The face is frequently put for the whole body. It is meant for the person. Hence, when the church prayeth, "O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine Anointed;" that is, the person of thine Anointed. (2 Chronicles 6:42) So again, when it is said, "The face of the Lord is against them that do evil," it means, that the Lord himself is so. (Psalms 34:16) So again, the patriarch Jacob, speaking to his son Joseph, said, "I had not thought to see thy face;" that is, thy person; "and lo! God hath shewed me thy seed." (Genesis 48:11)
Concerning the face of the Lord, it is said by the Lord to Moses, "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." And yet in the same chapter we are told, that "the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (Exodus 33:20. See also Numbers 14:14; Deuteronomy 5:4) But there is no difficulty in reconciling these Scriptures; in fact, they do not differ, when properly considered, from each other. The sight of JEHOVAH, in his own unveiled glory, is inadmissible to mortals. But the manifestation of JEHOVAH, so as to identify his person and reality as the speaker, is as plain in those discoveries as that of seeing him face to face.
Those Scriptures are best explained by each other. One part of the divine word throws a light upon another; and we are commanded thus to form our judgments, by "comparing spiritual things with spiritual." (1 Corinthians 2:13)
But every difficulty is at once removed concerning seeing the face of JEHOVAH, by considering the person of the Lord Jesus in his mediatorial character and office, as the visible JEHOVAH. Thus for example;—when JEHOVAH promiseth to send his angel before the people, and commandeth them to obey his voice, he adds, "for my name is in him." (Exodus 23:20-21) In whom but Christ, as Christ, was ever the name of JEHOVAH? So again, when it is said. (1 Samuel 3:21) "And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh, by the word of the Lord." What word could this be but the uncreated Word, which was, in the after ages of the church, "made flesh, and dwelt among us?" (John 1:1-4) Surely, in these and numberless other instances, spoken of in the Old Testament Scripture, of JEHOVAH'S appearance, sometimes in the form of a man, and sometimes of an angel, the Lord Jesus is all along intended to be represented. In all those manifestations it is, as the apostle speaks, giving the church "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6)