The Manifestation of YAHWEH
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On Wednesday, my children received a book of riddles as a gift and have been asking us all riddles nearly non stop since then. The have been some good ones, some classic ones, some interesting ones, and all are fun ones.
One of my favorites is the classic misdirection riddle. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife had seven sacks. Every Sack had seven cats. Every cat had seven kits. Kits, Cats, Sacks, and Wives, how many were going to St Ives?
You might be tempted to start doing math and debating whether the cats and kittens should be included in the number, but the answer is simply one. As *I* was going to St. Ives.
Riddles are great to make us observant and think creatively. It’s been fun to work through several with my children.
I believe it was Friday evening when I asked my children, “Hey, did you know that Jesus once asked the Pharisees a riddle?
The Pharisees had been asking Jesus questions trying to trap him get him to say things that would either discredit him to the people, or else cause Rome to take notice and put him into custody, and Jesus wasn’t taking the bait.
Finally Jesus turns the tables on the them and asks them a question:
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question,
saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”
He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?
If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
Jesus asked them a riddle, and they could not solve it. They had no answer. I asked Yaqar, and she knew the answer! He can be David’s son because he is descended from the line of David, and yet He is David’s Lord, because he is God!
This concept of the Messiah being both divine and human was present even within the OT, but the Pharisees had completely missed and could not make sense of the riddle.
Last week we talked about Jesus being truly human and what that means for us. This week we are going to talk about divinity of Christ. He is LORD.
I’d like to begin by taking us back to the OT to one of if not THE most important text in the entire Old Testament.
Let’s go back to Ex 34.
By way of setting the context,
The story of Exodus is, of course, the story of how God led the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt and confirmed His covenant with them. The Lord led the people to Mt. Sinai, took Moses up onto the mountain, and revealed His Law and covenant to Moses. In Ex 24, the people listened Moses as he read:
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”
Moses then returns to the mountain to receive more instruction from the Lord, and the chapters that follow (25-31) contain additional law and commandments from the Lord. It is during this time that trouble is brewing in the camp. The people are concerned with how long it is taking Moses to return to them, and the Golden Calf Episode unfolds (Ex 32:1-6). The Lord is angry with the people for so quickly abandoning their commitment to the covenant, but Moses intercedes for them that Yahweh might stay His hand (Ex 32:11-13). The LORD relents, but as Moses comes down the mountain with the tablets containing the Law, he sees what God saw earlier and in his fury over people for their idolatry breaks the tablets God made that contained the Law.
After disciplinary measures are carried out, the Lord states that He will no longer be the one to lead them into the promised land but rather will send an angel to lead them:
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
This is truly a heartbreaking moment, and the people are understandably distraught (Ex 33:4).
When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments.
What follows might be described as one of the most audacious interactions between a human being and the Lord. Moses pleads with the Lord that He would be with them as they enter the land, but more than that, he seems to desire a tangible demonstration that the Lord will not forsake him and the people, so he makes this request:
And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”
Moses has asked to see the glory of Yahweh. And Yahweh says yes!
The full glory will not be revealed, for a mere mortal human cannot endure that, but Moses will see a glimpse of the glory of the Lord. As chapter 34 begins, Yahweh calls Moses back up the mountain so that He might write again the law on tablets to replace the ones Moses broke (34:1) and it is here that the Lord reveals His glory to Moses and makes the proclamation of His nature in Ex 34:6-7.
Reviewing this background is necessary for at least three reasons.
First, it establishes the covenantal context of God’s revelation to Moses. This is in the context of God ratifying the Mosaic covenant with the people, that they would be his people and He would be their God, that He would bring them into the land and establish them if they would obey.
Second, it establishes the character context of the people of Israel, who, though they had enthusiastically agreed to the covenant, had quickly and consistently fallen into patterns of disobedience and rebellion such that the Lord called them “obstinate.”
Third, it establishes the relational context of Moses intercessory work between the people and the Lord as he sought assurance that the LORD would indeed be with them and not forsake them.
A look ahead at the passage that follows reveals Lord renewing His covenant with His people (34:10), thus marking the self-revelation of His nature to Moses as a crucial hinge-point in the narrative.
What bridges the breaking of the covenant and the renewal of the covenant?
Nothing other than the grandest statement of who God is contained in the Old Testament:
Let’s read Ex 34:6-7.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
This is who The LORD is.
