Manifestation of God

See Ex. 33; 34 John 1-10
"He that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek
And yet, surely, this diligent seeking of God is to be conducted by us in our true character. We are not to seek Him as wise ones, or as righteous ones, as those who are either competent to know Him, or worthy to reach Him, of themselves. Our diligent seeking is to be in such character as, without disguise or doubt, we bear in His presence. The schools may make Him their subject to discuss Him, but that is not the seeking of faith, When faith would seek Him, it is a sinner that is seeking Him-and He is found of such. The revelation is then made; and the soul, in more or less brightness, walks in the light of the Lord.
And this light in which the sinner that has sought Him walks, is full light. God must come forth in all His goodness ere a sinner can walk with Him. Partial revelation of Himself will not do for a sinner. It would keep him still at a distance. It must be "all His goodness," His full glory, "the glory of God in the face of Jesus." This, but this only, will do for a sinner. And that is the light of the Lord. It is the revelation of Himself. And blessed is the thought, that God fully revealed, and a, sinner thoroughly convicted, may meet, and do meet, and that for eternity.
The woman of Samaria in John 4 was convicted. But she continued in the light that had convicted her - and thus, her vessel being opened, she was ready to receive what Christ was to her, and had for her. "I that speak unto thee am He," said Jesus, shortly after - and her heart was filled, and filled forever.
This may suggest the general character of John's gospel to us.
"The Word " is the characteristic title of the Son in that gospel; because He is the One who declares God, and reveals or manifests the Father.
Accordingly, when returning, in spirit, to the Father, as at the end of His ministry, in chap. 17, and laying down that ministry as now fulfilled, He says " I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world." And accordingly, also, at the end of His days, on earth, in chap. 18, He says, when answering the Roman governor, " to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."
For, the Lord is not a judge, but a witness, in this divine gospel by John; not a judge of man but a witness of God. And that is by far the higher character. God is His object and subject, as I may say. To declare Him, to manifest the Father, is His business. The law may publish rules of righteousness, making man its object; the prophets may tell of divine counsels making God's purposes and plans and government their object; but God Himself is Christ's object-to declare Him or to reveal the Father, is the purpose and business of the Son.
And this revelation of God, which is thus the business of the Word made flesh, is, really, the important thing in the moral history of this world. But the thought of man's heart is different. Man makes himself principal; even religious man does so. To have his heart regulated, his ways ordered, his character improved and cultivated, and the good estate of the scene in -which he has his daily being, maintained and advanced, this is the great end or object, according to the religious thoughts and moral energies of man. As we may see in chap. 9. The disciples say to Jesus, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind." They were thinking of law and of retribution, making man the principal in the religious speculations of their mind. But the Lord's answer shows us which was principal with Him. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." According to this, the regulation of man, or the ordering of the world in moral retributive power, was not the great thing, but the revelation of God.
Here, however, we are to introduce ourselves to another truth.
In this revelation of God, which the Lord Jesus thus made principal in the moral history of the world, the sinner's salvation is involved. It would not be a manifestation of God, if it did not suit itself to the need of sinners. There are secrets, divine secrets, secrets about the blessed One, which would be kept back in any dispensation, but that of grace to sinners. God would have no sphere for the making of Himself fully known, but in a self-ruined world. So that, while in John's gospel, the Son is "the Word," or the declarer of God, we find Him fulfilling that ministry in the midst of sinners, and none else. He refuses to shine in any glory but that of the light of life. He will be a judge in due time, He will be a king in due time, He will skew Himself to the world in the appointed day of power-but all this, in John's gospel, He refuses. He was the light of life. The glory that was in Him was full of grace and truth, a glory suited to sinners, and He would not be a judge or a king, a doer of wonders according to His mother's wish in John 2, nor an exhibitor of Himself to the world, according to His brothers' wish in John 7. He was the light of life, and that only. His business was to declare God, to manifest the Father, and that must be, in grace to sinners.
This is simple, and shows itself with self-widening certainty and clearness in John's gospel.
But being this, being the light of life, He is " the light of the world" also. He is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He passes partition-walls. He is not merely in the' midst of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as in Matthew, but He is for " as Many as received Him." He does not, in John, say, as to a Syro-phoenician, " Let the children first be filled;" but at once revealing Himself in fullest, richest grace to a sinner of the Samaritans, He says, " I that speak unto thee am He." And He will abide two days in a village of that people, finding in Sychar of Samaria the home most suited to Him on earth, next to Bethany of Judea. For Bethany or Sychar, Samaritans or Jews, will do equally well for Him who is the light of life, the light of the world, the Savior of sinners.
