Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace
The Glory of God
Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony
Subject: Pentateuch
Lesson: The Glory of God
Genre: Lessons with Q & A
Track: 116
Dictation Name: RR171BK116
Location/Venue:
Year: Early 70’s
Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that we live, move, and have out being in thee, that thy hand is upon us for good all the days of our life, and thou art He who dost make all things work together for good to them that love thee, to them that are the called according to thy purpose. Teach us to walk by faith day by day, to keep our hearts fixed upon thee and thy word rather than upon the things around us, so that we may know wherein our assurance is. Bless us in our service. In Christ’s name, amen.
Our scripture is Exodus 33:12-23, and our subject: The Glory of God. Exodus 33:12-23, the Glory of God. “And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.”
The plan of the encampment, with the sanctuary at the center, has very profoundly influenced urban planning in Christendom, because it set forth the need for a focus in society and that focus must be the triune God. When a society lacks faith, a governing faith in God, a new focus appears, and it comes from below from lawless men. Instead of all areas having a function in terms of God and His kingdom, the center shifts downward. The problem for the social order then becomes more and more Christ people{?} because they are at odds with the anti-Christian culture around them, and they are less and less in tune with the lawless element which now dominates the social scene. Popular culture then exalts things that are base and evil, because the focus has shifted.
Now the vision of God described in this text is related in this fact. Moses is allowed to see God to a degree. He is in the cleft of the rock, according to verse 22, a reference which is familiar to us from Toplady’s great hymn, Rock of Ages. A.H. McNeil{?} described the vision which translation cannot convey in these words, and I quote, “The vision of Yahweh’s glory, his full personality was impossible for Moses, but he might catch a glimpse of the afterglow, a partial suggestion of what the whole radiance must be.”
Now this vision is to Moses, not to Israel. God had left the camp. While He remained Israel’s covenant Lord up to the crucifixion of Christ, His sanctuary from this time on was outside the camp and outside the city to a degree. Moses understood, to an extent, the meaning of God’s sanctuary leaving the center of the camp. In verse 12, he expresses his bewilderment, “What will God do with Israel?” In verse 13, he says, “Show me thy way.” Help me to understand what’s happening. The Lord promises, in verse 14, that He will indeed accompany Israel to Canaan, but Moses, according to verse 15, says that he cannot lead Israel unless God go with them. In verse 17, God tells Moses that he will do all that Moses hopes for because “I know thee by name.” I know you, as Moses, as my own man, my covenant man. Moses then, in verse 18, asks, “I beseech thee. Show me thy glory.” James Moffett rendered it, “Let me see thy majesty.” The term is not easily explained and there isn’t a word that suffices to translate it. Moses had asked to know God’s plan for Israel. His concerns are intensely and thoroughly practical. He does not ask to see God’s glory in any metaphysical or philosophical sense. He wants to understand the ways of God, and that’s it. He does not question God’s right to judge Israel. Moses had already done that in the name of the Lord. God’s grace and purposes were what Moses wanted to comprehend.
H.L. Ellison pointed out that God’s passing by is metaphorical. He was to see God’s back, that is, understand Him in retrospect, in light of what God has done. Moses received a revelation of God’s purpose to enable him to understand the past, and the immediate future. Moses had asked, “Show me thy way (or ways),” in verse 13. God answers first, “My presence shall go with thee.” He has separated Himself from Israel to a degree, but He has not abandoned them. Second, he says, in verse 14, “I will give thee rest.” This meant a successful entry into and the conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land. Third, in verse 18, Moses asks, “Show me thy glory.” God answers in verse 19, “I will make all thy goodness pass before thee. By means of the revelation of His goodness and grace, God makes clear to Moses the source of His mercy. “I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee,” means that God will reveal to Moses the full nature of His grace. Then fourth, God makes clear that men cannot view God’s grace independently of God’s sovereignty, because “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” God’s mercy, God’s judgment are beyond man’s control. They are exercises of His sovereign power.
Sometime back, I called attention in the difference in language between Greek thinking and language, and biblical thinking and language. Since Hellenic thought views the world totally in terms of abstractions, because there is nothing concrete out there. It’s a world of abstractions, ideas, forms, and the only reality apart from that is matter, which is low. Concreteness is alien to Greek thinking and to modern intellectual thought, whereas biblical thought is very concrete and specific, and from its concreteness, you understand, because the world is made up of very real things which are all God-created.
