Editorial
July/August, 1996
Volume 31, Number 4
One of the highlights for Conference-goers in 1995 at the Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, was the blessing of attending Brother Paul Brubaker’s morning Bible studies. The study period each morning was marked by spirited singing, simple prayers, and practical lessons from the Word of God.
Each morning Brother Paul gave a personal testimony from his own life that was related to the theme of the Conference, “Claiming Christ’s Call.” The actual Bible studies varied in focus, but each was simple, wellstructured, and very easy to understand.
Annual Conference for many is a busy week. Not all could attend the Bible studies, and then too, many Witness readers did not attend Annual Conference in 1995. And so, in the present issue of the Witness (and in some future issues) we plan to publish Brother Paul Brubaker’s carefully planned studies so that all of us can benefit from their content.
On the pages that follow, after the personal example related to “Claiming Christ’s Call,” the Bible study lesson centers around the passages found in Exodus 34:29-35 and 2 Corinthians 3:12-18. The account in Exodus 34 is given in human terms. God is a spirit and is thus not a material being. The language is what theologians call “anthropomorphic” when it speaks about “face,” “hand,” and “back.” No human being can look on God in His full glory and live.
The passage in 2 Corinthians 3 tells how Moses’ face Shone with the brightness of the glory of God when he came off the mountain, but we are reminded that in New Testament times the gospel has a greater and an eternally enduring brightness that outshines anything that Moses ever experienced.
Moses was a redeemed sinner who was not yet glorified. He could not behold God in His complete essence. But all the redeemed will see God in all His glory in eternity when they have been perfected. In the meantime, all of us face the challenge of becoming more like Christ as we are changed from one stage of glory to another. Open your Bible to Exodus 34 and to 2 Corinthians 3 and prepare for a feast of good things.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
WEDNESDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY
June 28, 1995, Charlotte, North Carolina
By Paul W. Brubaker
The theme of the 1995 Annual Conference is “Claim Christ’s Call.” As we begin this morning, I’d like to tell you about my own response to claiming Christ’s call.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Eastern Pennsylvania One evening my dad told me to go up ay mow and throw a certain number of hay-bales down the hole into the feeding entry. Actually, for those bales of hay, I needed to go to the very peak of the barn.
When I tugged at the first hay-bale, the twine around the bale tore, I lost my balance, and I fell backwards down on to the barn floor. I took several somersaults backwards, and then also fell down the hay-hole on to the concrete floor in the feeding entry. I was dazed, but was able to get up and walk away from that experience unscathed. That happened more than 40 years ago. Several weeks later we were having revival meetings in the Middle Creek Church. The evangelist was Brother Hartman Rice. You can believe that it didn’t take me very long to make up my mind about what I ought to do!
You see, Christ’s call had come to me about two years before, but my stubborn will had resisted that call. So under Brother Hartman’s powerful preaching, when the invitation was extended the very first night, I went forward, yielding my heart and life to Jesus Christ. And I remember going to bed that night with a tremendous burden lifted from my shoulders. I felt so much at peace with God and others. I remember getting up the next morning feeling like I was on top of the world. That was great. I was never going to sin again–or so I thought.
I was in for a rude awakening. Satan has come back many times over the last forty years, tempting me to leave the straight and narrow pathway, and to follow him. And I must confess to you today that, at times, I have yielded to Satan. But always, Christ’s call has come again, and I returned to the Straight and Narrow knowing that the One who lives within me is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
(This introduction was followed by singing the hymn, “Lo, a Gleam from Yonder Heaven,” and the reading of Exodus 34:29-35 and 2 Corinthians 3:12-18.)
BIBLE STUDY
SINAI: THE MOUNT, THE RADIANCE,
THE VEIL
By Paul W. Brubaker
The words “Sinai” and “Horeb” are sometimes used interchangeably in the Scriptures. That puzzled me, so I did some research and discovered at least four facts:
1) Horeb is the mountain range and Sinai is one of the peaks in that mountain range.
2) Sinai was sometimes referred to as the “Mount of God” or “the Mountain of God.” Exodus 3:1 says, “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.”
3) The word “Sinai” sometimes referred to the desert area around the mountain. Exodus 19:1 says, “in the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.”
4) The word “Sinai” can be pronounced with either two or three syllables-SIGN-eye, or SIGH-nuh-eye.
THE MOUNTAIN
What is the first thing you think of when someone talks about Mount Sinai? Likely it is that Mount Sinai is the place where God gave Moses the Law. We want to look at just one aspect of the account related to Moses on Sinai.
You remember that when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Law (as well as the Ten Commandments), the people had not expected him to be gone so long. Moses was up in the mountain, alone with God, for 40 days and 40 nights. That’s nearly six weeks! And the people were getting antsy, and finally they thought, “it seems like Moses isn’t coming back; what are we going to do?” So what did they do? Well, they begged Aaron (the brother of Moses) to make them a god which they could see. They wanted something tangible, something visible. And Aaron gave in to their wishes, and formed a golden calf out of the jewelry they were wearing. The Israelites were delighted with the idol, and declared a holiday. There was feasting and music and dancing and games. They were having a good time, that is, until Moses came down from the mountain and saw what they were doing.
When Moses saw what was going on at the base of Mount Sinai, it made him so angry that he “lost it.” He took the two tablets of stone, and raised them, and then threw them down on the ground and the tablets of stone broke into a thousand pieces.
But not only was Moses angry. God was angry too. We must remember that sin always has its consequences. Those who initiated the idea of making a golden calf were slain with the edge of the sword. God ordered the children of Levi to do the slaying, and the Bible says that that day 3,000 people died (Exodus 32:28). Another consequence of the peoples’ sin was that Moses took the golden calf, ground it into powder, spread it over the water, and then made the people drink the water (which of course was terribly bitter).
