All three Synoptic Gospels feature an account of the transfiguration of Jesus—that moment where Christ appears in a radiant, glorified state alongside Moses and Elijah. While John doesn’t give us the story per se, he does refer to it. Speaking of Jesus he writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Despite having the outward form and appearance of a mere man, Jesus in his very nature and essence is simultaneously divine. He is deity dressed in a human body.
Jesus no doubt received great encouragement from this heavenly event as he faced the cross, but it was primarily a revelation for the sake of the disciples. They needed to be prepared for the dark days ahead—days that would feature the rejection, conviction, and brutal execution of their leader. The voice from heaven assured the disciples that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, as it had once assured John the Baptist at the Jordan (Matthew 3:17) and would again assure the multitude in Jerusalem (John 12:28).
The Gospel writers came to see in this Christophany a preview of resurrection glory—both for Jesus and for his followers. In Jesus we see a glimpse of the glory to come. As the Apostle Paul writes, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).
Thursday night we got to attend the “Family & Friends” production of Moses at the Sight & Sound Theater in Lancaster. It was their final dress rehearsal before opening night on Friday. Our son Andrew works there full-time as part of their support staff (including the post-musical prayer team, among other responsibilities), so we’re happily on the receiving end of complimentary tickets for each play.
The entire production was marvelous, taking us on an adventure through the birth and exile of Moses, the burning bush theophany and revelation of God’s name, the plagues against Egypt and its false gods, Israel’s first Passover and their dramatic escape through the Red Sea, and the giving of the law at the top of Mount Sinai. Moses is portrayed as an unlikely and imperfect hero—the only kind God ever uses. Except for Jesus, who makes a cameo appearance at the end of the play.
I don’t think any show could exceed last year’s production of David in terms of musical composition and emotional impact, but this show was right up there when it comes to lead performances, special effects, and execution. I was thoroughly inspired.
Moses runs now through October 7. Do yourself a favor and go see it.
The Ten Commandments do not begin with God saying, “Thou shalt not…” but “I…brought you out.” The preamble of the Decalogue thus indicates that grace was demonstrated before obedience was demanded. Grammatically speaking, the ten great imperatives are preceded by one great indicative: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). The giving of the law at Sinai, then, was a climactic moment of divine grace in the history of the world.
Still, God wanted not only to rescue his people from their oppression under Pharaoh, he wanted to realign them to his ways after their captivity in a polytheistic land. Their theology needed to be overhauled. It’s one thing for God to get Israel out of Egypt; it’s another thing for God to get Egypt out of Israel. The Ten Commandments were God’s initial strategy for doing so. But law keeping was never a means of “getting saved,” even in the Old Testament. God did the saving himself by his own power and grace. Indeed, God rescues his people before he regulates them.
The New Testament letters follow a similar pattern. Paul typically starts out by saying, “Here’s what God has freely done for us in Christ; now, here’s what our salvation looks like when we live it out in our daily lives. So, God’s law never presents itself as a means of salvation but a mark of salvation. In Moses’s day, the obedience called for in the Decalogue represents the people’s grateful response of love and loyalty to God for the salvation they had freely received as a gift from him.
This message contains a helpful illustration of how believers can understand the complex relationship between the old and new covenants. The illustration underscores that customs may change, cultures may change, and even covenants may change, but the character of God never changes. He is who he is and always will be. In the end, Moses stood between God and the people as a flawed man—a prophet but not a Savior. Jesus, however, stands between God and the people as a flawless man—a prophet and a Savior. And that’s why lawbreakers today can be saved.
We’ve been talking this week at This New Life about God’s abundance. The Lord has revealed himself to be generous and openhanded, not stingy and tightfisted. His provisions are bounteous and plentiful, not paltry and miserly. He overflows with love and compassion for his people, not reticence and standoffishness. In short, God is for us not against us.
Unfortunately, many people believe that God couldn’t possibly love them like that. He can love other people, perhaps, but not them. Maybe it’s because of their wretched past. Maybe it’s because of some traumatic family-of-origin issue. Maybe it’s because of a deep existential crisis at some point in their lives. Maybe it’s their struggle to be on the receiving end of things rather than on the giving end all the time.
Where do we even begin to help them overcome their reluctance to accepting their acceptance in the grace of God? We commit to being as patient with them as God has been with us. We keep loving and serving them as best we can. And we keep telling the Story that has transformed our own lives—as winsomely as possible.
One story within the larger Story that has always fascinated me is the outlandish request Moses made of God nearly 3,500 years ago. In Exodus 33:18, Moses said to the Lord, “Now show me your glory.” It’s difficult to imagine a greater request that one could make of God. It’s even more difficult to comprehend how God could ever answer such a request.
