Israel Worships a Golden Calf
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treaty, and at last one ventured to approach him. Too awed to speak, he
silently pointed to the countenance of Moses and then toward heaven.
The great leader understood his meaning. In their conscious guilt, they
could not endure the heavenly light which, had they been obedient to
God, would have filled them with joy.
Moses put a veil upon his face and continued to do so thereafter
whenever he returned to the camp from communion with God.
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By this brightness, God designed to impress upon Israel the exalted
character of His law and the glory of the gospel revealed through Christ.
While Moses was in the mount, God presented to him not only the
tables of the law, but also the plan of salvation. He saw the sacrifice of
Christ prefigured by all the types and symbols of the Jewish age; and it
was the heavenly light streaming from Calvary, no less than the glory
of the law of God, that shed such radiance upon the face of Moses.
The glory reflected in the countenance of Moses testifies that the
closer our communion with God and the clearer our knowledge of
His requirements, the more fully shall we be conformed to the divine
image.
As Israel’s intercessor veiled his countenance, so Christ, the divine
Mediator, veiled His divinity with humanity when He came to earth.
Had He come clothed with the brightness of heaven, men in their sinful
state could not have endured the glory of His presence. Therefore
He humbled Himself, and was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh”
(
Romans 8:3
), that He might reach the fallen race and lift them up.
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