Aslan Is On the Move
Last week we looked at the last three verses of Exodus 2. In verses 24-25, Moses piles up four verbs to tell us that God is fully aware of his people’s condition and that he’s getting ready to act. He “hears, remembers, sees, and knows.” Moses piles up these verbs to say, “God is fully aware of what’s happening to his people and he’s about to bring all his resources to bear on their situation. He’s about to move toward them in mercy.” Or as C. S. Lewis would say in The Chronicles of Narnia, “Aslan is on the move!”
In 2:23-25, “God” is used five times, signaling that God is about to do something, that something big is about to happen. God begins to move from the background to the foreground of the narrative, taking center-stage and revealing himself as the true Redeemer of Israel.
In chapter 3, this “God” is about to reveal his personal name and plan, his personal identity and his plan of redemption.
God’s Plan is a Man
What’s the plan? How will he act? Being God, he could’ve rescued his people in lots of different ways. All the resources of heaven and earth are at his disposal. He could’ve sent in an army of angels led by Michael and defeated the Egyptians. He could’ve changed the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians and given them a desire to let the people go. He could’ve given the people of Israel the ability to fight their way out of Egypt or find some hidden way of escape. He could’ve sent in other nations to destroy the Egyptians. He could’ve sent thousands of chariots of fire from heaven that swooped in, picked up Israel and took them to Canaan.
God could’ve rescued Israel in a number of ways. What was the plan he decided to use? Not the one we would’ve drawn up! He decided to use a man to accomplish his plan. And not some great man with power and nobility and wealth and an army. No, he chose an aging, poor, obscure, displaced immigrant shepherd who was minding his own business and not looking to step onto the stage of world history and play a leading role.
God decided to deliver his people through a deliverer, to save persons through a person. He could’ve saved Israel unilaterally, but he decided to use a person.
It makes sense for a personal God to do it this way because he wants to be known personally. Sending a person as his chosen representative shows us that he wants to meet his people where they are, rather than expecting them to come to where he is.
Moses, the man God chooses as the deliverer of his people, is an unlikely candidate to be a deliverer, as we’ll see. God choosing him teaches us about the kind of person God uses. The kind of person God uses must know God’s holiness, God’s call, and God’s plan.
Do you know these things? Moses wasn’t ready to deliver Israel until he did. As we work through Exodus 3, we’ll see how Moses encounters God’s holiness, God’s call, and God’s plan.
Moses Before He Meets God
Before Moses can deliver God’s people, he must understand the holiness of God. In verses 1-6, Moses encounters God’s holiness. This text shows us three aspects of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness. He sees a burning bush (vv. 2-4), he’s told he’s on holy ground (v. 5), and he hides his face (v. 6). There’s a fire, a command, and a response.
But first notice in verse 1 how the scene is set up. We learn several things here about Moses before God calls him. He’s a shepherd, he’s not a man of means, and he’s in the wilderness.
God wanted a shepherd to lead his people so his chosen man would learn how to lead by shepherding someone else’s sheep. This also tells us that Moses is ready to identify with his people the Israelites, who were shepherds, rather than the Egyptians, who abhorred shepherds (Gen. 46:32-34).
After forty years in Midian, Moses wasn’t a man of means, he hadn’t accumulated wealth. He was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep, not his own. In contrast to his years as an Egyptian prince, he’s now more or less a household worker for his father-in-law.[1]
It also says that was on the “west side of the wilderness.” He’d left Midianite territory and headed west, back toward Egypt, looking for grass for the flock. He was weeks away from home. It says he “came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” “Horeb” is another word for Sinai, and the word in Hebrew means “desolate or waste land.”
Here is Moses, the Egyptian prince who’s now a shepherd. He’s not rich and powerful; he’s poor and dependent. He’s not in the royal courts, he’s in the wilderness. He’s not ruling cities, he’s a household worker. He’s not doing anything special. He’s faithfully fulfilling his duties in the ordinary things of life.
Maybe you feel like Moses right now. You feel like you’re on “the west side of the wilderness,” weeks away from home, alone, poor, managing someone else’s assets, unknown, and getting through life one mundane day at a time. Keep serving, keep working, stay faithful. God sees you and his life-changing presence is closer than you think.
A Burning Bush
One ordinary day, ordinary Moses stumbles onto something extraordinary, a burning bush (vv. 2-3). This fire is the first aspect of Moses’s encounter with the holiness of God.
Verse 2 says that it was “the angel of the Lord” who appeared to him in the flame of the burning bush. This is likely a visible manifestation of God himself. God is everywhere, but when he wants to reveal himself in the Bible he typically does so through representation. This “angel” isn’t all there is to God, but was a real representation of his presence. It’s similar to a video call that brings a real sense of the presence of another person into a room through a video screen, even though the person isn’t fully present.[2] By appearing as an “angel,” a holy God can come close to sinners without consuming them.
