A Deeper Look

It was an accident. Wilhelm was working one day in his lab in Wurzburg, Germany, when something strange occurred across the room. The physicist was testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He theorized that some type of radiation was moving through space. The year was 1895, and Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen had just discovered the X-ray.

Röntgen tested his theory, with the help of his wife, by capturing the first image of the bones in her hand and her wedding ring. When he began to lecture and show the rays’ ability to photograph bones within living flesh, the discovery captured the attention of the scientific community. Just a few weeks later, an X-ray was used to find a bullet in the leg of a Canadian patient.

Moses wanted to see God more closely, but the Lord told him, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). But the Lord covered Moses in the cleft of a rock and passed by, allowing him to view His back. After giving Moses the Ten Commandments, the Lord once more passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty” (Exodus 34:6,7).

Moses did not need to see an X-ray picture of God to learn of His deeper character qualities. Greater than the Lord’s mighty power is His genuine compassion for fallen humanity. Though guided by justice and unwilling to blindly pardon the guilty, the revelation of God in the Old Testament uncovers a heart that longs to forgive.

When David was in deep distress, he said, “Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14). With deeper vision may we also see our Father’s mercy.

Apply It:

Using a concordance, count the number of times the word “mercy” is used to describe God in the Old Testament.

Dig Deeper:

Psalm 145:9; Luke 6:36; Hebrews 4:16

Key Bible Texts

And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. (Exodus 33:18 KJV)