But further. If God thus reveal Himself, it is the way of faith to look and to listen.. Faith desires, and receives this invitation. " Abraham rejoiced to see my day," says the Lord, " and he saw it and was glad."
In Ex. 33, Moses exhibits the yearnings of a soul 'after a full manifestation of God. The moral ruin of man, that is of Israel, was at that moment under his eye. But before that moment, he had been a witness of the glory of God at the foot of the fiery hill, where the law was delivered. And he had likewise been with the elders of Israel in the presence of the God of Israel, on the hill, after the sending of the national or conditional covenant (chaps. 20 and 24). But he now craved more. Neither of these manifestations of God gave God to him in such a character as suited sinners, or that condition of ruin which now formed the scene before him. The fiery hill presented God as the righteous exacter of righteousness. The hill of the presence of Jehovah, where the Lord of Israel was in His majesty, presented God as in the terms and bonds of a conditional covenant with His people. But such things would not do for Moses now. The breach of the law, the sin of Israel, made other things needful-but such things he blessedly believed were to be found in God, and that neither the foot of the fiery hill, nor the top of the mount itself, had given him all that God was. God, he knew, was not yet fully manifested, because the sinner was not yet fully relieved. Blessed this impression on the spirit of Moses was I Therefore, "Show me thy glory," was now his cry. Man, in his ruins, was before him, and God in His full glory must be before him also.
There was something truly beautiful and excellent in this. Moses apprehended that there must be more in God than he had yet reached, because as yet the revelation of Him had not suited itself to man as a sinner, in moral ruin. And the Lord answers this yearning of the soul; for "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." He passes by in his full glory. "All His goodness" passes by; and He satisfies Moses, though Moses still looks on man as ruined, or Israel as a stiff-necked people (see chap. 34:9). He asks for no further manifestation. God in full glory, God in all that He is, was what he needed in behalf of his self-ruined people; and having got that, all that he craved now, was the presence and company of the Blessed One, whom he had now seen and heard.
And, indeed, it is blessed to add, that in this manifestation of God, man is hid. The people were all present, -at the giving of the law, in chap. 20. The elders were on the mount, in the divine presence, occupying their place there as truly and as really as the God of Israel occupied His place, during the great transaction of chap. 24, for Israel was a, necessary party to the conditional covenant. But now, in chap. 31 the people are not present, none but Moses, and he is hid, and God. alone is manifested and declared; and Moses has but to look and to listen, forth from the cleft rock, where like -sovereign grace had assigned him and provided him a place.
Surely, this was a blessed moment in Old Testament times. Moses craved and got, in spirit, what the Son of the bosom, the Word made flesh, who is the light of life, has now brought to us sinners, in our place of guilt and ruin. With this difference, however, Moses sought this manifestation, the Son has brought it unsought. Moses got it as for himself, the Son has given it, that sinners, as sinners whosoever will, may walk in the light of it.
And happy still to add, that as Moses found this manifestation of God to be enough for him, so do all those in John's gospel, who come to Jesus, find Him enough for them. Their joy and liberty are secured. Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, and the Samaritan, and the convicted sinner, and the blind beggar, one and all, equally and fully prove this.
"O house of Israel, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord."
The day broke upon Jacob himself at Peniel; and then his path lay over a plain illuminated and gladdened by the face of God. It was a little heaven to him, a brighter, fairer heaven, than when at Bethel he saw the angels ascending and descending on the ladder. The halting of his thigh was not cared for, by reason of the face of God. A man may surely be content to walk lamely, if his path be across Peniel.
And let me add, in John's gospel, ruined man is not so much exposed as taken up. A full and perfect state of -moral ruin is rather assumed than proved; and God comes, in the Son, to act in healing light. This is rather what we get there. We see one sinner after another -walking in the light, after this healing manifestation of God has visited him. It is not Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, as they had been in the flesh, but Andrew and Philip and Nathanael, in the life-giving light of Jesus. Flesh is not exposed, so much as renewed man, free and happy, is presented-man freshly called into that knowledge of God which is life eternal, and walking in the light, as man new-made.