September 2nd, 2010

The following question was found online. It is from the viewpoint of someone who does not believe in God, and is looking for questions that cannot be answered in order to justify his/her belief that there is no God. You can hear the lack of trust in God in the question. The viewpoint of my answer is from total trust in God. Each answer is a quick overview – not a detailed explanation! God is a God of truth, and the Bible is full of answers…

In the Old Testament, God said we cannot see His face and live, so how can Jesus be God?

In the book of Exodus, the Lord is very pleased with Moses. So Moses asks to see the glory of the Lord. It is obvious that Moses has already been in great lengths of communication with the Lord, but this request is something different. To Moses’ request, the Lord responds in Exodus 33:19-20, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

At first glance, it would certainly seem like this is a contradiction to many other places in the Bible. First of all, Jesus is clearly God according to the scripture, and many saw His face. There are also experiences like Isaiah 6:1, where Isaiah sees the Lord.

Let’s take a closer look: the Bible makes it very clear that we are to seek His face!

2 Chronicles 7:14 is very clear: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

1 Chronicles 16:11 says to “seek His face always.”

Job looks forward to the day when he will see God with his own eyes (Job 19:25-27)

David says in Psalm 27:8, “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek.”

So the Bible makes it clear we are to seek God’s face, and if we seek God’s face then we will die. How can these things go together? Is God asking us to die?

Yes.

Look at what happened to the people who sought God’s face in the scriptures listed above. Every time the Israelites sought the face of the Lord, they encountered their sin and had to deal with it, and God drew them closer to himself. Job sought God’s face, and his life is an example of dying to everything in this world and living for God alone. David sought the face of the Lord, and he couldn’t hide from his sin, but instead walked through one of the most public encounters with sin and repentance. What about with Jesus? When people encountered Jesus, they were different when they left.

What is really happening through these encounters with God? The sinful nature in people is dying. We are dying to ourselves. As the Son of God, Jesus was such an incredible model of how to live for the Lord and not for this world. While he was in the garden of Gethsemane, awaiting his betrayer to come and crucify him, Jesus prayed “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) Even in a time of extreme agony, Jesus chose to do the will of the Father instead of his own will – this is dying to yourself. Earlier in the book of Luke, Jesus tells his followers how to follow in his footsteps: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) We are to die to ourselves… only an encounter with God – face to face – can bring us to such a decision.

Why would someone choose to die? The glory of the Lord is that we not only die to ourselves, but we live for God, and His love is better than life (Psalm 63:3). Jesus died on the cross, but he rose from the grave – conquering sin and conquering death. When we encounter Jesus face to face, we can choose to crucify our sinful nature on the cross with Jesus, and rise again to live in His abundant life (John 10:10; Romans 6:4).

May the Lord draw us to His face, that we might die to ourselves and live in Him!

All to the glory of God.