It says that the “angel of the Lord” appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire” (v. 2). God’s presence is often made visible through fire in the Bible. A pot of fire went through the animal pieces in Genesis 15:17. God leads Israel through the wilderness with a pillar of fire (Ex. 13:21), and he descended onto Sinai in fire (19:18, 24:17). Ezekiel and Daniel see him in heaven as a fiery shape and on a throne of fire (Ezek. 1, 8; Dan. 7:9-10). The apostle John says he has eyes of fire (Rev. 1:14). The Spirit filled the first believers with “tongues of fire” in Acts 2:3.
God reveals himself to Moses through fire. But it was an unusual fire. Verse 2 says, “The bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” What does this tell us? It could point to the suffering of the people of Israel, who, like the bush, were engulfed in the fire of affliction but not consumed. But it primarily says something about the nature of God. God, like this fire, is a flame that doesn’t need nourishing. He’s a truly living flame, needing nothing to sustain him. The burning bush is a theological object lesson to illustrate God’s being (which will be further explained with the revelation of his Name in the next verses). Through the burning bush, God is saying that he’s a God who needs nothing or no one for his life. He’s self-sustaining and self-existent. He draws no vitality from outside himself. The God of the flame doesn’t need Moses.
God is Holy, But Not Impersonal
But the burning bush also shows us that the transcendent God who needs nothing is also willing to come down and meet his people where they are, that his holiness doesn’t negate kindness.
The God of the flame calls out to Moses in verse 4, saying, “Moses, Moses!” Saying his name twice is called a repetition of endearment and was a common way to address loved ones in the Ancient Near East, similar to when David and later Jesus said, “My God, my God” (Ps. 22:1, Mt. 27:46) or when Jesus said, “Saul, Saul” (Acts 9:4).
This means that Moses would’ve understood that he was being addressed by someone who loved him and cared about him. The God of the flame didn’t come to consume him, but to care for him.
This teaches us that God is holy but not impersonal. He’s not like The Force in Star Wars that’s there and kind of scary and mysterious and people can use it but not actually know it. You can’t talk to The Force or receive love and care from The Force. You can manipulate it but not know it. God isn’t like that. He’s a consuming fire and a caregiver. He can be known.
God Wants to be Known, On His Terms
And verse 5 shows us that he wants to be known. God wants Moses to be able to keep standing in his presence so he gives him the conditions necessary for that to happen.
Our inclination is to assume that we know the best way into his presence, or that we can figure it out on our own, or that anyone can just walk into the fire of God’s presence without being consumed. But we’d remain outside until God tells us how to come to him.
God wants us in his presence, but it has to be on his terms. God tells us how to come to him, we don’t tell him how to come to us. And the good news is that he does tell Moses, and us, how to come to him! He invites us into the sphere of his holiness through his loving and gentle call.
This is good news for those who feel unlovable, those who feel that no one really wants to be around them, those who feel that their shame and guilt mean that even God doesn’t want to be around them. We think something’s wrong with us because no one really wants to come close to us. But God, the most important person in the universe, wants to come close to us. He loves the unlovable, and those who feel unlovable.
God desires us to be in his presence. But with David, we ask, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” (Ps. 24:3) Who’s able to stand in God’s presence?
“Moses, Take Off Your Shoes”
The command in verse 5 shows us who can be in God’s presence and shows us the second aspect of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness.
Here God begins to teach Moses two things: God is holy and man is unclean. Moses needed to learn from God the things he would later have to teach Israel. He needed to learn that God is holy and that he’s not.
The command to take his sandals off is meant to remind him that he’s “of the earth.” Our feet symbolize our creatureliness because they link us to the earth. Even the seraphim around the throne of God in heaven have two wings to cover their feet (Isa. 6:2). They’re angels but they’re still creatures. Only when we understand ourselves as creatures will we understand God as holy.
The holiness of God refers to his separateness, or uniqueness. He belongs in his own distinct sphere of existence. There’s literally nothing like him. He’s totally independent and everything else depends on him.
But holiness can also mean his moral purity. This is the other reason why God asks Moses to take his sandals off, to teach him that he was unclean. As a shepherd, his sandals would’ve been covered with dirt and mud and excrement and sweat. It was customary for someone to remove their sandals when entering a house because dirty sandals would tarnish a clean house. Moses is entering God’s house, so the only proper thing to do was remove his dirty shoes.
