“And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

Skeptics sometimes complain that if there really were a God, why doesn’t He simply show up? The Bible has two responses.

First, as today’s verse suggests, if God did “simply show up,” His glorious, radiant holiness would obliterate any nearby sinners. For this reason, He hid His full glory when He did show up. For instance, during Moses’ ministry, “on the third day in the morning,…there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16).

Indeed, “clouds and darkness are round about him” (Psalm 97:2), and “he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies” (2 Samuel 22:12).

God once took the form of a man to hide His glory enough for Jacob to wrestle Him. “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [face of God]: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30).

Last, what do these dealings reveal? His grace! In His grace He shows up in ways that preserve even the wicked. He shields us from His overwhelming brightness because “the Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). “Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart...that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered” (Joel 2:12, 32). “We shall be saved from wrath through him” (Romans 5:9), for “he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2), even the skeptic. BDT