God makes clear that He is understood in his grace, in His mercy, in His sovereignty, in what he does. This is what Moses asked for because Moses already understood the nature of God to a considerable degree. But the difference was now that God must be in the center of the camp, in the center of life for men and society, but He is never of the camp. He and His purposes transcend men and society.
Now in all of this, God has agreed to the renewal of the covenant, and this is described in chapter 31:1-35. The covenant is renewed. The tables of the law are renewed, but the past is not wiped out. Moses’ vision of God is important for us because it is an intensely relevant vision. First, as we have seen, God must be central to society or it comes under His judgment. The church, the cathedral, must be at the center of society; physically, morally, intellectually. God is central, but He also transcends every society, every church, every institution. While society’s focus and also man’s must be on God, He far transcends man and man’s world.
Then second, we cannot turn the vision of God into something relating to heaven. Now the idea of attaining to a vision of God has had a very powerful effect over the centuries, on Medieval mystics and saints, as well as on Protestant pietists, and it’s always been a heaven-centered vision, which is very alien to the spirit of scripture. The vision of God is intensely relevant to man’s world, and to man’s duties in that world. The whole of the Bible, from cover to cover, gives us a vision of God but says little about heaven, and much about earth and our duties here. Clearly, therefore, the vision of God is not intended to focus our eyes on heaven, or on things that are not of this world. We have a practical concern. Such spiritual concerns as some stress and have over the centuries are not biblical. As long as we are on earth, our duties must be governed by our obligations here, and in terms of God’s law. To attempt to act like angels when our calling is to be men and women in Christ is both evil and also silly.
Then third, the structures of a Christian society must reflect the centrality of the sanctuary. God’s law must govern every man’s law, and man’s priorities must be in terms of God’s requirement. This is set forth in many ways in the law. The first fruits must be exactly that. God receives His portion before we take ours, and the tithe comes off the top, not at the last. All our priorities must be ordered by God’s law word. God tells Moses, “I know thee by name,” in verse 12. Name, as we have seen again and again in the Bible, means one’s nature. Names changed as men changed in their character. God says to Moses, “I know your nature.” God knows our nature better than we do ourselves.
God made clear to Moses by the burning bush, that He was beyond naming. That is, beyond definition, beyond limitation. On the other hand, all men have names because all men have a local and limited being. All proselytes were renamed in terms of their new life. Within the church, this took the form of giving a saint’s name to a child in baptism. Originally, it was a Christian name, any Christian name. The name is ancient, the name in ancient Israel was designated to express the personality and the nature of the person who was named. This was, in itself, a restraint on behavior, because in a godly society, an evil name could be given to a man whatever else he called himself. In fact, this is, in part, the origin of nicknames. They were originally, a few centuries back, a bad name given to somebody who had a good name and didn’t deserve it, so he would be known by a nickname, and what does nick suggest but Old Nick, the Devil, which meant that he had earned an evil name.
One practice which occurred in at least German Lutheran churches for a few centuries was called “naming.” What its origins were I don’t know and I have not been able to find any reference to it. After the consistory of the church investigated and proved charges of open and notorious on the part of a member, he would be publically named after the sermon. This could be followed, if repentance did not ensue, with excommunication. Apart from especially serious circumstances, church rules in the Lutheran churches forbad naming. When God calls a man by his name as in Exodus 31:2, and 33:12, and also in Isaiah 35:3-4, it means that God honors that man for his clearly defined character and nature. This raises a very interesting point. God cannot be named because He is infinite, omnipotent, and omniscient, beyond our capacity to comprehend. The so-called name of God, Jehovah or Yahweh, means “I am that I am,” or “He who is.” It is not a name.
On the other hand, when a man is named or called by his name by God, it means that a clear and steadfast nature exists. We are clearly defined in terms of our lives and our priorities. The same is true of cultures and societies. When the centrality of God is gone, when He is no longer in the midst of the came, then the center does not hold, and all warring groups have their own wayward definitions. It is, as Cornelius Van Til so powerfully pointed out, “Then an integration downward into the void.”
Quite logically now, in our cities, gangs of lawless young men define themselves by gang names. For them, this is the definition of the only valid society. The world around them is a wilderness to be raped and exploited, and what is beginning to happen now is that the gang culture is spreading out, it is entering into communities where no one would have dreamed that it would exist. Just very recently, there was gang activity on the part of university and local youth, all from very well-to-do families in Westwood, in Los Angeles, in the shopping area just off the University of California at Los Angeles. All kinds of destruction and havoc wrought. The center does not hold and the corruption is spreading, and the kind of behavior that marks the ghetto youth is beginning to mark those in the best areas.
