GLOWING WITH GOD

Throughout the story of the Exodus, we find two different portrayals of God. God repeatedly introduced Himself as the God who sees, the God who rescues, the God who comforts and heals, and the God who wants to dwell with the people.

But God was also the God who was great, who defeated the Egyptians and their gods, the God whose appearance on the mountain was accompanied by thunder and lightning, the God whose presence would cause Moses to glow in such a way that the people were afraid of Him. And both portrayals were true. Both are true. Intimate and transcendent, God is good, and God is great. God is our defender and comforter, whose presence with us calms our fears. But God is also overwhelmingly great, a terrifying Other who shakes the earth and all our assumptions and certitudes. Bible students often talk about the contrast between the thundering God portrayed in the Old Testament and the seemingly friendlier face of God that we see in Jesus as described in the Gospels. But both these realities were present in Jesus.

He could be transcendent—healing diseases, calming storms, transfiguration, and resurrection are some examples. But His transcendence was often veiled by His humanity. As Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

And it seems both these realities were also present in the God who heard the cries of the oppressed, brought plagues on the Egyptians, led as a pillar of fire, and thundered from the mountaintop, but who also fed the people with the dew each morning, wrote the commandments with His own finger, and spent time personally with Moses.

So close was God’s connection with Moses that he was even physically transformed—alarmingly so. God is always both near and great, loving and awesome, with us and so far beyond us, today and eternally.