Face to Face with God

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As previously mentioned, I personally find this picture less intimate, but I’m not particularly normal.

What Moses had was special:

    Numbers 12:6-8  . . . When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses . . . With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. . . .

Although usual, this was not unique to Moses, however. Note what the following says about Joshua:

    Exodus 33:11 The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

Moreover, 2 Corinthians 3:7 speaks of how, through this intimate interaction with God, Moses’ face would shine so brightly “that the Israelites could not look steadily at” it. But the glory on his face would fade. In contrast, Paul goes on to say how we enjoy something even greater:

    2 Corinthians 3:11, 13, 18 And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!  . . . We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. . . . And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

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