Moses doubts

Listening to: Bob Dylan: Blonde on Blonde

Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.”

Then the LORD said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

But he said, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses

(Exodus 4:10-13)

Moses turned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.”

But the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’”

(Exodus 5:22-6:8)

In the both passages Moses doubts.

In the first passage Moses doubts God's power and God is angry.

In the second passage Moses doubts God's good purposes and God promises he will save and then Moses will stop doubting.

Leithart says of Barth:

What does Barth make of the “Name” theology of the OT? It shows that Israel must know God a “second time,” not only as hidden God but as revealed God. To know the name is to know God as partner in covenant (317-18).

The hidden God is the God of power only. His purposes are uncertain.

The revealed God is the God of both power and good purposes.

With thanks to Jim H

Pulling away the mask

God's providence is striking sometimes. This evening I was flicking through The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes and came across him saying something remarkably similar to my last post...

`But for all this, I feel not Christ so to me,' says the smoking flax, `but rather the clean contrary. He seems to be an enemy to me. I see and feel evidences of his just displeasure:

Christ may act the part of an enemy a little while, as Joseph did, but it is to make way for acting his own part of mercy in a more seasonable time. He cannot restrain his bowels of mercy long. He seems to wrestle with us, as with Jacob, but he supplies us with hidden strength to prevail at length. Faith pulls off the mask from his face and sees a loving heart under contrary appearances. Fides Christo larvam detrahit (Faith pulls away the mask from Christ).

The Hidden God

"O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?" (Ps 88:14)

TF Torrance, and others, critique a Christianity with a "God behind the back of Jesus Christ" (p.248, The Christian Doctrine of God). Rightly, Torrance is concerned that for many people Jesus is the friendly face of God, but behind the mask they believe that there stands the more fundamental, more true and more complete God who predestines some to salvation/damnation and causes earthquakes etc. Torrance and others therefore reject the long-standing theology of the "Hidden God".

But there is better option and that is to understand the Hidden God is God wearing the mask of his wrath and not the God behind the mask. I.e. the Hidden God is not the God behind the mask, but the mask itself. Jesus Christ is where that mask is removed and we see God as he truly and completely is. As far as I understand it that is what Luther (and others) mean when they vigorously teach the Hidden God. For someone so saturated in both the Psalms and experience as Luther this is understandable. In several Psalms we read the Psalmist addressing the Revealed God, asking why he is the Hidden God in their experience. As Oswald Bayer notes, the Hidden God "does not allow himself to be addressed directly" so the prayer of the Psalmist is always addressed the Revealed God. They appeal to the Revealed God to act consistently with who he has revealed himself to be in his past works, promises, and supremely in Jesus Christ.

Why does God hide himself? The only answer we ever get is because of our sin. It was because of our sin that he hid himself behind the curtains of the Tabernacle and the walls of the Temple. It was because of sin that he refused to listen to prayers of rebellious Israel. But in the Gospel we are promised that the hiding is over, the curtain has been torn.

There are still experiences and even doctrines where he is hidden to us. To deny that is to walk by sight and not by faith, over-realise our eschatology, and cut us off from any point of contact with non-Christians living in this present evil age. But for Christians we know there is a time and place where we can see God and address him. Through Jesus Christ we can see through to the future, the Most Holy Place and God the Father. To those with intellectual and heartfelt questions about the God who is hidden to them we point them to Jesus Christ where we can really see who God is.