Exodus 34:6-7 succinctly declares the character and nature of God. It is worth noting that up until this point, Yahweh’s self-descriptions have been limited and what God is like is mostly revealed to us by His actions and through the descriptions from other characters in the Bible. Prior to this, the most important revelation of who God is is found earlier in this same book in Exodus 3:14 where the LORD declared that His name is “I AM WHO I AM.” Which most commentators take to mean something akin to “I am the one who is” or “I am the one who is there” and have identified this as the covenant name of the LORD. He is the self-existent one, the God who is there, the one who is there for Moses and the people of Israel. It is through that text and Ex 34 that we have the most complete picture of what God is like in His nature and character. It is here that Yahweh establishes how he will relate to His people. The weight of this interaction cannot be overstated.
How does the LORD describe Himself? First, He uses His name twice in succession: “The LORD, the LORD God”. You might notice the all caps in your Bible with the word “Lord”. This indicates that underlying Hebrew is the name Yahweh, which is the Lord’s name. Lord is a title. God is what he is. Yahweh is his name.
The repetition of the His name is likely the LORD placing emphasis upon His own name and “focuses attention on the one being spoken of” as one author wrote, that he is
“emphasizing the reality of Yahweh present in his very being, linking this proof to Moses to the earlier proof-of-Presence narratives that are begun in Exod. 3, and providing another anchor line for the list of five descriptive phrases to follow, phrases that define how Yahweh, “The One Who Always Is,” really is.[2]
Thus, within the context of covenant renewal and Moses’ request to see the tangible presence of the LORD, Yahweh begins with this repetition of His name as if to say, “It really is Me, and this is what I am like.”
From there, the descriptors follow. He is merciful or some translations say compassionate. The Hebrew word “pertaining to showing favor, and not punishment as is often deserved, implying a forgiving relationship.[3] This word “speaks of a gut-level, emotional reaction of sympathy and tender-hearted mercy. It is related to רֶחֶם (“guts, womb”)”[4]
He is gracious. The word used here is a word that is only used of the LORD through the entire Old Testament (Ex 22:27; 34:6; 2 Chron 30:9; Neh 9:17, 31; Ps 86:15, 103:8, 111:4, 112:2, 116:5, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2), and in 12 of the 13 usages is paired with “merciful/compassionate” or the related verb “to have compassion”. He is a gracious and merciful God.
The mercy of the Lord is a wonderful thing.
I was recently in a situation where I had to ask forgiveness from someone for a sin I had committed. That individual was under no obligation to respond as they did, but as it was, I received mercy and grace.
If he had been angry with me, I would have deserved that. But I received mercy. If it would have been just for this human to be upset, imagine the wrath that should have come from the Lord! And yet, I received mercy there as well. How do I know? Well, I’m standing before you today, aren’t I?
God is merciful and gracious.
Next it says
He is slow to anger. This phrase is a Hebrew idiom. Literally “long of nose”. To have a short nose is to have a short tempter. Another author wrote that “’long of nose’ is the opposite of being hot-tempered or easily angered… It implies that YHWH’s immediate response to an affront is forbearance rather than retaliation.” (Garrett)
This is descriptor is particularly important in the context of covenant renewal. In a context where the LORD has been angry with people, it is not because He is easily set off. Though they have provoked Him incessantly, because of his forbearance, he is willing to renew the covenant with them.
Think of the implications of that in your own life. Are you often slow to obey? Slow to understand? Slow to learn what God wants to teach you?
And yet he is slow to anger. He is patient. What would it look like if God displayed the level of patience that you display waiting for your food at a restaurant, or driving in traffic with bad drivers? Yikes, huh?
But that’s not how he is! He is slow to anger!
The next descriptor is “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” which some translations render “lovingkindness and and truth” followed by “keeping steadfast love”
God is described as “abounding in” or “being rich in” and “keeping” steadfast love or lovingkindness. This word is used 245 times in the Old Testament, and in a variety of different contexts. Most often it carries the concept of “loyal love”[6] or a “disposition of kindness”[7] toward someone. God’s disposition of kindness to His people speaks of His covenant loyalty. He is not begrudgingly keeping His covenant merely because He feels obligated to keep a promise. He does so out of a loyal love and disposition of kindness toward His people.
A abounds in faithfulness. NASB says truth. This communicates the trustworthiness of the Lord. He is truthful. He is faithful. He is dependable. He is sure.
I used to work with a couple of guys that you never knew if they were going to show up on time or not. One guy was supposed to be our team leader for a while, and there would be times when he was late or just didn’t show up at all. Furthermore, when he did show up, there were many times where you have no idea if he was telling the truth about a variety of things. He couldn’t be trusted or depended upon, and eventually he was let go.
