Moses once asked to see God. God allowed him to see His “back” part only. From that vision of the back part of God, Moses’s face shone out with God’s glory. When Moses returned from his mountaintop encounter with God and addressed the people with God’s newly given laws for life (the Ten Commandments), the people could not bear to look at him. Exodus 34:30 says, “When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.” This must have been a dim reminder of what Adam and Eve must have looked like while living in the Garden of Eden before the fall. They enjoyed the fellowship with God and even walked with him in the Garden. Now I understand what happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned. Just as Aaron and all of Israel feared God’s glory, so were they. Genesis 3:8 tells us, “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the garden’s trees.”
The Hebrew word translated as “glory” is also the word that’s translated as “heavy.” We might speak of a significant person as a “heavyweight,” but the idea is that God is the most important person. God’s glory is called His “heaviness.” The interesting thing about God’s glory is that He desires to share it with us. This was such an essential truth that David wrote a song about it. The Psalmist, in Psalm 8:5-9, is talking about man in general when he sings, “Yet you (God) have made him (man) a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” If Moses reflected the glory of God from being exposed to the back parts of God, can you imagine what Adam and Eve must have looked like before they sinned?
Moses glowed with God’s glory when he came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments under his arm. He found the children of Israel worshipping the golden calves when he returned to the camp. When the sinners looked at Moses, they could not bear to look at his shining face. It was only a “reflection” on Moses’ face. It wasn’t the real thing. Yet it was so glorious they could not bear to look at it. The Law Moses brought down to the people is often referred to as God’s glory. People who worship some form of a golden calf can’t bear to look at it. Indeed, the Law, as it reflects the perfect character and nature of God, makes us all run and hide. Like Adam and Eve, as well as the Israelites, we would much rather run and hide than face such glory. We are guilty. But we have Jesus, who fulfilled the law on our behalf. Jude 24-25 points to Jesus and tells us, “Now to the one who is able to protect you from harm and to cause you to stand in the presence of his glory blameless in gladness, to the only God, our deliverer through Jesus, who is the Christ, the Lord, be honor, majesty, sovereignty, and dominion before all the ages and now and unto all the ages. Amen.” Jesus calls us to come to him because he will carry the load for us! He promises to give us rest for our souls.