With the breakdown of the West, we see everywhere minority groups redefining the society in terms of their, at best, limited goals. When God is not at the center, anarchy takes over a society. Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee that, by thy grace, thou art the center for us. Grant, O Lord, that more and more men, women and children, churches, institutions, peoples come into thy kingdom, and establish a true center in their communities and their groups. Give us grace, day by day. Teach us to center ourselves all that we are and do, and all that we have upon thee, upon thy Son. And make us ever faithful as we serve thee day by day. In Christ’s name. Amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?
[Audience] In verses 15 and 16, Moses says that the presence of God is the distinguishing characteristic of the people in the world. In terms of the concreteness of which you spoke, how is the presence of God to be manifested among us so that we’re distinguished?
[Rushdoony] It’s manifest in us and through us, and in what we do, and God had withdrawn His presence from Israel and therefore, they were manifesting the absence of the presence and God withdrew His presence. So, God’s presence is manifest in very practical ways. It’s nothing mystical, it’s very practical, and one of the very interesting writings from centuries ago, and perhaps some of you are familiar with it, I believe the title is The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. How many of you have ever encountered that? Yes. Well, Brother Lawrence was a monk who was a nobody. He was regarded as not of sufficient character, in a sense of intelligence and leadership, to have a part in the usual monastic activities. He was not a scholar, in other words. So, he was confined to the kitchen, and the pots and pans, and it was there that he developed the practice of the presence of God in the way that he handled his duties, and that is what the presence of God means, and Moses had it. His total concern was everything that God required of him, and it’s simply that. The problem has been that, age after age, the church has sought it in so-called spiritual activities, and that’s why the church has lost its power.
I have been working on a history of Christian activity from the early church to the present. Not so much a history as an analysis of it, and one of the things that amazes me is how much of Calvin we’ve forgotten there. I think I’ve referred to this before, but Calvin’s best follower here was a Catholic Bishop who disliked Calvin’s theology, St. Charles Borromeo, and he did what Calvin did in Geneva, and which hardly a Calvinist knows about. He took care of the poor. He took care of widows and orphans. He took care of the sick. He took care of girls who needed dowries provided them, so that they would not be driven into prostitution because they could not marry. He took care of abused wives. There wasn’t a need in the community that he didn’t take care of, and the work of St. Charles Borromeo, over the generations, was picked up and carried on by others, but the Calvinists forgot it, and it came from Geneva. Now, that was Calvin’s way of the practical implementation of the presence of God. It was a presence that the poor, the sick, the blind, the needy could feel, an actual presence, a very important factor, and this is the kind of thing that has been absent in our culture. The presence of God was felt by the entire community. We are told that in the days of the apostle John, in his old age, because of the kind of thing they did, the comment often was, “Behold, how these Christians love one another.” We also know that, while the church, the early church was viciously slandered. They were accused of cannibalism, of incest, and of all kinds of things at their meetings in order to defame them. That was the purpose Rome had in defaming Christians, but it did not work for the simple reason that the ordinary Roman could say, “Well, these people are good to some of our old people, some of our needy people when we don’t take care of them. They’ve got to be alright.” It was a most eloquent witness and it kept bringing people into the church, and that’s why some of the Christian charitable activities were forbidden to them by law, at one time or another, but that made Rome look bad so they had to repeal them, and that was one of the things that the Soviet Union forbad Christians to do. That was a manifestation of the presence of God in a society. Any other questions or comments?
Let me add to that, one of the first things an anti-God, an anti-Christian society does is to try to take over those areas so it replaces God, and it is even worse when Christians surrender those areas to the state, as we have. It’s been partly the state taking over and partly that Christians, after about 1825 or 30 began to surrender these areas. So, we have sinned greatly in that respect. Yes?
[Audience] I was just going to ask, in reading a book on Calvin and the Christian family, he said that the Christian will know a piece, a small piece of heaven, here on earth by following the will and the law of God.
[Rushdoony] Yes, that’s right. The Lord’s prayer makes that clear. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” So, it tells us precisely that fact. Any other comments or questions? Well, if not, let us conclude in prayer.
Our Father, we thank thee for thy word, for thy presence, for the requirement thou hast laid upon us whereby we may be made whole. Teach us so to walk, day by day, that in all things we manifest our trust and our obedience. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.
End of tape.