A - The right is a person
Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king. Jesus replied, “I was born and have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. He who is in the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37). Pilate asked again, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). This statement does not pose the question correctly. Truth is not a thing or an abstract concept, so we cannot ask, “What is truth?” Truth is not a thing but a person, and the correct question should be, “Who is truth?”
The Lord had already answered this question, when He told His disciples that He was going to the Father and that He would return to take them and guide them to Him so that all might be with Him: “You know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him: “Lord, we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus said to Him: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes from the Father except by me. If you know Me, you will know My Father also; and you have known Him and seen Him.” Philip said to Him: “Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us.” Jesus said to Him: “I have been with you a long time, and do you not know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:4-9; see also Hebrews 10:19-20). This passage proves that when Christ spoke of the truth and the way that leads to the Father, that is, to life, He had only one thing in mind, and that is why He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. He who knows Me knows the Father.”
Truth is not a thing, but a person. It is the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the incarnate Truth and the incarnate Word (Jn 1:14) whom we must know in order to have life (Jn 5:13; cf. Jn 6:47). Christ is the Truth, and he alone is able to lead man to the heavenly Father, making him a sharer in the life of God (Jn 14:6; 17:2-3; Lk 10:22), because “grace and truth have come to us through Jesus Christ” (Jn 1:17).
The disciples of Christ could not comprehend this truth by their own strength, so the Lord sent the Spirit of truth to lead them to the complete truth. “He will take of what is mine and will make it known to you” (John 16:14). The words of Christ show that knowledge of God and the divine comes from the act of revelation that took place in the person of Christ in the last days (Heb. 1:2), and from the presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man. The apostles were always near Christ, and they heard His sermons constantly, but they did not know the truth by their own abilities. Christ once asked His disciples to tell Him who He was, and Peter answered Him: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then He said His well-known words to Him, that He did not discover it by His own abilities, and that it was the Heavenly Father who revealed it to Him (Matthew 16:17).
B - Like Job
We all know the story of Job, who tried in vain to discover the secrets of God through discussion and reasoning. When God revealed himself to him, he realized that his desire and longing were impossible to achieve through his own strength alone. A deep sense of contrition took hold of him, and he addressed God, saying: “I have heard of you with my ears, but now I see you with my eyes. Therefore, I reject all my words, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).
The important thing is not in talking about God, but in humility and purity of heart in seeking Him. St. Gregory Nazianzus said: “To talk about God is a great thing, but to purify the heart for Him is a greater thing.” St. Ephrem the Syrian said in one of his letters: “Let us strive, my beloved, to achieve a spiritual life through solidarity [1] And by faith, so that we may be perfected by both. We become worthy of knowing the divine, if we overcome our passions and turn away from worldly concerns, and purify our minds from every vain thought, so that when the grace of the Holy Spirit finds its rest in us, it enlightens our hearts, as a lamp filled with oil and equipped with a wick lights up when the fire unites in it with the material placed, and spreads its light to everyone.
My beloved brother, if you want to stand on the highest step, do not forget humility. If it happens that you slip from one of the steps, you will find the way and will not fall dramatically as happens to the ungrateful, who did not realize what grace has given them. Because if they had known the Benefactor, they would not have continued to disobey His commands, and if they did not want to disobey, they would not have continued to fall, for it is written: “He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12).
C - The revelation to Moses
We have said that man cannot find God alone, and that it is necessary for God to reveal Himself to the heart of man. In what way then does God reveal Himself? This we can trace in the parable of Moses.
The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today or tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes and be ready against the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people on Mount Sinai” (Exodus 19:10-11). Elsewhere, Moses received a command from God to take Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders and go up the mountain, but the rest of the people were to remain at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 24:1-2). Moses obeyed the Lord’s command, offered a sacrifice, sprinkled the people with its blood, and then went up the mountain with the people whom the Lord had appointed. But Moses’ companions did not see the Lord at the top of the mountain; instead, “the place where the God of Israel stood” appeared to them to be “of sapphire, clear as the sky itself” (Exodus 24:10). Then the Lord commanded Moses, saying, “Come up to the top of the mountain and dwell there, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandments that I have written for their instruction” (Exodus 24:12). “So Moses took Joshua and went up to the mountain of God, which was overshadowed by a cloud. And the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. And Moses entered into the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights” (Exodus 24:15-18). “And there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon Mount Sinai…. And the mountain was all in smoke, for the Lord descended upon it in fire. And its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace…. And Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice” (Exodus 19:16-19; see Deuteronomy 4:11-12 and 5:22).
God is therefore present “within the cloud” and in the cloud (2 Chr 6:1, Ezek 10:4). Since Moses was worthy to hear His voice, God brought him into the cloud, where He met Him face to face and gave him the commandments and the law of life and wisdom.
D - Human acceptance
In the midst of the cloud, Moses was unable to discern anything with his physical eyes and human capabilities, but God spoke to him and revealed Himself to him. Thus, Moses realized that the manifestation of God’s glory was not the result of mental effort, but was the work of God Himself, the fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit in his heart, and that the Israelites must be purified inwardly if they wanted God to speak to them. Divine revelation corresponds to the inner purity of every person.
The people, so numerous and hesitant in their love for God and in their purity of heart, advanced only to the foot of the mountain, where they could see the glory of God from afar, as smoke on the top of the mountain. As for those who accompanied Moses and went up with him to the mountain, they saw “the place where God stood.” Joshua went up to a higher place. Finally, the Lord commanded Moses to enter the cloud at the top of the mountain, and to remain there forty days and forty nights, until God was fully revealed to him.
[1] - Synergism: human participation in God’s work aimed at saving one’s soul.