In the context of Exodus 33, God’s humble sanctuary was not enough to satisfy Moses’s spiritual longings, but his divine glory would have been far too much for him to endure (cf. Exod 33:20). As a result, God responds to Moses’ request in a mediatorial way, showing him an unparalleled revelation of himself while hiding him in the cleft of the rock:
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin’” (Exod 34:6-7a; emphasis mine). In many ways, the rest of Scripture is a commentary on that one verse, as the statement is repeated in various forms at least twelve more times throughout the Old Testament (cf. Num 14:18; 2 Chron 30:9; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 112:4, 116:5, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; and Nah 1:3). Allusions to it are also scattered throughout the Hebrew Bible. It’s no stretch, then, to consider this passage the John 3:16 of the Old Testament.[1]
To be sure, the mediatorial nature of God’s self-revelation implies a certain moral inability on Moses’ part to survive a full-throated theophany, but it is important to remember that the story of Scripture speaks of Original Blessing (Gen 1:22, 28) before it speaks of Original Sin (Gen 3:6-7). It is truly glorious, then, to be a human being, even a fallen one.
Indeed, Scripture indicates that all persons are made in the “image” and “likeness” of God (Gen 1:26). Consequently, they possess an intrinsic value, unique significance, and lofty status in creation. Nona Harrison notes that the word “dominion” in Genesis 1:26 “involves (1) dignity and splendor, and (2) a legitimate sovereignty rooted in one’s very being.”[2] This “being” is truly sacred. That’s why Walter Kaiser, reflecting on the sixth commandment, notes that to kill a human being with malice aforethought is “tantamount to killing God in effigy.”[3]
Kaiser’s memorable phrase captures the dignity and splendor of what it means to be human. In fact, five times in the Gospels (Matt 6:26, 10:31, 12;12; Luke 12:7, 24), Jesus declares human beings to be “valuable” (diapherō). In Ephesians 2:10, the Apostle Paul calls human beings “God’s workmanship” (poiēma). Members of the human race are God’s “poetry,” says Paul—a significant affirmation in light of his observation earlier in the chapter that human beings are “dead in sin” (Eph 2:1).
A thousand years earlier, King David asked God with great wonder, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than God (ʾělōhîm), and crowned them with glory (kāḇôḏ) and honor (hāḏār)” (Ps 8:4-5). God in his wisdom has conferred upon the human race a certain majesty, dignity, and splendor. Finally, David saw himself as “knit together” by God himself in his mother’s womb, and “fearfully [yārēʾ] and wonderfully [pālāh] made” (Ps 139:13-14).
All told, it is “very good [ṭôb]” to be human (Gen 1:31). In fact, it is beautiful to be an image bearer of the beautiful God (cf. Ps 27:4). So, it is never helpful to start talking about Genesis 3 before talking about Genesis 1-2. Not only does the concept of Original Blessing precede the concept of Original Sin, there is copious grace flowing like a mighty river even in Genesis 3 where the fall of humanity takes place:
the gentle pursuit of the fallen pair by the one dishonored and spurned;
the provision of suitable garments for the covering of their nakedness;
the proto-euangelion (pre-gospel) promise of the Seed of the Woman;
the fiery sword placed at the gate to prevent humanity’s irreversible damnation.
At the epicenter of the great spiritual kaboom, then, is a spiritual bunker or “fallout shelter” provided by heaven. “Behold the kindness and severity of God” (Rom 11:22). And the kindness keeps trying to win (Jas 2:13).
As such, be assured that God knows how to bring people to himself. He knows what it will take to open their eyes to his incomprehensible love. So, watch and wait. Pray and trust. Hope and rest—in “the compassionate and gracious God” who is “slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” Amen.
[1] John 3:16 in the New Testament says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This verse is reportedly the most translated sentence in human language, ostensibly because it encapsulates the gospel (“good news”) of Jesus Christ and the only appropriate human response to it—faith.
[2] Nonna Verna Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image: Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 90.
[3] Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward Old Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 91.
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” – Cicero
“Ingratitude produces pride while gratitude produces humility.” – Orrin Woodward
“Gratitude bestows reverence…changing forever how we experience life and the world.” – John Donne
“God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say thank you?” – William Arthur Ward
“It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy.” – Anonymous
Prior to the Israelites’ entry into the Promised Land, Moses issued a call to his countrymen for the ongoing praise and remembrance of God for his miraculous deliverance from Egypt and his gracious provisions in everyday life. His call is really a summons to daily thanksgiving—a fitting reminder on this day of feasting in the United States:
“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”
Deuteronomy 8:10-18
The Apostle Paul echoes a similar sentiment in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
Israel’s many psalms of thanksgiving in the Psalter fulfill Moses’ call to the Israelites to express their grateful praise to God. Moreover, such is the abundant blessings of God to his people in all ages that Paul can instruct believers to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:18). As Nancy Leigh DeMoss has said:
“I have learned that in every circumstance that comes my way, I can choose to respond in one of two ways: I can whine or I can worship! And I can’t worship without giving thanks. It just isn’t possible. When we choose the pathway of worship and giving thanks, especially in the midst of difficult circumstances, there is a fragrance, a radiance, that issues forth out of our lives to bless the Lord and others.”
DeMoss is right. The latest lockdown has altered our plans for today, but we still have much to be thankful for. The table will be full and so will our hearts. We’ll eat and be satisfied, sharing the delights of the season, albeit with a smaller group than originally planned. And in the process, we’ll remember the Lord our God for who he is and what he has done.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all the readers of This New Life. Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to drop me a line if you have a need, would like to share a prayer request, or just want to chat.
