Part of the mission of the church I serve is that we continually behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus. I agree with this theologically, but I’ve never seen it in a mission statement before.
It got me thinking about the importance of beholding God’s face. It’s not peripheral to the church’s ministry. It’s at the very centre.
In Numbers 6, God gives Moses a blessing for Aaron to give to the people:
The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
(Numbers 6:24–26)
A key part of that blessing is that the Lord’s face shine on them; that the Lord lift up his countenance on his people.
We were made to gaze on God’s face. It’s our deepest longing. It’s what we were made for. Part of our mission as churches is to help people gaze at God’s glory in Jesus, because it’s what we need more than anything else.
What We Lost
You can trace this theme in Scripture.
In Genesis 3, sin entered the world and caused catastrophic damage in every area of life. One of those consequences is found in Genesis 3:8: “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” The word “presence” in that verse is face. After sin, Adam and Eve hid themselves from the face of God.
The effects of sin are everywhere, but one of the greatest consequences is that we’re no longer able to live before the face of God, which is the very reason we were created.
Adam and Eve’s first son emphasized this effect of sin when he said, “Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden” (Genesis 4:14). Adam and Eve were expelled from God’s presence, and then Cain felt even more estranged from God.
Even after sin, God’s people sometimes saw glimpses of that glory. A swindler named Jacob saw God face to face (Genesis 32:30). He didn’t see God’s face fully, but it was enough to change his life. Moses also saw a glimpse of God’s glory (Exodus 33:20-23). Even a small glimpse of God’s face is enough to change one’s life.
In the Psalms, we see expressions of a desire to see God’s face.
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, LORD, do I seek.”
Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
O God of my salvation!
(Psalm 27:8-9)
Make your face shine on your servant;
save me in your steadfast love!
(Psalm 31:16)
We want, we need, God’s face. Michael Glodo writes:
We need to be seen and known by God to fully know ourselves. This interpersonal, relational need is the essence of our nature and its satisfaction is found in seeing and being seen by God. God made us with faces so that his could shine on ours.
Our deepest desire is to see God’s face. We were made for this. We look everywhere for substitutes, but it’s never enough. We lost it in the garden, but it’s a craving of our souls—to see God in his glory and be satisfied in him.
This is what we ache for. We want back what Adam and Eve lost. We long to see the face of God. But we’ve lost our clear view of God’s face.
How We Get It Back
One day, our desire to see God’s face will be fully satisfied. Revelation 21:23 says, “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” One day we will see God’s glory fully, and it will deeply satisfy our souls. It will be the most beautiful, soul-satisfying thing we’ve ever seen, and it will make us deeply happy.
One day, we will see the immeasurable riches of our infinite God. We will see Jesus in his glory, and it will be the sight for which we have ached. It will not be satisfying for a moment or two. It will be so profoundly satisfying and beautiful that it will satisfy our souls for eternity. It “will not be momentary or static, but eternal and dynamic — ever clearer and deeper” (David Mathis). As Jonathan Edwards said, “After they have had the pleasure of beholding the face of God millions of ages, it will not grow a dull story; the relish of this delight will be as exquisite as ever.”
The good news is that we will experience this impartially today. Paul writes, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
As we gather for worship, we get to gaze at the beauty and glory of Jesus. Even though we see it dimly and imperfectly, it changes us. As Jared Wilson writes, “We have, fundamentally, a worship problem, and so long as we are occupying our minds with little, worldly things and puny, worldly messages, we will shrink our capacity to behold the eternal glory of Jesus Christ, which is the antidote to all that ails us.” Beholding, he writes, is better than behaving. It’s what we need most. It’s what will change us.
Our people might not know it, but one of their greatest needs is to see God’s face. One of our key jobs as pastors is to lead people in worship so they can even partially see the face of God in Jesus Christ and behold his glory. It’s what they were made to experience; it’s what they’re longing for even if they don’t know it.
We can offer people what their souls are hungry for—what they’ve been longing for more than they know. One of our privileges as churches is to point people to God’s glory. It’s what we need most, and what we have to offer a world starved for the glory of God.
