Lesson 12: “Please, Show Me Your Glory”
COLLEEN TINKER | Editor, Proclamation! Magazine |
How do you “grow in the Lord”? Even more, what is God’s glory—and what does the story of Moses’ face reflecting God’s glory have to do with us reflecting God’s glory? Does obeying the Ten Commandments have anything to do with prosperity?
Adventism teaches that Moses is our “model” for how to be transformed—but it never teaches us that Moses actually mediated a DIFFERENT COVENANT than the Lord Jesus mediates in His blood. It suppresses the Scriptural witness that the Ten Commandments were a ministry of death, but the new covenant in the Holy Spirit—mediated by the blood of Jesus—transforms us. When we are in Christ, we share His glory—and that glory has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments!
Spiritual Growth Through—Obedience?
Lesson 12 of the third quarter’s Sabbath School lessons in 2025 is entitled, “Please, Show Me Your Glory”. It covers the accounts in Exodus 33 and 34 when Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the second set of stone tablets from God after the Israelites built and worshiped the golden calf. In Exodus 34 Moses asks God to see His glory, and God responded by hiding Moses in a cleft of the rock and allowing His goodness to pass before Moses.
The author takes Exodus 33:11 which tells us that “the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” and develops that idea to explain that God built “a relationship with this outstanding leader” by means of Moses’ seeking “to model himself after God’s image”. The author cites several things Moses did as Israel’s leader, such as receiving the stone tablets, entering the cloud on Sinai to meet with God, delivering God’s instructions for building the tabernacle, and interceding for the rebellious Israelites.
The author then makes the point that even after all these obedient behaviors, Moses still didn’t know God as well as he wanted to know Him, so he asked to see God’s glory.
In fact, Saturday’s lesson leads with the lesson’s summary statement about how Moses grew in his walk with God:
Think of a school. If first-graders learn how to read and count to 100, they receive a passing grade because their knowledge is perfect at that stage and scale of growth. However, if this same level of knowledge, and no more, was detected in a high schooler, it would indicate a colossal failure in his or her education. It is similar with our growth in the grace and knowledge of God. In each stage of our development, we can be as perfect in our sphere as Christ was in His.
This week we study how Moses, through knowing and following God’s instructions, was growing in his walk with the Lord.
In this quotation we see the Adventist worldview: there is only one way to grow spiritually—“knowing and following God’s instructions”. In other words, growing in the Lord requires knowing the Ten Commandments and obeying them. Whenever Adventism speaks of knowing and obeying God’s instructions, it always refers to the Ten Commandments and to number four in particular: the seventh-day Sabbath is part of God’s Law and must be observed in order for a person to be growing in the Lord.
Of course, the lesson doesn’t specifically state this belief, but saying that Moses grew in the Lord by knowing and following God’s instructions misses the point of the biblical passages completely. Only the context of the Adventist worldview which equates the Law with the revelation of God’s character supports the idea that Moses grew by obedience to God.
In fact, Tuesday’s lesson is even more specific. Here is a passage from Tuesday’s lesson which demonstrates the way Adventism morphs scriptural passages together to make a point the Bible never makes. Here we see the author developing the argument that God’s glory, which Moses desired to see, is actually His “goodness”—and His “goodness” is His “character” which is displayed to the universe through the obedience of people:
“Please, show me your glory,” Moses asked the Lord. In His mercy, the Lord did reveal His glory to him. However, when answering Moses’ request, God promised to show him His “goodness.” One can safely conclude that God’s glory is His goodness, that is, His character (see also Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 576; Christ’s Object Lessons, pp. 414, 415; Prophets and Kings, p. 313).
“It is the glory of God to give His virtue to His children. He desires to see men and women reaching the highest standard.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 530. His glory is to embrace repentant sinners (see Prophets and Kings, p. 668) and supply everything needed to change them. At the same time, it is our “glory” to reveal His character in our own lives and to make it known to others.
This reflection of God’s character, His goodness, kindness, and tender love, must be seen in our actions. This way, we have a chance to be not only a blessing to the world but a shining light to the onlooking universe.
We see here how the author used Ellen White to legitimize his reasoning that God’s glory equals His “goodness” which can be defined as His “character”. Then he asserts that God’s desire is to see people “reaching the highest standard”—in other words, more and more impeccable law-keeping. When Adventists (those who most perfectly keep the law because they include the seventh-day Sabbath) obey the law, they reflect God’s character and become blessings EVERYWHERE—not only in this word but a light to the “onlooking universe”.
Make no mistake: Adventism teaches that there are inhabitants on other planets, and they are learning that God is fair and Satan is a liar from watching the obedience to the law of those who keep the law and honor the Sabbath. This is the foundational framework of the Adventist great controversy worldview!
