one says the Lord spake to Moses face to face, the other declares that no man

can see the face of God and live.  In this selfsame chapter lies the solution

of the problem.  In verse 14, the Lord said to Moses, 'My presence (face)

shall go with thee'.  Now in Exodus 33:2 the Lord promised, 'I will send an

angel before thee' and this angel, spoken of in Exodus 23:23, is invested

with great power, 'for My name', said the Lord 'is in him' (Exod. 23:21).

When Israel received the law at Sinai, they received it through the

disposition of angels, and in this way Israel came 'face to face' with the

Lord.  When Moses spoke 'face to face' with the Lord, he, like Jacob before

him, saw God or spoke to God, through the mediation of the Angel of His

Presence or Face.  It is reserved for the fuller revelation of the New

Testament for angels to be set aside, and for the believer to 'see the glory

of God In The Face of Jesus Christ .

We have considered some of the ways in which the Hebrew panim is

employed.  We must now turn our attention to the New Testament equivalent,

the Greek word prosopon.  This word is one of a number of compounds of ops.

Thus we have ophthalmos, 'the eye' (Matt. 5:38), enopion, 'the sight' (2 Cor.

4:2) and the word employed to group Matthew, Mark and Luke together -- the

Synoptics, Gospels having a common viewpoint.  On two occasions only is any

other word than prosopon used, namely in John 11:44, where the word

translated 'face' is opsis.  In John 7:24 it is translated 'appearance', and

stoma, 'mouth' in 2 John 12, where we read 'face to face' (literally 'mouth

to mouth', or as the English has adopted from the French t^te -... -t^te).

These exceptions need not hold us further.  We turn our attention to the

usages of prosopon.  This word occurs about seventy -five times, and is

translated 'appearance', 'countenance', 'person' and 'presence' in some

twenty passages, leaving fifty -five occurrences to be rendered 'face'.  It

will be seen that in usage it is a very good representative of the Hebrew

panim.  Matthew contains 10 references, all but one being rendered 'face'.

The exception being Matthew 22:16 where it is 'person'.  Mark has but three

references, two being translated 'face' and one 'person'.  Luke has fifteen

occurrences, the two exceptions to 'face' being 'person' and 'countenance'.

John does not use the word in either Gospel or Epistle.  Let us consider some

of the usages in the Epistles of Paul.

'Face to face' (1 Cor. 13:12).  The R.V. has altered the word 'glass'

to 'mirror' and 'darkly' to 'in a riddle' (margin).  The apostle says nothing

about seeing through a pane of glass, but seeing by means of a mirror.

Neither he nor his hearers would be ignorant of Plato's figure of the

reflections seen in a cave, as the illustration of our present inadequate

knowledge of things:

'At present we only see the baffling reflections in a mirror, but then

it will be face to face.  At present I am learning bit by bit, but then

I shall understand, as all along I have myself been understood' (1 Cor.

13:12, Moffatt).

'Person'.  '... to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in

the person of Christ' (2 Cor. 2:10).  Here, as we have seen in the Old

Testament, the 'face' sometimes stands for the whole person (2 Cor. 2:10;

Gal. 2:6; Jude 16).  The veiled face of Moses (2 Cor. 3:13) is set over

against the 'unveiled face' ('open face') of the believer (2 Cor. 3:18), the

veiled face of the Devil's dupe (if our gospel be hid = veiled, 2 Cor.

4:3,4); and the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).

The passage is too full for comment here, but will be given more adequate