Face-To-Face

             I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

 

But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus  33:20)

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

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. (Psalm 27:8)

 

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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (II Chronicles 7:14)

 

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, a young man gets to take a bus trip from the edge of Hell to the borders of Heaven. It’s an interesting story, and I recommend you read it. The key point from the story at the moment is that he discovers that everything is painfully substantial at the border of Heaven. Grass is edged and sharp. An apple weighs a hundred pounds (or more.) Raindrops can do the damage of bullets. The residents of Heaven who come out to meet the tourists come in hopes of convincing them to stay, and promise that during the trip from the border to Heaven itself, they will gain the strength and substantiality to interact with their environment in what we’d consider a normal way.

The first part of today’s passage brought the story to mind. Our inner being needs to be strengthened so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. This brings to mind the verses above about not being able to see God’s face and live, but the Lord spoke to Moses face-to-face, David vows to seek the Lord’s face, and God tells Israel that if they humble themselves, pray, seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, He will respond.

One answer to the mystery of this apparent contradiction is that there are two different ideas being expressed. Seeing God’s face (Exodus 33:20) is not the same (somehow) as what Moses did when he spoke to God face-to-face or the result of our seeking His face. A does not equal B. One way in which this might be the case is if, in the culture known to Moses and the Israelites, “seeing” the face of the Pharoah, or of any of the gods in the Egyptian pantheon had a specific meaning. One example that comes to mind is Esther. If anyone appeared in Xerxes’ courtroom without permission, unless he extended his scepter to that person, the person would be killed.

But, given what is said in Ephesians 3, another possibility is that one can be made able to see His face and live, so that our desire to seek His face can lead us into a condition in which doing so isn’t deadly, as allegorically depicted in The Great Divorce. It also fits with the passage in Ephesians as it continues. Paul prays that we may have the power to grasp the immensity of Christ’s love – to know what is beyond our power to know except by the grace of Christ.