And what ought to have left us in no doubt at all is the fact that, when God was pleased to fully reveal His glory He did it through a human life. The glory of God was seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Men saw God full of grace and truth in the Word made flesh. Reverently one asks, “How else could God reveal Himself to men except in a man, to persons except through personality?” The human heart craves such a revelation and cannot be satisfied with less. God meets and satisfies such craving.
As Browning makes David say to poor, tortured Saul, “It shall be a face like my face that receives thee, a man like to me thou shalt love and be loved forever, a hand like this hand shall open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!” On the side of a privilege we accept that and most of us thank God that He has revealed Himself to us through human lives. What we do not always realize is that now—
GOD WANTS TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO OTHERS THROUGH US
It seems too much to expect. We are so conscious of defect and weakness. But we must not hesitate to accept the responsibility which is a further privilege too. We are not simply to be the recipients of a Divine revelation, we are to be the medium of it. It is for us as St. Paul says to “mirror the glory of the Lord with face unveiled” (2 Cor 3.18, Moffatt). God wants it and the world needs it. Men and women around us are blind to many forms in which the glory of God is set. They do not see the glory that fills God’s House for they do not come, and they are blind to the glory of God revealed in nature. Only through Godlike men and women, filled with the constraining love of Christ, manifesting the spirit of the gospel in their consecrated lives, will they come face to face with God.
If the beauty of Jesus is not seen in us it will not be seen at all by many. They must see the Divine brightness, benignity, compassion on our faces or they will miss it. For them, God’s light must shine in human eyes, His love irradiates human faces. They must say of us what Jacob said of Esau—“I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God.” In his book Margaret Ogilvy, J. M. Barrie has a tender and beautiful chapter on, “How my mother got her soft face.”5 We are getting to the heart of our subject when we seek for—
THE SECRET OF THE CELESTIAL LOOK
It cannot be put on. A man who tries to look important generally ends by looking ridiculous. We do not deceive when we try to look pleased at unwelcome visitors. Any man who says in effect, “Now I’m going to look like God,” will spoil the whole effect. Moses “wist not that his face shone.” Consciousness would have taken the shine off. Shining is the outshining of the heart’s transformation. The man who looks most like God is least conscious of it.
Love lights up the face. It is almost sacrilege to intrude, but watch the face of a mother as she bends over her baby, or the face of a man as he turns to the woman he loves. Take note of the homely face of a genuine lover of God as with his heart expanded and warmed he says, “Bless Him. I love Him.” Communion with God transfigures the face. It was from the mount when he had talked with God that Moses came down with a shiny face. The seraphim are the “burning ones.” Standing near God they have become like Him. Because they were like their master men took knowledge of the disciples that they had been with Jesus. Some of us are so little like God because we are so seldom with Him.
But the way I want specially to emphasize is the way in which Esau revealed God. He did the Divine thing. That is what you must do. People try you, irritate you, annoy you—don’t lose your temper, keep your patience. Someone has wronged you, deeply and grievously, the natural thing would be to harbor revenge and try to get your own back. Don’t do it. Forgive and prove forgiveness by returning good for evil. To angry words, give soft answers. Do good to them that hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you. Give a helping hand to men who are down through their own folly and sin. Go on with your good work though you are laughed at or scorned. It’s not natural, you say. I know, that is my point, it is supernatural, it is Divine. By doing such acts you prove yourselves sons and daughters of the Highest and you will carry the family likeness on your face.
In Esau’s case, it was just a flash of the Divine that lit up his face. But the heavenly look should be permanent on our faces. The secret of it is to act like the God Jesus revealed, and keep on so acting. Every Divine act reacts in the soul and the countenance. It has been said that you never see a coarse face under a Salvation Army bonnet. The exceptions are so few as to prove the rule. Some of the faces are homely and plain, but the years of fellowship with God and of Divine service have made homely faces glow with Divine light.
THE POWER OF THE REVELATION
We all know that that is the real winsomeness. We can recall men and women, some of them passed on, who held the Real Presence in their eyes. We did not need telling they were Christian. They did not talk much about religion, they lived it. Everything about them was gracious, attractive, heavenly. Do not be content to admire and praise them, emulate them. “Let your light so shine before men,” and “seeing your good works” they will think of God and glorify the father.
Deliberately I finish with an abrupt question. About most of us, men see a good deal that is human and sometimes something that is devilish. We are continually attributing animal qualities to one another. We say, “He is as cunning as a fox, as cross as a bear, as stubborn as a donkey, as silly as a sheep.” Does any man ever say to you or think of you, “I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God”?
5. This book was first published in 1925. Barrie was best known for creating the character Peter Pan.
“THE GOD OF DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES”—Exodus 3.6
(Preached seven times from Fentiman Road 9/22/29 to Bishop St. 10/29/50)
Exodus 3.6 “I am the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
We have the very highest authority for lifting this text out of its setting and letting its truth stand alone. Our Lord Himself, when speaking of the resurrection, quoted this great saying (see Matt 22.32). So, we are abundantly justified in stating the text and saying at once that the idea to be emphasized is that our God is—
THE GOD OF DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES
There is room in His thought and His love for different types of human nature. The Three men mentioned are amongst the best known of Bible characters and are as different as three men well could be. Yet God was the God of each. Look at the three men. Abraham was a spiritual adventurer, a pioneer of faith. He went out from home and friends not knowing whither he went, but only knowing that an imperative voice called him to seek a better country.
Isaac was Abraham’s son, but a greater contrast than that between father and son can hardly be imagined. Abraham was an adventurer, the man who went out. Isaac was a man of quiet, meditative ways. He was content to let others go out while he stayed at home. It is no injustice to him to say that he was commonplace, lacking initiative. For part of his life he was his mother’s son and for the rest his wife’s husband.
Jacob was a different man altogether. A strange mixture this man, the man with a double name—Jacob/Israel—and a double nature. The man who chose the blessing and yet stooped to deceit to win it, the man who could be worldly and devout, crafty and pious, the supplanter and the spiritual. For some things, we love him and for others we loathe him.
The point is that God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of the princely pioneer, the commonplace stay-at-home, and of the sinning and repenting double dealer. And He is the same today. Neither the years nor His nature change. That ought to be of immense comfort to us for it means that there is room in His mind and heart for us all. For how we differ! You might say we are all included in these