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Exodus 33

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1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, "Depart, go up from here, you and the people that you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, 'I will give it to your seed.'

2 I will send an angel before you; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:

3 to a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of you, for you are a stiff-necked people, lest I consume you in the way."

4 When the people heard this evil news, they mourned: and no one put on his jewelry.

5 Yahweh said to Moses, "Tell the children of Israel, 'You are a stiff-necked people. If I were to go up into your midst for one moment, I would consume you. Therefore now take off your jewelry from you, that I may know what to do to you.'"

6 The children of Israel stripped themselves of their jewelry from Mount Horeb onward.

7 Now Moses used to take the tent and to pitch it outside the camp, far away from the camp, and he called it "The tent of Meeting." It happened that everyone who sought Yahweh went out to the tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp.

8 It happened that when Moses went out to the Tent, that all the people rose up, and stood, everyone at their Tent door, and watched Moses, until he had gone into the Tent.

9 It happened, when Moses entered into the Tent, that the pillar of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with Moses.

10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and worshiped, everyone at their Tent door.

11 Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn't depart out of the Tent.

12 Moses said to Yahweh, "Behold, you tell me, 'Bring up this people:' and you haven't let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, 'I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.'

13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you, so that I may find favor in your sight: and consider that this nation is your people."

14 He said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

15 He said to him, "If your presence doesn't go with me, don't carry us up from here.

16 For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn't it in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?"

17 Yahweh said to Moses, "I will do this thing also that you have spoken; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name."

18 He said, "Please show me your glory."

19 He said, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of Yahweh before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy."

20 He said, "You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live."

21 Yahweh also said, "Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock.

22 It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by;

23 then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

   

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True Christianity # 370

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370. (b) It is impossible for us to have a partnership with God the Father. What is possible is a partnership with the Lord, and through the Lord, with God the Father. Scripture teaches this and reason sees it. Scripture teaches that God the Father never has been seen or heard, and never could be. As a result, nothing from him such as he is in his own essential underlying reality could have an effect on us. The Lord says,

No one has seen God except the One who is with the Father. He has seen the Father. (John 6:46)

No one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son is willing to reveal him. (Matthew 11:27)

You have never heard the voice of the Father or seen what he looks like. (John 5:37)

The reason for this is that God the Father is in the first principles and beginnings of all things. Therefore he transcends the entire reach of the human mind. He is in the first principles and beginnings of all things related to wisdom and all things related to love. No partnership is possible between those first principles and us. Therefore if he were to come near us or we were to go near him, we would be consumed and liquefied like a piece of wood at the focus of a huge burning mirror; or better yet like a carved statue thrown into the sun itself. This is why Moses, who longed to see God, was told that we cannot see God and live (Exodus 33:20).

[2] The passages that I just quoted make it clear that we form a partnership with God the Father through the Lord. It was not the Father, it was the only begotten Son who is close to the Father's heart and has seen the Father, who disclosed and revealed the things that are of God and from God. The following passages also show that we form a partnership with God the Father through the Lord: "On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I am in you" (John 14:20). "The glory that you gave me, I have given them so that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me" (John 17:22-23, 26). Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. " Then Philip wanted to see the Father, but the Lord replied, "Those who see me also see the Father, and those who know me also know the Father" (John 14:6-7, and following). Elsewhere we read, "Those who see me see the One who sent me" (John 12:45).

In addition, the Lord says that he is the door, and that those who enter through him are saved, but those who climb up some other way are thieves and robbers (John 10:1, 9). He also says, "Those who do not live in me will be thrown out and put in the fire like a withered branch" (John 15:6).

[3] The reason is that the Lord our Savior is Jehovah the Father himself in human form. Jehovah came down and became human so that he could come close to us and we could come close to him, and a partnership could be forged, through which we could have salvation and eternal life. When God became human and then a human became God, he became able to draw near us in this adapted form and, as a human God and a divine Human, forge a partnership with us.

There are three stages to this that follow in sequence: adjusting to one another, coming closer together, and then forging a partnership. The adjustment has to happen before the two parties can come closer together, and both the adjustment and the coming closer have to happen before a partnership can be forged. The adjustment on God's part was to become human. God is perpetually coming closer to the extent that we are coming closer to him. And as this takes place, a partnership is forged. For each and every set of things that become one and share their existence, these three stages happen in this sequence and proceed in this order.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.