One to be.

The world calls on men to be self-assured and to have a healthy self-view.  God, one the other hand calls them to be as Moses was - so completely consumed with Him that they do not even realize how vastly they have been changed by being in His presence.  Better said, because of their humility and meekness, their sense of self forces them to minimize and downplay the tremendous effect that being in the presence of God has had on them.  They do not strut, they do not prance, and they do not put themselves on display.  What they do, is they "do not know".

The verb here is in the "Perfect" form which, generally speaking expresses a past fact.  It means "to find out, namely., to acquire information and does not speak to the means by which that information was acquired.  Moses uses it in Deuteronomy 13:4, for instance:

³ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The action of the verb is in the past, along with what made Moses' face shine, his encounter with God.  The verb is negated, hence he "did NOT know." as a result of that encounter.  So consumed was Moses with His communing with God that he was completely unaware of what effect that encounter was having on him! 

That awareness, and this is our point here, extended even past the interview with God itself.  Moses didn't emerge from that encounter and say, "Hey, I'm different, just wait until the I'm with the people - I've got something to say to them!"

Behold" - Here!, There!, Look!, Now! a marker used to liven narrative, change a scene, emphasize an idea, or to call attention to a detail.  In Genesis 6:13 God used the word to call attention to what he was about to do to the world:

13 And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

These kinds of words are not used haphazardly.  They are used deliberately to underscore something to which God wishes our attention drawn.  In this case - that is two things:

1. Moses face shone like the glory of God
2. The people, including Aaron himself, were afraid to come near him because of it.

More next time…

“Making Up” Christ’s Afflictions

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, (Colossians 1:24)

"Rejoice" is a common Greek word meaning "to be glad or to be delighted.  It is an intense word, some forms used to mean "Greetings!" or perhaps "Hail!" or (in the imperative) "Rejoice!".  This is the word Jesus used when He told his disciples in Matthew 5:11–12:  

“11  Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." 

Paul used this word when he gave his famous counsel in Philippians 4:4: "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!"  The idea is that of the joy of meeting, the happiness of meeting with a loved acquaintance, family of one's beloved.  "Now" is a frequently used adverb of time - Paul indicating that he is rejoice at this specific time, namely the time (and the events) specified in the following phrases of the verse.

"Sufferings" is a noun,  "Pathhmai" or "misfortune" or "passion".  It is used of both physical sufferings as well as of mental and emotional suffering.  The word is related to the more fundamental noun "Pathos", "to suffer".  That major word means “to suffer,” primarily denotes whatever one suffers or experiences in any way; hence, “an affection of the mind, a passionate desire.” Used by the Greeks of either good or bad desires, it is always used in the NT of the latter, bad or sinful desires.  For instance, in Romans 1:26, Paul says:

"For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature." 

Elsewhere is Colossians he uses the same word to speak of "inordinate affections" (Col. 3:5).  To the Thessalonians  (1 Thess. 4:5) he speaks of the "passion of lust". 

The derivative word, the one used here, has the basic meaning what a person experiences, does not occur in the LXX, and occurs 16 times in the NT. Twice it designates passion experienced as a force, elsewhere the suffering / torment of Christians and of Jesus Christ.

"My", of course, refers to Paul himself. "...for you..." means "on your behalf" or on the behalf of the Colossian believers.  Of course, the specific reference is to his imprisonment under the Romans.  (Acts 28:16, 20)

Lastly, "And" is a simple conjunction that connects this first phrase with the following one.  The idea of this first phrase is that Paul greets these suffering with joy.  These things that normally would be very negative and terrible things, we will see, because of the purpose that they serve for the body of Christ, he greets cheerfully and even with a kind of relish. 

To "fill up" is to complete, to supplement or to fill up.  It can mean to supply as a substitute or balance.  When speaking of a process it speaks of taking one’s turn in filling up a thing. 

The noun "what is lacking" is the noun form of a more widely used verb meaning to be in need, be destitute, or to lack.  The noun form can refer to a deficiency, to that which is behind or a want. 