Moses, God’s Glory And a Covenant
Yet Exodus 33 and 34 reveals a different story than Adventism tells us. Moses was pleading with God not to abandon Israel who had blatantly turned from Him by worshiping the golden calf while God was delivering His covenant with them to their mediator Moses.
God relented because Moses “found favor” in God’s sight, and He promised that He would go with Israel as they proceeded to the Promised Land. Then Moses asked to see God’s glory:
And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”—Exodus 30: 19, 20 LSB
Then God had Moses bring him two new tablets of stone to replace the first set which Moses had broken in his fury when he saw Israel sinning against God, and the Lord passed before Moses and declared Himself to be merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, and forgiving iniquity.
Then God declared what He was doing—a point which the lesson doesn’t explain:
And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.—Exodus 34:10 LSB
God then declared what He would do for Israel. He Himself would drive out the pagan nations from the land—Israel wouldn’t have to attack and kill them. Further, Israel was never to make any covenant with any of those nations. If Israel covenanted with the pagans, they would have to tolerate their gods and their practices, and they would eventually also have land disputes. God was giving the land to Israel, but if the pagans had covenants with Israel, they would have legal claims to portions of the land.
God further stressed that Israel was not only never to worship the pagan gods but must tear down every altar and object of worship used for those gods. They were not to intermarry with the Canaanite nations, and they were to keep all the feast days and rituals which God gave Israel: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the seventh-day Sabbath, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Ingathering, and Passover.
Then God reiterated that He made a covenant with Israel “in accordance with these commands”—these words outlining Israel’s terms of covenant agreement. God promised Israel blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Importantly, Exodus 34 specifically outlined these mandatory feasts and rituals—the weekly Sabbath was merely one observance among the whole litany of feast days.
Yet Thursday’s lesson downplays that God was making a unique, conditional covenant with Israel, and that Moses was functioning as God’s appointed mediator for this specific covenant. Instead the author emphasizes that God gave Moses “the exceptional, unprecedented, and unparalleled explanation of God’s name.” The author then extrapolates that when we finally admire God’s “exceptional qualities”, then we “start to love Him.”
The context of Exodus does not lead us to this application. Instead, we see God honoring His commitment to His nation Israel and honoring Moses, the mediator who was representing Him to Israel. God would bless Israel as long as they upheld their covenant agreements—which God had just enumerated. Notice above that the only commandments that God enumerated were the first and second and fourth ones commanding worship of God alone in the way He commanded—the rest of the mandatory commands were the yearly feast days prefiguring the work of the coming Messiah.
Yet Thursday’s lesson emphasizes Adventism’s teaching that it was the Ten Commandments that defined God’s conditions for blessing:
However, the Israelites needed to obey God and follow ten clear stipulations in order to secure their prosperity.
In the context of Exodus 33 and 34, this conclusion is not the focus. Rather the Ten Commandments are said to be the actual covenant words—the central document of God’s unique covenant with Israel. God was going to bless Israel on the basis of their honoring Him with the forms of worship He demanded. God did not specifically demand obedience to “ten stipulations”!
The Glory of God, Moses, and the New Covenant
Thursday’s lesson exposes Adventism’s deliberate twisting of 2 Corinthians 3 to obscure the reality of the new covenant. Instead, the author refers to 2 Corinthians 3 to teach his Adventist readers this:
Paul compares Moses’ shining face with Jesus Christ and that the glory of Jesus (in whom God’s law and grace were personified) surpasses the glory of the law with Moses. Christ, together with His law, can be engraved in our characters only when we fix our eyes on Jesus (Heb. 3:1, Heb. 12:2) and only by the power of the Spirit of God (2 Cor. 3:12–18).
The author further says that Moses’ radiant face was the result of his finally understanding “God’s goodness and kindness”:
It was only when he understood God’s goodness and kindness, and he completely opened himself to God because of the beauty of His character, that Moses was transformed, and his face shone. Our hearts and minds can experience a change when we surrender to God and allow Him to be the Lord and King of our lives.…
Moses is a model for us, demonstrating what God can do for us when we allow Him to change our characters and to mold us into His divine image.
