Face-to-Face

R.C. Sproul:

Moses craved the ultimate spiritual experience. He inquired of the Lord on the mountain, “Let me see your face. Show me your glory.” The request was denied: 

And the LORD said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” Then the LORD said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

(Exod. 33:19-23) 

When God told Moses that he could see His back, the literal reading of the text can be translated “hindquarters.” God allowed Moses to see His hindquarters but never His face. When Moses returned from the mount, his face was shining. The people were terrified, and they shrank away from him in horror. Moses’ face was too dazzling for them to look upon. So Moses put a veil over his face so that the people could approach him. This experience of terror was directed at the face of a man who had come so close to God that he was reflecting God’s glory. This was a reflection of the glory from the back of God, not the refulgent glory of His face. If people are terrified by the sight of the reflected glory of the back parts of God, how can anyone stand to gaze directly into His holy face? 

Yet the final goal of every Christian is to be allowed to see what was denied to Moses. We want to see Him face-to-face. We want to bask in the radiant glory of His divine countenance. It was the hope of every Jew, a hope instilled in the most famous and beloved benediction of Israel: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24-26). 

This hope, crystallized in the benediction of Israel, becomes more than a hope for the Christian—it becomes a promise. John tells in his first letter: “We are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Here is the promise of God: We shall see Him as He is. Theologians call this future expectation the beatific vision. We will see God as He is. This means that someday we will see God face-to-face. We will not see the reflected glory of a burning bush or a pillar of cloud. We will see Him as He is, as He is in His pure, divine essence.