The Location of Beauty

Read Exodus 33:18 - 34:9 and 2 Corinthians 4:1 - 6

A. In the Temple

4 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Temples were portals, places where normal people went to communicate to the gods. The temple was the place where the Glory of God dwelled. Yet no one could live there, to go in there you had to take a sacrifice, a bull had to be killed.

When Jesus came to earth he told us he was the temple – and it infuriated the Jews. He said if you want to communicate with the Holy God, you must do it through me. And ultimately, on the cross he became the place where the final sacrifice would be made. He became the sacrifice for our sin, so that we could dwell with God.

B. The Face of God

8 You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, Lord, do I seek." 9 Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!

Obviously to know someone, you must look them in the face. When you are trying to determine what someone is like, you study their face, when someone turns his face from you he is mad. When someone gazes into your face they love you.

God's people have a strange relationship with his face throughout the Bible. On one hand, his face is our ultimate blessing. When the priest would offer incense every morning, he would look up to the people and say – May the Lord bless you and keep you, make he make his face shine upon you, may he turn his face toward you and give you his peace.

Yet, when Moses asked to look upon God's face, he heard – No one may see my face and live. When humanity lost original righteousness, we lost the privilege of looking upon God's face.

Just like light cannot look upon darkness, it simply dispels it. So holiness cannot look upon sin. Sin is consumed by holiness. And we are sinful, so we would be consumed.

Yet Christ came to make known the face, the glory of God. How did he do it? By experiencing everything that David fears in this Psalm.
    He did have an army encamp against him.
    His eternal father forsook him.
    And God himself cast him off, so that he would become the God of our salvation.

Beauty communicates to us that glory exists. But that glory can only be grasped through the gospel of Jesus Christ.