Exodus 33:18-23

Exo. 33:18-23. Moses, when he beseeches God to show him his glory, seems to have respect to a visible glory; something to be seen with his bodily eyes, yet not exclusive of an inward sweet sense of those glorious perfections, of which the external glory by which God manifests himself is a semblance, which was wont to accompany the external discoveries of divine glory that God made to the prophets, the external glory being made by the Spirit of God accompanying being made a means of a sense of the spiritual glory, as the music of a song of praise is the means of a sense of the excellency of divine things. But by the context it is manifest that it was a visible glory that Moses had a most immediate respect to. Moses seems to have apprehended from what he had seen of the visible manifestations which God had made of himself to him; and it may be from the apprehensions which other holy men before him had entertained concerning God, from what God had revealed to them; that there was some transcendent external majesty and beauty, some immensely sweet and ravishing brightness, the sight of which would exceedingly fill the soul with delight, that was immensely above all that he had yet seen. And God, in his answer to Moses, and in what he did in compliance with his request, seems to allow Moses's apprehension to be just, which probably was because it was God's design to all eternity to appear to the bodily eyes of his saints in such an external glory in the person of Christ God man; and Moses's acquired right from the visible manifestations of an external glory which God had often made. These were indeed an intimation that there was such a transcendent external glory in some sort belonging to God, even to the second person of the Trinity, in that it was established in God's gracious decree and eternal agreement of the persons of the Trinity; on the foot of which establishment were all God's proceedings with the church of Israel, that Christ should everlastingly be united to an external nature, and in that be manifested to his church in an external glory. The external manifestations which he had made of himself to Moses and other holy men, were presages and prelibations of this. Moses longed to see and enjoy that of which they were specimens and prelibations. Christ is the glory of God in his image, and no man hath seen God at any time, but it is he that always manifested himself by visible appearances. God granted to Moses to see something of this glorious brightness, as he passed by, so much from a view as it were of his back, but not of his face. Probably this, as he passed by in a visible form, shone with an ineffable sweet and glorious brightness, far exceeding all the brightness that is ever seen in the world, for glory and delightfulness. (Vid. No. 265). But God tells him that he cannot see his face, for no man should see him and live, i.e. not only could they not see that spiritual glory in which he manifests himself in heaven; but there is evidently a respect to an external glory: no man should see that external glory of God's face, in which God intended to manifest himself to his saints in heaven to all eternity, in the face of Jesus Christ.

Corol. Hence the glory of Christ at his transfiguration was not that glory in which the human nature of Christ appears in heaven, and especially that in which it will appear after the day of judgment; only a shadow and faint resemblance of it; for that glory, God says, is such as no man can see and live; and so, of the appearances of Christ's visible glory that Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the apostle Paul, and the apostle John had.