THE RADIANCE
Moses loved the children of Israel in spite of what they had done, and so he went back up the mountain to ask God to give them another chance. And in mercy and grace, God did forgive them. He also wrote the Ten Commandments again on new tablets of stone. Moses stayed there on the mountain for another 40 days and 40 nights.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, his face was all aglow from having been alone with God. Notice the words found in Exodus 34:29, “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in (his) hand … (he) knew not that the skin on his face shone while he talked with him.” The last sentence of verse 29 in the NRSV says, “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.”
Why did Moses’ face shine? The answer: Because he had been with the Lord God. If you look at Exodus 33:18, you will find that Moses had made a special request of God. “And (Moses) said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” In other words, Moses wanted to see the Lord in all His brightness and splendor and glory. And God granted his request, although He would not allow Moses to look on His face. Bible readers know the story.
God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, and He covered Moses with His hand while He passed by. Then God took away His hand, and Moses was permitted to see the backside of God. But even though Moses did not see God’s face, just being in His presence made Moses’ face glow!
The ironic thing is that when Moses came down off the mountain and began talking with the people, he didn’t realize that his face was radiant. He knew he had been with the Lord, but others knew he had been with the Lord too! That says two things:
1) Like Moses, we must catch a vision of God’s glory. Moses prayed about that and so must we. Most likely God is not going to reveal himself to us in His brightness and splendor unless we are open to it–unless we are praying about it.
2) We don’t need to try to look holy. We don’t need to try to act religious. It we have been with the Lord, and have caught a vision of His glory, that will be obvious to others. That will be obvious in our facial expression. That will be obvious in our attitudes. That will be obvious in our conversation. That will be obvious in our manner of living.
How radiant are you? How radiant am I? Can others tell that we have been with Jesus, and that we have caught a vision of His glory? The Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, says that the reason God placed such a radiance on Moses’ face was so the people would never again question his mission; so that never again would the people have doubts about what God had called him to do. In other words, Moses carried his credentials on his face.
THE VEIL
The Bible says that Moses’ countenance was so bright that he took a veil and put it over his face while he was speaking with the people (Exodus 34:33). Whenever he went back again into the presence of the Lord, he took the veil off; but as long as he was speaking with the people, he kept the veil on. Why did he keep the veil on? Bible students generally agree that the reason Moses kept the veil on while speaking to the people, was so that the Israelites would not see the fading away of the radiance, but instead, would continue to honor Moses as the one who represented God. That’s why Moses kept the veil on his face.
We want to notice now that Paul the Apostle picks up the theme of Moses’ veiled face in 2 Corinthians 3:7-8. Paul underscored the superiority of the New Covenant as compared with the Old Covenant. He says, “But if the ministration of death (a reference to the Old Testament Law), written and engraved in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be more glorious?” Paul is simply saying that the Old Covenant was based on human works, and because it was based on human effort, it ultimately was transitory and fading, just as the radiance of Moses’ face faded. The Old Covenant needed to be replaced with a New Covenant-a Covenant that would never fade.
We are not dealing here with the “milk” of the Word, but with the “meat” of the Word of God. 2 Corinthians 3:11 says, “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.” The Living Bible paraphrases the passage like this: “So if the old system that faded into nothing was full of heavenly glory, the glory of God’s new plan for our salvation is far greater, for it is eternal.”
In the verses that follow, Paul talks about the Jews, who even today are blinded to the truth of the Gospel. 2 Corinthians 3:15 says, “But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart.” We all know that it is only when the Jews (or any of us, for that matter) turn to the Lord that the veil is removed, and our eyes are opened. There is a comparison between the experience of Moses and his veiled face, and how once we come to Christ, the veil of unbelief is removed. This is a wonderful analogy.
Paul includes all of us as believers in 2 Corinthians 3:18 when he says, “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” The “bottom line” of what Paul is saying-is that, as Christians, you and I no longer have a veil over our faces. Instead, we are to be mirrors that reflect the glory of God.
The Bible says that we are changed from “glory to glory.” That means that you and I are being transformed from one stage of glory to another. Paul is really talking about justification, sanctification, and glorification.
Justification is being made right in the sight of God. Justification happens when we yield our hearts to the Lord Jesus.
Sanctification is being set apart for holy living. Sanctification is an ongoing process that happens all during our Christian experience.
Glorification describes the time when our earthly bodies will be transformed into celestial bodies in heaven. Glorification, of course, is yet future.
Paul says that you and I are being transformed from “glory to glory”-from one stage of glory to another. Does that make sense? Another way of stating the same principle is to say that “I am saved; I am being saved; I shall be saved.”
Justification, sanctification, glorification. The goal of this transformation is that of Christlikeness. Should we not want to become more and more and more like Christ our Savior? The questions all of us must ask are:
Has the veil of unbelief been lifted from my heart?
Am I increasingly reflecting Christlikeness in my daily walk?
What evidence is there that my thought-life is being changed? That God is cleansing my tongue? That my attitudes are being transformed? That love and forgiveness reign supreme in my life?
You see, it is one thing to give lip service to Christlikeness, but it is quite another thing to be working at it-to actually be growing in Christlikeness. Notice 2 Corinthians 3:18 again: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit” (NRSV).
May all of us be challenged today in new and living ways to allow the Holy Spirit to remove the veil of unbelief so that the radiance of Jesus Christ might be reflected in every area of our Lives. May God help us to this end.