"Afflictions" is "thlipsion" and refers to distress, oppression, or tribulation.  It can refer to the act of trouble or to a "time" of trouble (as in Mark 13:19).  The verb form of the wored means “to press,” “squash,” or “hem in,” then “to be narrow.”  Thlípsis at its' most baisc means “pressure” in the physical sense, for example, medically of the pulse.   Figuratively the verb means “to afflict,” or to “harass” with the nuances “to discomfit,” or “to oppress” or “vex.” Philosophically the group is used for life’s afflictions. 

The form here is not a verb, but is a noun and is plural.  It refers, then, not to the action of afflicting, but to the fact or presence of the affliction itself, here to mor than one of of those "presences" or the the afflictions considered as a whole or as a unit.  The terms are common in the NT (especially in Paul), and are mostly figurative. Both believers and apostles undergo affliction. It is factual (Acts 11:19 etc.) but also unavoidable (Jn. 16:33). Israel is a type in this regard. Paul as an apostle suffers particular affliction (cf. 1 Th. 3:3–4; Acts 20:23; 2 Cor. 1:4–5). 

These sufferings are Christ’s own sufferings, which, as this passage proclaims, are not yet exhausted. The apostle experiences Christ’s own passion as he is given up to death for the church (2 Cor. 4:10–11). In proclaiming the word, he exemplifies it.

It is important to recognize that this affliction is resulting affliction, that is, it is the result of association with Christ.  It is not redemptive.  As we will see, this passage is NOT saying that work of Christ was not complete on Calvary and was left to be fulfilled by His people in their "sufferings" during their lives (or even after in the case of the RC doctrine of purgatory). 

They are "of Christ" in that Christ was beset by the world.  Our afflictions are not His afflictions, they are "like" His.  This is a metaphor.  A metaphor is an indirect comparison.  This is not a one-to-one comparison,  Paul is not telling the Colossians that He, or the Colossians believers are finishing our what Christ began.  He is saying that our afflictions are similar to Christ's afflictions.  We are afflicted in the same fashion as Christ was afflicted.  Actually, Paul specifies what he is saying in the next phrase - we are afflicted for the same REASON - for the sake of His body.

There is nothing redemptive here.  We do not gain righteousness or favor with God or in any way add to the work of Christ that was finished at Calvary.  That is a certainty - for Christ proclaimed at the cross "It is Finished" forever sealing the truth that His work was accomplished, fully accomplished before God.

Are You Content (Part 2)

"Your Father knows that you need these things"¹ - Luke 12:30

We were discussing contentment and the omniscience of God…let’s pick up where we left off…

²God’s omniscience, like His omnipotence and omnipresence, also relates to time. God’s knowledge is absolute in the sense that He is forever aware of all things. God’s intellect is different from ours in that He does not have to “access” information, like a computer might retrieve a file. All knowledge is always directly before God.

The omniscience of God is also a crucial part of God’s promise to bring about justice in the world. For a judge to render a perfectly just verdict he must first know all the facts. No evidence is hidden from the scrutiny of God. All mitigating circumstances are known to Him.

All of this underlies our contentment.  We can be content because God is omniscient and that omniscience is rooted in the other attributes of His character as the operate in complete agreement together.  He knows our needs, all of our personal needs and that knowledge implies that he will act to deal with those needs according to His good leisure and in accordance with His good character and promises.

In Luke 12:30 Jesus said: "For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things."  "Seek after" is a Greek word that means to want, or to seek out in earnest, to desire.  It is a strengthened form of the root word and thus is heightened form of the idea - they are really, desperately seeking out whatever they are desiring.

"And" is a contrasting conjunction and probably should be rendered "but" here instead of and as the idea of the verse is to set one phrase against the other.  The world desperately goes about seeking the things that satisfy BUT your heavenly Father "knows you need these things".  The idea is to comfort and bring ease of mind and contentment as we look at life - God will supply those things.

