Jesus Visits Moses

Introduction

Just like any healthy young boy, when I was younger I loved to play with fire. But I’ve really matured over the past few weeks. Seriously though, fire is really cool. It’s the closest thing to being alive without being alive. It grows, it eats in a way, and it looks really neat on top of all of that. I remember when I was a camp counsellor in High school discovering that but spray is flammable. Turns out not only is it flammable but very difficult to extinguish.

In any case I know just like everyone does that fire destroys and we need to be cautious with it. So it’s understandable why Moses would be fascinated to find a fire that wasn’t consuming or destroying. Now let’s remind ourselves of a little bit of context here. Moses was born an Israelite during a time when the Israelites were under slavery to the Pharoah’s of Egypt. In fact His mother put him in a little boat and put him in the river because at the time the Pharaoh decreed that all the male Hebrew babies were to be killed. At one point Moses as an adult takes it upon himself to try and address in a small way the oppression of his people when he kills an Egyptian for striking an Israelite. This leads to his fleeing Egypt for the wilderness, where he meets Jethro and marries a midianite woman and even has a son. This is where the story has come to when we read Exodus 3:1-15

Exodus 3:1–15 CSB

Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” he answered. “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them, therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.” Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

By way of reminder, we are still in our “Finding Jesus in the Old Testament Series.” Actually there’s only a few more of these before I end the series and start something new in the New Year. This series is all about looking at the Old Testament and finding those passages that tell us about Jesus long before His birth. The three categories of these passages are types of Christ that are people or things that foreshadow who Christ would be, prophecies where God through His prophets announces beforehand what the Messiah will be like, and finally Christophanies which is what we’re talking about today. Christophanies are appearances of Jesus outside of His earthly ministry before the incarnation and actually there are a few after the ascension. In any case this is probably the least agreed on of the three. There are a number of scholars that don’t think that these passages are appearances of Christ, but I disagree.

By way of reminder I think it can be solidly argued that any appearance of “the Angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament could be an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ. The use of the definite article “the” is important here. This isn’t just any angel sent by God, this is the angel of the Lord. Of course the word we translate as angel is actually the word for “messenger” and can mean just a normal human bringing messages or a divine creature bringing messages.

At first this seems to be just a heavenly being sent by God. He is called the angel of the lord, (which is a translation of the name Yahweh) and not just called Lord himself. But then the way that He speaks adds some mystery. He uses the first person to talk about God and the text even says “the Lord Said” not “the angel of the Lord said.”

So this angel of the Lord speaks as if He is somehow both Yahweh and seperate from Yahweh. He’s seen by Moses even though the Scriptures say that none can see Yahweh and live.

Who does that sound like? Well that sounds an awful lot like Jesus who was God and was not the father, who is according to Colossians 1:15

Colossians 1:15 ESV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

So you can see why many consider this to be an appearance of Jesus before the incarnation, along with the other appearances of “The Angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament.

Another important reminder is that Jesus and the Father are one, so what we learn about God here applies to Jesus even if this isn’t a Christophany technically speaking, so I think everything I’m going to say about Jesus based on this passage still stands even if you disagree with me about this being a Christophany.

So what do we learn about Jesus from this passage? We learn that:

Jesus is Holy

Jesus Goes With Us

Jesus is the Eternal I AM

Jesus is Holy

One of the things we are trying to raise our children to understand is that different things have different purposes. You can play with your toys, but you can’t play with knives. You can throw a ball but you can’t throw an action figure. That sort of thing. When you think about it this is basically what the Bible means when it calls people or things “Holy.” It means that they are set apart to be used for God. So when the Old Testament law talks about things being Holy and gives standards for those things than it’s usually talking about the higher standard of quality and purity required for the people and things which are to be used for God’s service.

