Why did Moses hide his face with the veil?
What is the glory of God?
When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai his face was radiant from having been in the presence of God. (Exodus 34:29-35) Moses brought with him the (moral & civil) law that God was giving the Hebrews. Several additional times he went into God's presence to receive more from God, and each time he returned his face was radiant. Then, each time after he spoke to the people what God had just told him, he covered his face.
In 2 Corinthians (3:7-11), Paul talked about this:
- The radiant glory the people saw was associated with the Old Testament law that Moses brought the people. However, Paul said the glory of God's new law of love would surpass the old.
- The glory on Moses' face faded like the best glory the old law could produce. However, the new law would have a lasting unfading glory.
More complete explanation
The law that Moses brought to the people enabled them to (only) reflect a part of God's glory as long as they obeyed it.
The law was like how Moses' face was radiant after being in the presence of God. Moses made his face be seen to the people as he spoke God's words to them. This was because the glory on his face emphasized the glory of the law from God that he was bringing them. But the radiance from his face was not his own radiance - it was only a reflection of God's glory. The words from God communicated values from God. But those words were like Moses' face - they only showed a reflection of God's glory.
The glory of Moses' face faded after he was away from the presence of God because that radiance was not coming personally from Moses. In the same way, obedience to the law that Moses brought from God did not make the people personally glorious like God is glorious.
God is glorious because he completely lives out his value system of sacrificial love for the benefit of others. God's glory derives directly from his value system that motivates him.
The old moral law could bring an appearance of glory when it was carefully obeyed. However, a person could be externally obedient while still being completely unlike God in their personal value system. For example, a person could have murder in his heart toward another person without committing the crime. Their actions might appear to reflect God's values even though their heart was against God. Therefore, any glory to be seen would only be a poor reflection of the actual glory of the value system of God.
However, Jesus' new law of love could be obeyed only if the person adopted the value system of God as their own and then lived it by God's transforming power. Unlike the old law and unlike Moses' face, when this happened the glory shown by that person came from inside their own being. God had transformed them so that His value system had actually become their own value system. Therefore, the new law of love would produce lasting unfading glory in that person.
The value system perspective used here is based on ideas from the work of Darren Twa.