“…what you want or need is one thing; what you deserve is another.” - An awareness of God's grace and a real understand of our nature as man in relationship to that grace is one of the great keys to contentment.  Nothing irritates me more than to hear "Christian" leaders tell their listeners that they "deserve" blessing.  It happens all the time.  They deserve it, it is theirs to claim, Jesus died to secure some earthly well-being for them, or some other such positive thinking, positive confession nonsense. 

The fact of the matter is that all that we have, we have by means of the grace of God.  The closer we are to that truth, the more we understand of it, the better we grasp it, the more content we'll be.

Genesis 32:10 says "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies." The verb is in the Perfect and is suffixed.  That makes it a sort of "double past" or lends emphasis to the fact that is past tense.  It is singular and first person.  The word means to be trifling, to be unworthy, to be not enough, that is, to be in a state of not meeting a merits test of one sort or another, implying one has applied relatively low status to the unworthy object, in this case, the self.  Jacob says to God that he sees that he is not worthy of the very least of God's mercies...  He says this in light of the fact that he left his homeland with virtually nothing and returns a great company, "two companies" actually!

That humility and that recognition of God's grace is precisely that of which we speak. All men have needs, we are flesh and bone, we have the needs common to those who share our frame.  But to view those as "deserved" or "coming to us" or anything less that being met by the grace and mercy of God is to pervert and misunderstand how and why those things come to us.  Jacob understood this.  Because of this he was well able to be content under all circumstances.  It will not until we share that perception that we will likewise be able to be content as he was.

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[1] This year I am often using MacArthur’s devotional “Strength for Today” as a starting point for my comments. Quotes from MacArthur’s Devotional are in boldface.

[2]  Some portions of this post are taken from RC Sproul’s wonderful little book “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith”; the article on “Omniscience.

Are You Content?

"“Your Father knows that you need these things” "¹ - Luke 12:30

"You can begin by realizing God’s goodness and believing that He will take care of you since you are one of His children." - Of course, one of the great markers of the difference between a true believer a mere professor of Christianity is what their mind and their prayers dwell upon. The one who is consumed with self and the flesh dwells upon that, the self. They are concerned with those things that affect comfort and convenience. Because of their perspective and their doctrine, they believe God to be primarily concerned with those things as well.

The spiritual man, on the other hand, understands that all is in God's hand and has been since before the world began. Sure, that does not mean that it is of no co concern to him at all - of course it is - but he balances that concern with his knowledge of the nature and power the God he serves. The result is that his mind is less occupied with things and needs than it is with God Himself; with His person and with His Person and attributes. His prayers are not a long list of wants and needs, though those things are surely a part of his supplication. The largest part of his prayer life is worship, adoration and thanksgiving, praise for the great God of heaven Who has done such a great and merciful, gracious thing in his life. This is the key to contentment.

"He knows all things and all your personal needs". - This is the "immediate" part of our wrestling with the contentment issue.  God knows all things in a real and immediate sense.  He has known them from eternity past. 

The word omniscience means “to have all (omni) knowledge (science).” It is a term that is properly applied to God alone. Only a being that is infinite and eternal is capable of knowing everything. The knowledge of a finite creature is always limited by a finite being.

God, being infinite, is able to be aware of all things, to understand all things, and to comprehend all things. He never learns anything or acquires new knowledge. The future as well as the past and present are completely known by Him. He is surprised by nothing.

God’s superior knowledge allows Him to be able to resolve mysteries that baffle us. But that points to a difference of degree in God’s knowledge, not a difference in the kind of logic He uses. Because God is rational, even He cannot reconcile contradictions.

God’s omniscience also grows out of His omnipotence. God is not all-knowing simply because He has applied His superior intellect to a sober study of the universe and all its contents. Rather, God knows all because He created all and He has willed all. As sovereign Ruler over the universe, God controls the universe. Though some theologians have tried to separate the two, it is impossible for God to know all without controlling all, and it is impossible for Him to control all without knowing all. Like all attributes of God, they are codependent, two necessary parts of the whole.

More Next Time…

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[1] This year I am often using MacArthur’s devotional “Strength for Today” as a starting point for my comments. Quotes from MacArthur’s Devotional are in boldface.