What God seems, and what God is.
The figures of this verse are evidently taken from the scenes connected with the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Then "clouds and darkness" were the surroundings, and from these men might get a cursory and an unworthy impression of God; but then "justice and judgment" were declared to be the "pillars of his throne," and if men would but go beyond the appearances, they would apprehend God aright, and even discern the mission and the mystery of the symbols in which he appeared to them.
I. WHAT GOD SEEMS TO OUR IMPERFECT VISION. What could Israel see when the people dared to look up to the holy mount? Compare with what Moses saw who was on the holy mount. "And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke …and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly" (Exodus 19:18). For proper apprehension of God we are under two disadvantages:
1. Distance.
2. Sin.
Distance makes it difficult for us to see things clearly; and difficult for us to get them in the right perspective. Sin brings a dimness of the moral and spiritual vision—somewhat as drunkenness gives a double vision; and so the clouds round about God prove to be sin clouds in our own eyes. And sin brings a strange fear, because man can never separate sin from consequences, and he cannot help feeling that God will see that the consequences come. So our sin makes a "darkness" about God.
II. WHAT GOD IS TO OUR CULTURED VISION. That vision has to be cleansed before it can be cultured. Illustrate cultured vision by the trained eyesight of the sailor or of the scientific man. We at first may see nothing; gradually as we fix our gaze, and think as we gaze, we can see much. Cultured spiritual vision gradually gains right apprehension of what God is, and sees two things as absolutely necessary to the fitting idea of him.
1. He is eternally right in the principles that sway him.
2. He is practically right in the application of those principles. These two things are indicated in the abstract word "righteousness" and the concrete word "judgment." It may be shown how necessarily related these two are. If God is right, we may be confident that his ways are right.]f we can see his ways are right, we know that he is right.—R.T.