The face' of God is so strongly figurative an expression that its metaphorical character cannot but be obvious to the most cursory reader. The very frankness, and, we may say, the grossness of the image, saves it from all misconception, and as with other similar expressions in the Old Testament, at once suggests its meaning. We read, for example, of the arm,' the hand,' the finger' of God, and everybody feels that these mean His power. We read of the eye' of God, and everybody knows that that means His omniscience. We read of the ear' of God, and we all understand that that holds forth the blessed thought that He hears and answers the cry of such as be sorrowful. And, in like manner, the face' of God is the apprehensible part of the divine nature which turns to men, and by which He makes Himself known. It is roughly equivalent to the other Old and New Testament expression, the name of the Lord,' the manifested and revealed side of the divine nature. And that is the hiding-place into which men may go.
We have the other expression also in Scripture, the light of Thy countenance,' and that helps us to apprehend the Psalmist's meaning. The light of Thy face' is secret.' What a paradox! Can light conceal? Look at the daily heavens--filled with blazing stars, all invisible till the night falls. The effulgence of the face is such that they that stand in it are lost and hid, like the lark in the blue sky. A glorious privacy of light is Thine.' There is a wonderful metaphor in the New Testament of a woman clothed with the sun,' and caught up into it from her enemies to be safe there. And that is just an expansion of the Psalmist's grand paradox, Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy face.' Light conceals when the light is so bright as to dazzle. They who are surrounded by God are lost in the glory, and safe in that seclusion, the secret of Thy face.'
A thought may be suggested, although it is somewhat of a digression from the main purpose of my text, but it springs naturally out of this paradox, and may just deserve a word. Revelation is real, but revelation has its limits. That which is revealed is the face of God,' but we read, no man can see My face.' After all revelation He remains hidden. After all pouring forth of His beams He remains the God that dwelleth in the thick darkness,' and the light which is inaccessible is also a darkness that can be felt. Apprehension is possible; comprehension is impossible. What we know of God is valid and true, but we never shall know all the depths that lie in that which we do know of Him. His face is the secret'; and though men may malign Him when they say, Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel!' and He answers them, I have not spoken in secret' in a dark place of the earth,' it still remains true that revelation has its mysteries born of the greatness of its effulgence, and that all which we know of God is dark with excess of light.'
But that is aside from our main purpose. Let me rather remind you of how the thought of the secret of God's face being the secure hiding-place of them that love Him points to this truth--that that brightness of light has a repellent power which keeps far away from all intermingling with it everything that is evil. The old Greek mythologies tell us that the radiant arrows of Apollo shot forth from his far-reaching bow, wounded to death the monsters of the slime and unclean creatures that crawled and revelled in darkness. And the myth has a great truth in it. The light of God's face slays evil, of whatsoever kind it is; and just as the unlovely, loathsome creatures that live in the dark and find themselves at ease there writhe and wriggle in torment, and die when their shelter is taken away and they are exposed to the light beating on their soft bodies, so the light of God's face turned upon evil things smites them into nothingness. Thus the secret of His countenance' is the shelter of all that is good.
Nor need I remind you how, in another aspect of the phrase, the light of His face,' is the expression for His favour and loving regard, and how true it is that in that favour and loving regard is the impregnable fortress into which, entering, any man is safe. I said that the expression the face of the Lord' roughly corresponded to the other one, the name of the Lord,' inasmuch as both meant the revealed aspect of the divine nature. You may remember how we read, The name of the Lord is a strong tower into which the righteous runneth and is safe.' The light' of the face of the Lord is His favour and loving regard falling upon men. And who can be harmed with that lambent light--like sunshine upon water, or upon a glittering shield--playing around Him?
Only let us remember that for us the face of God' is Jesus Christ. He is the arm' of the Lord; He is the name' of the Lord; He is the' face.' All that we know of God we know through and in Him; all that we see of God we see by the shining upon us of Him who is the eradiation of His glory and the express image of His person.' So the open secret of the face' of God is Jesus, the hiding-place of our souls.
