Thursday, August 13, 2020

Exodus 33:7-11 comments: God speaks to Moses face to face




Exodus 33:7 ¶  And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the LORD went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp. 8  And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle. 9  And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses. 10  And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door. 11  And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

Here is defined, in verse 7, what without the camp means. It is outside of the camp and in this context far from the camp. This is significant as it is commonly understood that Jesus’ place of crucifixion was outside of the walls of Jerusalem. The place where mankind’s sins were taken on by the God who created mankind was without the camp.

So, the Tabernacle where God met with the Israelites is apart from the camp. This is in contrast to God walking among them, in the camp, a circumstance not permitted by their stubbornness. This points out to us that God abhors sin and will not have it in His presence.

Isaiah 59:2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Habbakuk 1:12 ¶  Art thou not from everlasting, O LORD my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. 13a  Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…

The Israelites had passed on a powerful blessing only to be restored by Christ. We Christians do not go to church only to “meet with God” like the Israelites had to go outside of the camp, a type of the physical body, to do. We meet with God every day in prayer, Bible reading and study, and in our day-to-day experience of His reality for us. The Israelites forsook that relationship. Many Christians refrain from that closeness to God and prefer ritual and ceremony to “experience the divine.”
Many conservative Christians are what I call “Super-Bowl Christians” who cannot feel close to God without an emotionally charged injection of preaching, which is not a bad thing, but when it is the only way you feed on God’s word it is like a sugar-high or a drug. You keep wanting a replay of that emotional high. God wants to walk in your camp so to speak, for His Spirit to commune with your spirit. Evangelistic meetings are great and Sunday services are very important but if you only eat once, two, three, or even four times a week you will be a very malnourished individual, prone to sickness and death.
So, it is with a Christian. Feed on God’s word every day and speak to Him in prayer often and let Him speak to you through His word as often. “Walk” with God from daybreak to daybreak every day.
It is not a preacher’s responsibility to resave you every Sunday. He shouldn’t have to start from scratch every Sunday to give you baby formula because you have not fed yourself at other times. Christians should be growing and learning in their experience with the church, being encouraged, provoked, and moved forward, not being brought back from near death from malnutrition every Sunday.
Verse 11 is likely figurative, a figure of speech, considering what happens in the next passage. It would not be hard to imagine God speaking to Moses from the cloudy pillar without actually appearing to him in physical form using the phrase face-to-face like a friend. 
First, understand that the image is the appearance, physical presence of something. Image equals likeness.
Genesis 1:26a  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

Exodus 20:4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above…

Christ is that image.

2Corinthians 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Colossians 1:15a  Who is the image of the invisible God…

Hebrews 1:3a  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…

There is an intimacy, a friendship, revealed here between God and Moses. Later it will be said;

Numbers 12:3  (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

Moses was meek towards God, not men, in that he humbled himself before his God. Remember, we’re talking about someone leading a huge number of people, very unruly people.
In this passage it is said that Moses has that kind of relationship with God that Jesus’ wanted His disciples to have with Him.
John 15:15  Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

Joshua is a radical who didn’t leave the tabernacle. This is indicative of his character.

Joshua 1:8  This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.

Joshua 24:15  And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

He is a type of Jesus and his work parallels, perhaps, what Jesus will do when He returns. In the following passage the Holy Spirit, through Luke, inserts Jesus for Joshua in English.
Acts 7:45  Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;

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