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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