Sermon Bible Commentary
Exodus 34:33
It is a law of our being and the being of all material things that everything grows like to that with which it is conversant and familiar. Those who frequent the good gather the image of their goodness, and those who deal much with God grow Godlike.
I. What was the glory on Moses' face? St. Paul gives us a remarkable answer to this question. He says, "They could not look steadfastly to the end of that which is abolished." "That which is abolished" is the law, and the end of the law is Christ; therefore the glory upon Moses' face was the Lord Jesus Christ.
II. It was not in compassion for the weakness of the Israelites that Moses put a veil upon his face. The Jews had lost the power to see the end of that which is abolished, to see the glory of God in Jesus Christ reflected in the law. The veil was judicial, the consequence of sin; it was interposed between them and the beauty of the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
III. There are veiled hearts among us now, and the reason of the veil is sin. The remedy is Christ. "When they shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away." When we have Christ within, we shall be able to look with unveiled mind upon all the beauties and glories of the Christ without. And then will come to pass that with which St. Paul sums it all up: "We, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
J. Vaughan, Meditations in Exodus,p. 109.
References: Exodus 35:8. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 336. Exodus 35:20. Parker, vol. ii., p. 293.Exodus 35:29. J. Vaughan, Meditations in Exodus,p. 118; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 300. Exodus 35:30. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiv., p. 165.Exodus 35:30. L. D. Bevan, Sermons to Students,p. 121.Exodus 35. Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 303. 35, 36 Ibid.,p. 303.Exodus 36:1. W. Arnot, Good Words,1862, p. 318. Exodus 37:7. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year,vol. ii., p. 103.Exodus 37:23. Ibid.,p. 145.Exodus 38:8. Parker, vol. ii., p. 301; H. Macmillan, The Olive Leaf,p. 169; S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year,vol. i., p. 189. Exodus 38:23. Ibid.,vol. ii., p. 321.Exodus 38:26; Exodus 38:27. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1581.