MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 34:27-32
DIVINE REVELATION
Divine revelation is the communication by God to man of certain facts, doctrines, duties, for instruction, comfort, or practice, which would not otherwise have been discovered. Our text may be used as covering the whole revelation of God’s character and will as contained in the Bible. We remark—
I. That Divine revelation is the result of Divine inspiration. “And He was there with the Lord.” It is no human conjecture, however true. It is no inference, however correct, from existing facts; but information directly derived from the presence of Divine wisdom and Divine power.
II. That Divine revelation is made through a human medium. In some cases God has sent angels to communicate His truth; but even those communications have only reached the people through the appointed medium. We earn therefore—
1. That the inspired man is only the medium, and must not be treated as the revealer.
2. The way to account for variations of style and apparent discrepancies. The thought is God’s, the words are man’s.
III. That Divine revelation is infallible on the one hand, intelligible on the other.
1. Infallible.
(1) As regards authority. “All that the Lord had spoken to him.” A most conspicuous fact in God’s Word is, that inspired men disclaim all originality and speak “in the name of the Lord.”
(2) As regards completeness. “All that the Lord had spoken.” Inspired men claim to “declare all the counsel of God.” The Book claims to be a revelation of “all things pertaining to life and godliness.”
2. Intelligible. Being through man, God’s thoughts are presented in a form adapted to the conditions of the human intellect, in words man can understand.
IV. That Divine revelation is binding upon man. “He gave them commandment.”
1. God does not speak for nothing. It cannot be supposed that having spoken He would leave it to man, whether he obeyed or disobeyed. Nor can it be supposed that man is at liberty to pick and choose as to what he shall accept and what reject. The whole counsel of God, because it is His counsel, is binding upon man.
2. It is binding because only by obeying God’s laws, and following the lines indicated by God’s wisdom and goodness, that man’s well-being can be secured mentally, morally, and spiritually. Learn then—
i. To value this revelation. ii. To treat it reverently, not to cavil at its apparent discrepancies, &c. iii. To make it the one rule of our faith and practice.—J. W. Burn.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Law-Lights! Exodus 34:1-35. Pressense says, that whatever opinions men may hold as to the integrity of that primitive witness, all must own that it contains pages in which one beholds, as it were, the reflection of the lustre which caused Moses’s face to shine when he held converse with God. It has ever been the pious mind which has through the eyes beheld the chain of revelation and the long series of Divine manifestations gradually unwind themselves. Just as they that watch for the morning gaze out from the height of the tower, longing with inexpressible desire for the approach of dawn; so does religious consciousness cast glances of fire upon the horizon as she looks out for the Divine Sunrise. The whole of the Old Testament pants and throbs with this Divine yearning, and it also shows us the finger of God writing in the heart of man the great preparation for the Gospel. The angels ever
“Draw strength from gazing on its glance,
Though none its meaning fathom may;
The Word’s unwithered countenance
Is bright as at Mount Sinai’s day.”
—Goëthe.
Spiritual-Sustenance! Exodus 34:28.
(1.) In the beautiful transparent amber of the Eocene epoch are often found threads of mould, fragments of moss and lichens, blossoms and leaves of flower-bearing plants, as well as wings of bees and butterflies. Nature has preserved these things of the past—things, too, which, apparently small and insignificant, open up to the mind’s eye a wide vista into the mysterious past. So in the precious amber of the Bible are preserved incidents and statements, remnants of thought and blossomings of truth. To the careless readers these may appear trivial; but they are infinitely suggestive to those who examine them.
(2.) One of the most interesting and suggestive is that of Moses existing for forty days without nature’s bountiful stores. He was fed by the melodies of heaven, the music of the spheres, as the beautiful Jewish legend says, until God’s purposes were accomplished, and then he returned to the common mode of sustaining life. It teaches that bread has no essential or necessary relations to the bodily organisation of man, that human life can be sustained independently of material means, and that, as God Himself is the nourisher, He can, when He pleases, dispense with the mere outward instrumentality, and feed by His own direct and unveiled sustaining power—
“O Lord, Thou hast with angel food my fainting spirit fed;
If ’tis Thy will I linger here, bless Thou the path I tread;
And though my soul doth pant to pass within the pearly gate,
Yet teach me for Thy summons, Lord, in patience still to wait.”
—Shipton.
Written Word! Exodus 34:28.
(1.) In proportion as a nation becomes civilised, the desire for a code of written law increases along with the knowledge of its desirableness. Our forefathers wandered as savages amid the wilds, relying upon oral traditions, which became more and more degenerate. And so in these Gentile religions, all alive with hideous and abominable idolatries, who could believe that this is what man has made of that oral revelation vouchsafed to Noah, so clear and pellucid in its Ararat outflow?
(2.) When civilisation disclosed their degenerate conditions to our ancestors, they felt the need of a written code of laws and enactments; and these are embodied in our statutes called the Law of the Land. The condition of the world at large, and of Israel in Egypt, evidenced the moral necessity for a written law. Even amidst the awful glories of Sinai, Israel learned from its own tendency to degenerate how urgently essential it was to have the written Word.
“Thy Word, O God, is living yet
Amid earth’s restless strife,
New harmony creating still,
And ever higher life.
And as that Word moves surely on,
The light, ray after ray,
Streams farther out athwart the dark,
And night grows into day.”
—Longfellow.
Fellowship-Fruits! Exodus 34:29-35.
(1.) For forty days successively, the great Jewish legislator was concealed on the summit of Mount Sinai, within the thick darkness by which the glory of Jehovah was veiled from the less-favoured eyes of the multitude. In this prophetic seclusion, separated from the world, his mind took deeply and strongly the impress of heaven. By communion with God his soul was saturated with the light of His holiness. His countenance by a spiritual affinity caught the celestial radiance and reflected it with dazzling brightness. On his descent from the mount, this splendour from the Divine Presence continued to shine on his face, that Aaron beheld it while he talked with him, and all the children of Israel were afraid to come nigh.
(2.) Brown says his face was radiant, and dispersing beams like many horns or cones about his head; which is also consonant unto the original signification. Our Saviour and the Virgin Mary are commonly painted with scintillations or radiant halos about their head, which by the French are designated the glory. In some of the ancient Bibles, Moses is described with horns. The same description we find on a silver medal, i.e., upon one side Moses horned, and on the reverse side the commandment against sculptured images. The believer’s walk and conversation should be thus encircled with “horns of glory,” rays of the beauties of holiness.
“Ne’er let the glory from my soul remove,
Till perfect with Thy ransomed flock above,
I cease to sin, but never cease to love.”