God tells him plainly that he’s to do this because the place where he’s standing is “holy ground.” Why is the “ground” holy? What’s so special about this ground? Nothing. The ground is “holy” because God is there, and God is holy. The burning bush is the first tabernacle in Exodus, the first place the holy God met with an unholy people.
When God comes to reveal himself to Moses in the burning bush, that ground is “set apart” for him, becoming “holy ground.” When God touches the common it becomes uncommon. This ground is only holy because God is there (cf. Josh. 5:15). Nothing is intrinsically holy until God makes it holy.
A Radical View of Holiness
This is a radically different way of thinking about holiness compared to the pagan nations around Israel, and many spiritual people today. The pagan view says that things can be sacred or holy intrinsically, that there can be a mysterious quality in an object that makes it special. But biblical religion says that nothing is inherently holy except God himself and anything he declares holy or makes holy by his presence being there (eg. the tabernacle, temple, church).
This means that, though God made everything, there’s nothing intrinsically spiritual or holy or sacred in specific trees or mountains or rivers or food or candles or people. We can give thanks for these things and enjoy them as gifts from God, but to revere them as inherently special would be wrong. This applies to everything from the land of Israel to sacred cows in India to popstars in America. None of these things are intrinsically holy, or different. The only sacred things are things that God declares sacred.
God’s Introduction and Moses’s Response
In verse 6, God introduces himself as “the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” in order to establish a link between Moses and the Patriarchs. The same God called each one of them. Even Moses’ dad is listed here. It’s his mother who hides him in the Nile so he isn’t killed by Pharaoh (2:3), but the book of Hebrews tells us that both his parents hid him in faith and didn’t fear the Pharaoh (11:23).
This introduction must’ve jolted Moses back to the reality of his identity as an Israelite. By invoking the three patriarchs, God is implicitly reminding Moses of the promises he made to them. He’s saying to Moses, “I’m going to keep my promises to my people, and you’re going to the one I use to do it, so you’ll need to trust me like your father and forefathers did.”
The end of verse 6 shows us the third aspect of Moses’s encounter with God’s holiness. His immediate and instinctive reaction is dread and terror. He can’t even bring himself to look at the burning bush anymore.
Moses’s theology wasn’t fully formed, but he understood the power of God’s holiness. This experience was almost beyond his human capacity to endure. Seeing the holiness of God was traumatic and terrifying.
The Holiness of God is Attractive and Repelling
The world we live in doesn’t see God this way. God’s name is used as a curse word and trampled through the dirt. Few give honor or reverence to God. There’s little respect for him or awe before him. We all struggle with this.
But we’re conflicted. As R. C. Sproul, in his book The Holiness of God, says, “We tend to have mixed feelings about the holy. There is a sense in which we are at the same time attracted to it and repulsed by it. Something draws us toward it, while at the same time we want to run away from it. We can’t seem to decide which way we want it. Part of us yearns for the holy, while part of us despises it. We can’t live with it, and we can’t live without it.”[3]
Like Moses, we’re drawn to the flame but terrified when we get close. Why are we drawn in? Because God’s holiness, his being, is the most beautiful thing in the universe. Why are we repelled? Because we’re small and our sandals are filthy. We’re unclean. The stain and filth of sin is all over us, even in us defiling our hearts and minds.
God Stepped Out of the Bush and Onto a Tree
What are we to do? How can we stand with our faces uncovered and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord without being consumed because of our sin?
We have to approach the holiness of God covered by the holiness of God. God has told us how we can approach him, just like he told Moses how to approach him. God has approached us, called out to us with the repetition of endearment, met us in the wilderness of our despair, and said that we can come into his presence because of someone else.
He sent another man who left royalty to become a shepherd, another man who left riches to become poor, another man who became a servant for his Father.
In Jesus, God stepped out of the bush and onto a tree. On the cross, Jesus walked into the fire of God’s holiness so that we wouldn’t have to. He took on our uncleanness so that we can be cleansed. The clean one became dirty so that we could be clean. The Holy One took our unholiness.
So how do we get covered by the holiness of God? When we grab onto Jesus by faith, we receive forgiveness and holiness. Through faith, God declares us holy in Christ so that we can freely come into the presence of God and not be burned up.
Jesus went into the wilderness and walked into the flame for us because he loves us. Anyone who follows him receives the Holy Spirit, the very flame of God’s presence that makes them holy and purifies their hearts.
These verses are the story of Moses’s conversion. He was confronted by the holy and living God and his life forever changed. Have you encountered the God of the flame? Have you encountered God’s holiness? Is your life covered with his holiness?
[1]Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary, vol. 2 (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006), 108.
[2]Ibid., 113.
[3]R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1998), 41.