Knowing God

“Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.’

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.

But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

When Moses went up the mountain, the cloud covered it. The glory of the LORD settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days.

On the seventh day he called to Moses from the cloud. The appearance of the Lord's glory to the Israelites was like a consuming fire on the mountaintop.”
[from Exodus 24]

A friend drew my attention to the cutting of the Mosaic Covenant, when God and the people of Israel formally entered into the covenant that the people had proposed [Deuteronomy 5:27].

I’ve always paid more attention to the proposal [Exodus 19 & 20] than the marriage [Exodus 24]. A few things speak to me here.

And it occurs to me that an excellent way to get to know someone better, is to sit down to a meal with them. I observe that both the Old Covenant [Exodus 24] and the New Covenant [Luke 22] were established with meals, and that he still invites himself in for meals with his people [Revelation 3:20].

In the Old Covenant, this was the first time they’d ever eaten with God, I think. In the New Covenant, it might have been the three thousandth time they’d eaten together (three meals a day for three years).

A little bit later, Moses gets up and heads further up the mountain into God’s presence, but it takes a full week for God to speak with him.

I reflect that the reality is that sometimes when I’m talking with God, it really does take a few days to connect well with him. But I also reflect that this is more a characteristic of Old Covenant thinking than of the New [Luke 11:13, John 10:27].

But while Mo and God were talking, it looked like a “consuming fire.” Sometimes when we meet with God, other folks can see the change in us. And sometimes the change does not comfort them, if they don’t know him like we know him.