“... but here is a place beside me where you can stand on a rock. When the dazzling light of my presence passes by, I will put you in an opening in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back but not my face.” Exodus 33:21-23,GNT

 

At once the Spirit took control of me. There in heaven was a throne with someone sitting on it. His face gleamed like such precious stones as jasper and carnelian, and all round the throne there was a rainbow the colour of an emerald. Revelation 4:2-3, GNT

 

Moses and John – two people who lived in different eras, more than a thousand years apart, but who in a very special way experienced God as a “Person”. We all have a picture of God, maybe yours is influenced by the one that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Nobody really knows what God does look like, but what we know from these and other Bible verses is that he is a person.

 

What we read about in the first verse for today happened a few hundred years after the Israelites arrived in Egypt. During this time, they were exposed to a new way of life and the religion and gods of Egypt. Moses himself grew up in the palace of the pharaoh. When he first met God at Horeb, all he saw was a burning bush and he heard a voice. At Sinai, which is the same mountain as Horeb, he saw God in person.

 

When John was on the island of Patmos, the Spirit of God took control of him and he saw a throne with someone sitting on it. This “someone” is described as follows: “His face gleamed like such precious stones as jasper and carnelian”.

 

Both Moses and John saw God as a person. Why is it so important that we think about God as a person and not just as a being? Because that is how he revealed himself in the Bible to help us to encounter him as Moses and John experienced.

 

We as humans would have found it very difficult to relate to a being rather than to a personal God. The closest humans could ever come to God was when he came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ who came to live amongst us. “We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son.” (John 1:14b)

 

Prayer: Dear Lord, it is difficult for us to understand who you are. Please help us to see you as a person through your Word. Amen