That’s not how God is. He is more like the guy who always shows up on time, and who you can always count on to be truthful. He’s dependable. He’s trustworthy.
Next the LORD says that he “forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin”. The word for “forgives” literally means to lift or carry away. The God who is there is willing to remove sin from the equation. The triplet of “iniquity, transgression, and sin” communicates the vastness of God’s forgiveness. As one writer put it, he forgives “all manner of sin. There are no degrees or types of sin that are beyond YHWH’s power or willingness to forgive.”
Have you ever struggled to forgive someone, even if they have expressed their sorrow for their sin and ask for forgiveness? I know I have.
Can you imagine if God was like that with you? We’d really be in trouble!
Psalm 130:3–4 “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.”
The vastness of the forgiveness offered, however, should not be viewed as a license to sin with immunity. Though the LORD is more than willing to forgive those who come humbly before Him, those who persist in unrepentant sin should expect to receive the disciple of the LORD. The LORD will “visit” the sin, a concept that means “to attend to” and when used in the context of sin, refers to judgment or punishment.[10]
This concluding formula is itself a reference back to the Ten Commandments in Ex 20 where the Lord says,
You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments (Ex 20:5-6).
The same God who is willing to forgive is also jealous for his worship, and those who transgress should not assume a “general amnesty”[11] for their crimes. Thus, though the Lord is a forgiving God, He is also a God of justice and will act accordingly.
In the context of covenant renewal, this is an important reminder and warning. God is merciful and gracious, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and he will forgive! But those who receive the benefits of that are those who come in humility and faith before him.
Those who persist in transgressing the covenant, those who remain in unbelief, those who insist upon ongoing rebellion should not expect to find such mercy. God is still a God of justice. He doesn’t overlook sin. He forgives sin in the repentant. But he doesn’t overlook it.
I said at the outset of today’s text that this is arguably THE single most important text in the OT, and I have reasons for saying that. This is the single most referenced OT text within the OT itself.
No other passage in the entirety of the Old Testament is quoted, alluded to, or referenced more often within the Old Testament itself more than this text right here.
We don’t have time to go through every passage where it is used, but believe me when I say I was tempted to when preparing.
But I am going to simply summarize how this text is typically used by later writers.
Let’s remember the context of this text. Covenant renewal. A desire for the personal presence of Yahweh as they enter the land.
Moses refers back to this text when he calls the people to be faithful to the Lord as they enter the promised land in Deut 4.
Hezekiah used this text when he calls the people to repentance and urges them to trust in the character of God in 2 Chron 30:9.
Multiple psalms contain references to Ex 34 as the authors ask forgiveness for sin, help in difficult times, or offer a response of worship to the Lord because of the gracious work of God.
Ezra and Nehemiah both use Ex 34 as they call the people to live faithfully to the Lord as they return to the Land, Nehemiah prays that God would honor the promises of Ex 34 as the people come before him in repentance.
The Prophets use the text to urge their audience to repentance because of the character of God as they cry out “Repent, and be confident that God will forgive, he will act. He will do so because this is who he is! He is a forgiving God!
Even the pagan Ninevites received the mercy of God, which Jonah recognized was consistent with the character of God as revealed in Ex 34.
This is your God. Come to him. Worship him. Rest in who he is.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself.
That’s all well and good, pastor Kenn. But today is Christmas Eve. Isn’t this supposed to be a Christmas sermon?
Well, I’m only just getting started. As they say “But wait, there’s more”
Turn with me over to John chapter one.
This was the most quoted and referenced text in the OT, but what about the NT?
For as often as this text is referenced in the OT, it is startling to realize that it is never quoted directed, not even a single time, in the entire NT.
But the NT often refers back to OT texts without quoting the text directly, and this is what is often called an allusion. The NT writers allude to OT texts, such that those who have an eye to see the connection can identify what’s going on, but they do so without a direct quotation.
How do we identify such allusions?
First, we start with the assumption that the NT writers knew their bibles well. They were incredibly biblically literate individuals, which is evident in all the times they do directly quote the OT, in addition to alluding to it.
Second, we look for linguistic parallels. Words or phrases that carry significant theological weight used in similar contexts would indicate a linguistic link to an earlier text. We are dealing with Greek in the NT, and Hebrew in the OT, but the NT writers often relied on the Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT.
Third, we look for thematic parallels. Even when linguistic links might be tenuous, authors can use other words that carry a similar meaning and they are drawing their inspiration from the earlier OT text. There are places in the NT where it seems that the authors are actually translating directly from the Hebrew instead of relying on the Septuagint version of a particular text and they use different words than the Septuagint, but nevertheless quoting or alluding to the OT text.
