Seeing God's Face

The first time I noticed my wife Rebecca across the classroom at Harding Graduate School I thought, “Now, there’s a face I could look at a long time.” When I held my daughter soon after she was born tears came up from somewhere deep inside. I was awed by the beauty of this new life as I gazed down at her face. Memories of Mom’s love and gentleness flood my mind when I look at her picture by my bed. The faces of those dear to us stir within us feelings of warmth and tenderness.

Consider the priestly blessing on Israel: the Lord make his face shine upon you ...; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace (Num. 6:24-26). But, for the Israelites, to look at the face of God inspired a whole different emotion: dread. Throughout Israel’s history seeing God stirred terror not tenderness. In the rare instances when people saw God (in some form) there was always a sense of surprise they survived it (Gen. 32:30; Judges 6:22).

Aaron, the high priest, came closest to seeing God on a regular basis. It was only once a year when he passed through the outer courtyard, then the first room of the tabernacle (called the Holy Place) and beyond the curtain that concealed the Most Holy Place where God’s presence rested above the Ark of the Covenant (Lev. 16).

Before entering Aaron had to sacrifice a bull for his own sin and present its blood to God. When Aaron went behind the curtain he took burning coals from the altar and a couple handfuls of incense. God said, “He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the Testimony, so that he will not die” (Lev. 16:13). Approaching God was a fearful, tentative prospect.

The details of this ceremony showed peace with God was partial at best. Barriers created distance, fear overshadowed and, most importantly, sin remained an obstacle. The yearly repetition only emphasized the separation between a holy God and a sinful people.

Someone may say, What’s all the fuss? We’re not so bad. Isn’t God supposed to be a God of love? An image of the kindly old grandpa emerges. The children climb up on his knee and giggle under his gentle bear hug. But God is not only loving; he is holy. And a holy God requires a holy people (Lev. 19:2).

God wanted that warm closeness in the beginning but man became selfish and untrusting. He challenged God’s right to rule and destroyed the harmony God intended. Isaiah the prophet told Israel in the sixth century B.C., “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you” (Is. 59:2).

A God of justice cannot overlook sin and man cannot approach God with sin on his record. It must be punished. We were given life in God’s image and when that image was distorted death was the only appropriate penalty. That is a law of creation as surely as the law of gravity (Rom. 5:12; 6:23).

Aaron’s bulls and goats couldn’t effectively remove our guilt. Their blood’s value didn’t match the crime. What shows the heinousness of our sins is the price that eventually was paid for us.

I’m told (yes, I’m the only one in Coweta County yet to see it) Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion,” graphically portrays the punishment our sins deserved. Jesus voluntarily endured it for us “to demonstrate [God’s] justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

God’s justice required the death of his Son. Well, sort of. He could have exacted the payment from each of us. But he didn’t. As one old hymn says, “O trysting-place where heaven’s love and heaven’s justice meet!” We were at his mercy and he showed mercy. Through Jesus God broke down every barrier to that Most Holy Place of his presence. In two weeks we’ll look more at the blessing of seeing God’s face without fear.