691. Moses said to Jehovah, "'Show me your glory. ' Jehovah replied, 'You cannot see my face, because no one can see me and live. ' And he said, 'Here is a place where you are to stand on the rock, and I will put you in a crevice in the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. When I remove my hand, you will see my back, but my face will not be seen'" (Exodus 33:18-23).

The reason why we cannot see God and live is that God is love itself. In the spiritual world, love itself or divine love appears before the angels as a sun. It is at a distance from them just as the sun of our world is at a distance from us. If God, who is within that sun, were to come near the angels, they would perish, just as we would if the sun of our world came near us. The sun of that world is every bit as intense.

[2] Because of this there are continuous protective layers that modify and moderate the burning fire of that love and prevent it from flowing into heaven in its full strength, because the angels would be consumed by it. When the Lord makes himself more present in heaven, the godless spirits who are beneath heaven begin to wail, to be tormented, and to lose consciousness, so they run away into caves and crevices in the mountains, crying, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One sitting on the throne!" (Revelation 6:16; Isaiah 2:19, 21).

In fact, it is not the Lord himself who comes down; it is an angel surrounded by a sphere of love from the Lord. Several times I have seen that godless spirits were terrified by an angel coming down like that, as if they had seen death itself right before their eyes. I have seen some of them hurl themselves headlong farther and farther down into hell; others were driven insane with rage.

[3] This explains why the children of Israel had to prepare themselves for three days before Jehovah the Lord came down on Mount Sinai; this is also why the mountain was fenced all around to prevent anyone from dying as a result of approaching it (Exodus 19).

Similar situations occurred in regard to the holiness of Jehovah the Lord that was captured in the Ten Commandments. They were delivered on that mountain, written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone, and stored away in the ark. The mercy seat was placed on top of the ark in the tabernacle, and the angel guardians were placed on top of the mercy seat, to keep anyone's eye or hand from directly contacting that holiness. Not even Aaron could draw near it except once a year, and only when he had ritually purged himself by offering sacrifices and burning incense.

[4] This also explains why many thousands of people from Ekron and Beth-shemesh died for the sole reason that they saw the ark with their eyes (1 Samuel 5:11-12; 6:19), and Uzzah died because he touched the ark (2 Samuel 6:6-7).

Just these few examples illustrate the kind of curse and slaughter that would have befallen the Jews (a) if the baptism of John had not prepared them to accept the Messiah, who was Jehovah God in human form, and (b) if God had not taken on a human manifestation and revealed himself in this way. These examples also show that what prepared them was their being assigned to heaven and counted among those who were awaiting and desiring the Messiah; therefore angels were sent to protect them.