NO! This explanation of Moses’ glowing face and 2 Corinthians 3 is completely and deliberately false. Here is what 2 Corinthians 3:7–18 says. We will read this whole passage, because Adventists are taught to ignore and suppress the truth of these words, that because of Jesus’ perfect, eternal blood sacrifice, the law mediated by Moses is fulfilled and obsolete. Instead, we are under a new covenant mediated by Christ Jesus and applied by the Holy Spirit. Moses is done with his work, and the Lord Jesus has given us a new covenant based on better promises! Here is what Paul tells us:
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And 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. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.—2 Corinthians 3:7–18 LSB
What Paul says is exactly the opposite of what Adventism teaches. The Law is fulfilled. It was not the means of bringing life; it was actually a “ministry of death”! At its core, the Law contained a death penalty. It declared that anyone who broke any detail of his stipulations—not just the Ten but any detail of cleanliness, ritual washings, mixed fabrics, or intermarriage—was guilty of breaking the whole law. Breaking the Sabbath, for example, included a death sentence! Yet the lesson insists that the commandments and teachings of Christ are what cause us to become “like Him”:
When the apostle Paul reflects on the shining face of Moses, he stresses that the glory of Jesus surpasses that of Moses. Christ with His teachings can be engraved into our character when we fix our eyes on Him. By beholding Him and by the power of the Spirit of God, we will gradually reflect His likeness (2 Cor. 3:18).
Again, NO!! It is not “Christ with His teachings” that are engraved on our hearts that makes us able to reflect Him! Our obedience is not what transforms us!
What the new covenant brings is the literal, spiritual new birth of all who believe and trust the finished work of the Lord Jesus in dying for our sin, in being buried, and in rising on the third day according to Scripture! When we believe, agreeing with God about our inherent spiritual death into which we all have been born (Ephesians 2:1–3) and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus and receive His forgiveness purchased for us on the cross as He endured God’s wrath for us, at that moment when we believe, we are literally given new life!
Jesus said,
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.—John 5:24 LSB
In the 2 Corinthians passage above, Paul is not comparing Moses with Jesus; he is comparing the old covenant with the new covenant. The old covenant was “the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone”. It was that ministry of death that came with glory—a glory so bright that the mediator of that covenant, Moses, had to cover his face when he left God’s presence. Even more, Paul tells us WHY Moses had to cover his face: he did it to hide the fact that the covenant he was mediating was actually “being brought to an end.”
The law was never permanent! The covenant based on the commandments written in stone was fading away, coming to an end, and even its mediator knew it was temporary with a fading glory! Even more, Paul explains that the new covenant is completely different. The new covenant put in place on the basis of Jesus’ shed blood (not His teachings and commands) has caused the law “to have no glory at all”!
Paul explains further: if the law, which was being brought to an end and was not permanent, came with glory, the new covenant—which is permanent—will have a much greater glory! Yet Israel was hardened. They refused to believe in the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice, and even today those who look to Moses and the law—the covenant which Moses mediated—
the same veil remains unlisted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts.—2 Corinthians 3:14b, 15 LSB
The miracle, though, is that when one turns to the Lord—the Lord Jesus who took all of our imputed sin into Himself, endured God’s wrath for it as He hung on the cross, died the death our sin deserved, was buried, and broke the curse of death on third day according to Scripture because His blood was sufficient to pay for human sin—whenever anyone turns to the Lord and His finished atonement and away from the law with its death sentence, then that person is born again and passes at that moment from death to life!
When a person turns to the Lord, the Holy Spirit indwells him or her, and He is a permanent resident in our hearts, a guarantee of our eternal life and inheritance (Ephesians s1:13, 14). Whenever a person turns away from the law and embraces the Lord Jesus and His completed atonement, the Lord gives that person a new heart, a new spirit, and the indwelling Holy Spirit exactly as God promised (Ezekiel 36:26).
This miracle is the new birth which the Lord told Nicodemus must happen in order for anyone to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3–6).
Adventism does not teach that Moses mediated an old covenant that was made exclusively with the nation of Israel. It does not teach that a new covenant has been inaugurated in Jesus’ blood and gives eternal life to everyone who trusts the Lord Jesus the moment they believe.
Instead, Adventism twists the most profound passages of Scripture in order to create the argument that the law is eternal and must be combined with faith in Jesus in order to experience righteousness.
This teaching is a lie.
The righteousness believers receive is not in any way based on keeping the law; it is imputed, alien-to-us righteousness that is God’s own personal righteousness! Here is how Paul explains it:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.—2 Corinthians 5:21 LSB
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—Philippians 3:8, 9 LSB
The righteousness of a true believer is based on belief and trust in the perfect, completed blood atonement of the Lord Jesus—not on obedience to the law. When we trust Jesus alone, we pass from death to life, and the law has no power over us. Instead, we now walk by faith, trusting Jesus and allowing His Spirit to teach us to apply God’s word to our lives.
In the new covenant, the law is done!
If you haven’t trusted yourself and your sin to the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus who died for you, this is the time to do it. TODAY if you hear His voice, believe. You will pass from death to life, and your bondage to sin and death will be ended.
Believe Jesus today—and live in the glory of the new covenant!
This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
- September 13–19, 2025 - September 11, 2025
- We Got Mail - September 11, 2025
- September 6–12, 2025 - September 4, 2025