So what does the word Holy mean when it applies to God? When the Bible talks about the Holiness of God it’s talking about His perfect unity and purity. There is nothing common, secular or evil in God at all. Everything about His Character and quality is perfect. Where we get mixed up is when we get the idea that sinfulness somehow profanes the holiness of God. Much the opposite in fact. The presence of God is what makes things other than God Holy. That’s why the law was so strict about the treatment of Holy things. And we see that here in verse 5, Exodus 3:5

Exodus 3:5 CSB

“Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

The presence of God has made the very Ground that Moses is standing on Holy. Now if we believe that this is Jesus or even if we just believe that Jesus is God than we learn that Jesus is Holy. He is those same things we said earlier about God in general, He is perfect, unified, pure. This checks out. He is according to Scripture Hebrews 4:15

Hebrews 4:15 CSB

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

Without sin. Without blemish or imperfection of any kind. Now what’s really interesting here is what Jesus asks of Moses here in response to His Holiness. He asks Him to remove His sandals. Now in the ancient Near East as even continues today in many cultures it was a sign of respect to remove your footwear in a person’s home or in a temple. One interesting argument I read however in “Manners & Customs of the Bible” is that Moses was asked to remove his sandals not just as a generic sign of respect but “because nothing man-made—and therefore unclean—was to be between the feet of God’s creature and the holiness that God’s presence made the ground.”

So interestingly God is asking Moses to remove a barrier between Him and the Holiness of God. This is fully in accord with what we know about God making Holy rather than unholy somehow defiling God. Moses is about to be sent to deliver the people of Israel, and God wants His instrument to be touched by the Holiness of God before hand.

Now in contrast to balance this the presence of God also inspires Moses to fall down and hide His face from respect and fear. The balance I think for us is that we should seek to remove the barriers between ourselves and Jesus that are keeping Him from making us Holy, but to do so knowing that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, perfect and Holy and worthy of respect. So it balances a closeness with Jesus that doesn’t disrespect who Jesus is, so I think a discipline not just of prayer and reading our bibles but continual confession of our sins and repentance because we are coming before a Holy God.

Jesus Goes With Us

Now a couple of jobs ago I used to work with Youth For Christ, or Youth Unlimited as they are known in Canada. YFC is a parachurch organization that is focused on reaching young people for the Gospel. Where I was working their main focus for accomplishing that goal was to work in the schools. When I first started working with them the first time I went to the high school where I would be working my boss Colin went with me to introduce me to our contacts in the school, etc. When I was there working with Colin it was one thing, but suddenly a little while in I was stepping on my own into a public high school as a Christian missionary looking to connect with students and teach them about the Bible. To say that this made me uncomfortable would be a bit of an understatement.

The thing is that Colin is just one man, and he couldn’t shadow me forever just to make me feel less shy and insecure about doing the job, but I felt a lot more confident when I had him there to lend me credibility and vicariously his experience. The good news is when it comes to spreading the gospel in general we have a mentor that is never going to leave us on our own.

Going back to our text we read in Exodus 3:11-12

Exodus 3:11–12 CSB

But Moses asked God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He answered, “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.”

Moses was asking the right question here. He was a shepherd who had been forced to flee Egypt because he had murdered someone. Hardly a star candidate for leading a captive people out of the nation. He was right to say “who am I?” The thing is that we probably should all have Moses’ attitude. We may not be responsible for leading a nation out of slavery, but we were given a mission by Jesus when He left. We read in Matthew 28:18-20

Matthew 28:18–20 CSB

Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So when you hear from Jesus that you are to make disciples of all nations, who wouldn’t respond “who am I that I should go into all the world to make disciples?” So what is God’s response to Moses’ protest? That Moses won’t be going alone. Moses can have confidence that the mission will be accomplished because he isn’t going in the power of one man but in the very power of God.

We have the same response to our unspoken protest from Jesus right in the great commission that we just read. Jesus starts and ends this call to His disciples with assurance that it’s on His authority and presence that this mission is even possible. “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This has always been one of the most encouraging aspects of God’s character, that He never abandon’s His people. So when we read this promise to Moses and then to us we should feel heartened and encouraged to go out in boldness to make disciples for Jesus, because Jesus Himself is going with us. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like He is, but that’s just when we need to dig deeply into scripture and prayer to ask God to make His presence with us clear and send us out into the world to represent Him.

Jesus is the Eternal I AM

It’s strange for me to think about the fact that I’ve only been a parent for less than three years now. In the grand scheme of things that such a short period of time in my life, but already it’s strange to think of a time when I wasn’t a father. Yet there was a time before Owen was around, just as there was a time before I was around, and my father before me and so on. We as human beings are born, live for a few years and then pass on, starting with our father Adam. There was only ever one person who was the exception to that rule.