All that to say, as we look through the NT, there no direct quotations of Ex 34, and there are only two texts that might carry enough linguistic and thematic parallels to Ex 34 to warrant us identifying an allusion, and I’m going to argue that one of those texts is John 1, vs 14 and 17.
First, the context.
John’s Gospel begins rather uniquely when compared to the other Gospel accounts. Matthew and Luke begin with genealogies and birth narratives, while Mark jumps right into the preparatory work of John the Baptist before going directly into the ministry of Jesus. In contrast to these narrative beginnings, John begins with a theological treatise on the ontological nature of Jesus Christ: He is eternal (vs 1-2), the creator (vs 3, 10), the source of life and light (vs 4, 9).
After establishing Jesus—the “Word”—as the eternal creator come to bring life and light, John turns his attention to the incarnation and its significance in vs 14-18.
John writes that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”.
God taking up residence with his people carries massive theological weight. If you recall, the issue of God’s presence was the lead-up to Moses’ request to see the glory of God in Exodus 33.
Because of the sin of the people, God threatened first to destroy the people, and then to bring the people into the land but refrain from personally leading the people Himself, and Moses intercedes culminating in the exchange: “If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here” (Ex 33:15). After God relents and assures Moses He will go with them, Moses utters that famous (infamous?) request: “show me your glory!” (Ex 33:18).
Moses was desperate for a physical manifestation of the presence of God, and John says that Jesus Christ is the physical dwelling of the Yahweh on earth! He dwelt among us!
But he doesn’t stop there.
First, John says that humanity beheld the glory of God in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Again, this harkens back to Moses’ request to see the glory of God and God’s self-revelation to Moses in response. Exodus 34 contains the fullest and most complete description and self-revelation of God found anywhere in the Old Testament, and it came at a moment when God was revealing His glory to Moses.
As John identifies the Word incarnate as manifesting the glory of God, he is making the connection to the Ex 33-34 text and the concept of self-revelation in such a way as to declare the appearance of Jesus on earth as the further self-revelation of God. As Köstenberger notes “John’s purpose in adducing these OT antecedent passages is to locate Jesus at the climactic end of the spectrum of God’s self-disclosure to his people”
John goes on to saya the Word is “full of grace and truth.” in vs 14 and 17. Once again there is a clear connection to Ex 34:6, which states “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;” The Greek words from John’s text neatly correspond to the Hebrew words located in Exodus 34.
Another author wrote this:
The use of “glory” and “grace and truth” in v. 14, therefore, implies that God’s original expression of covenantal faithfulness to his people, Israel, has been transcended. The sending of the “unique Son” from the Father is the ultimate expression and source of God’s covenantal faithfulness. The unique Word-become-flesh is God’s glory and covenantal faithfulness.”[5]
Moses sought to have a physical manifestation of the presence of God by asking to see the glory of God. God responded by providing the richest self-revelation of God that had ever existed—until Christ appeared on the earth.
In Christ the covenant faithfulness of God was on full display. His glory was revealed throughout His earthly ministry, and He embodied the divine attributes of grace and truth. This is none other than Yahweh in human flesh!
The first song we sang today was Angels from the Realms of Glory.
One of the verses was
Though an infant now we view Him
He shall fill his Father’s throne
Gather all the nations to Him
Every knee shall then bow down
Come and worship! Come and Worship! Worship Christ the newborn king!
Jesus is Yahweh in human flesh. Everything we learn about our God in Ex 34 is displayed ultimately in Jesus Christ. The mercy and grace of God. His covenant faithfulness. The forgiveness of sins, and even the judgment on the unrepentant. Jesus fulfills it all.
Often Christmas is a time of year filled with nostalgia. That’s okay. The lights are beautiful. The Songs are nice.
But it always good to be reminded of why there is a celebration in the first place. Last week we considered the important of the humanity of Christ.
Here we see his divinity.
The babe lying the in manger will grow to eventually die on the cross for the sins of the world. He promises forgiveness and life to all those who will come to him by faith.
And you can trust that promise because of his character. Because of who he is. He is Yahweh. The Lord. The Lord God. Merciful and Gracious. Slow to Anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping Steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the father on the children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation.
Behold. Your. God.
Who has sat enthroned as God on High
Who left that to come to earth to die.
Yahweh, born on earth come as a man
God en-fleshed fulfilling His grand plan