God however is not a human being. He is the one responsible for creating the entire universe and this world that we live in. Before time was even a thing God existed, and He still exists and will never stop existing. It’s kind of difficult to even wrap your head around. It’s also the only plausible explanation for why the universe exists in the first place. Anything that that begins to exist needs to have a cause, and the universe we know with a high degree of certainty began to exist, so it has a cause. In order for something to cause all of existance and not just lead to an infinite regress of causes the cause has to be uncaused. So an eternal God is the only thing that makes sense of a not eternal universe.

And this is basically the answer that God gives to Moses when He asks for His name. Let’s read Exodus 3:13-15

Exodus 3:13–15 CSB

Then Moses asked God, “If I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

This is where we get the name Yahweh from. Yahweh is the third person version of the Hebrew verb “I am.” God says “I am” and we call Him “He is” in Hebrew. What’s interesting is that the verb “I am” in Hebrew can be both present or future tense. So this could also be “I will be who I will be.” Not only that but God also calls Himself “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” indentifying Himself with His relationship with their ancestors in the past, and declares that the name Yahweh is to be how He is remembered “in every generation,” referring to the future. That’s basically a long way of saying what Revelation says about God in Revelation 1:8

Revelation 1:8 CSB

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

So God names Himself according to His eternal nature. It’s one of the many things that Set Him Apart so highly above all of us. He always has and always will be. The same cannot be said of us. Those of us who are in Christ will live forever with God, but none of us existed before the foundations of the earth.

Oh, and did I mention that the Revelation passage is actually something that Jesus said? But we don’t even have to look as far as revelation to have Jesus confirming that He is the eternal I am. Let’s take a look at John 8:56-59 where Jesus is talking to some Jewish people.

John 8:56–59 CSB

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” The Jews replied, “You aren’t fifty years old yet, and you’ve seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple.

Jesus calls Himself “I AM.” If you aren’t convinced that this is Jesus claiming to be God in the flesh consider the response of the people He said this to. They picked up stones to kill Him, because they believed that He had just spoken blasphemy.

So what’s the point? Why does it matter that Jesus is the eternal I AM? Well it’s why He’s even able to save us in the first place. No mere man could have paid the penalty for all the sins of mankind and rose from the dead to conquer sin and death. Only God Himself could accomplish what Jesus accomplished on the cross. The Eternal Uncaused God stepped down and allowed Himself to be killed for our sake. How amazing is that Grace?

That’s the God that we serve people, a God who is so far above us that we cannot fathom His greatness and Holiness, and yet who was born in a manger and lived a peasents life and died a criminal’s death because of His great love and concern for us. Just as He was on earth He was here in the burning bush, He hears and cares about our afflictions and will not leave us in our grave.

Conclusion

I remember once I was gifted a book that I forget the precise name of, but it was something along the line of “meetings that changed the world” and it was all about moments when two people met that affected all of history. It was an interesting subject. Interestingly enough, despite the fact that this was a book written by non-Christians one of the meetings in it was “When Moses Met God.” Of course the author being an unbeliever chalked it up to some sort of hallucination or whatever, but the point stands. Moses meeting God in the burning bush changed the course of history. His mission to free the Israelites created the nation of Israel which gave birth to the Messiah and transformed the face of the globe.

God does nothing by accident, as I’m sure has been made clear throughout this series on Finding Jesus In The Old Testament. He knew the end from the beginning, and a careful eye can see the clues He left all along the trail of what He would do. Interestingly, the Israelites waited for 400 years in Egypt for their rescuer. How long did the nation wait in exile without prophets before the Messiah? 400 years. We already talked in a previous sermon about how Moses Himself serves as a type of Christ, how the passover that happened during the exodus serves as a type of Christ, and the prophecy that there would come another like Moses.

The Old Testament is just so dripping in references to Jesus. No wonder He said the entire thing was about Him. So even if every copy of the New Testament was destroyed overnight I could still confidently teach the nature of Jesus from the text of the Old Testament, and we would know at least from today’s Scripture something about the Holiness, Presence and Eternality of Jesus.

So if you leave here today with one thing in mind I want it to be the unchanging nature of Jesus. He has always loved us and always been for us even before any of us were born. What an amazing confidence we have in Him.