Some of the men and women who lived in the first century were able to see Jesus and physically be in his presence. They didn’t know it at the time, but when they looked at Jesus, they were able to glimpse the glory of God. To witness God’s glory means to experience the magnificent, holy character of God.

Moses spoke with God in Exodus 33 and asked God to show him his glory. God told Moses that while he stood in the cleft of a rock, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name.” God also told Moses that “man shall not see me and live” so Moses would be covered with his hand until after God had passed by (Exodus 33:18–23).

God revealed his glory, his holy character, to Moses as he passed by saying, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6–7).

When God revealed and defined his character to Moses, he revealed the character his Son would one day reveal on earth. Those who saw Jesus, saw the Word, the glory of God, who had become flesh and had come to dwell on earth. Jesus, the glory of God, was “full of grace and truth.”

If we want to fully know Jesus, we must know him as the divine character of God the Father, who became flesh. Jesus was fully God, while fully man. There was never a time that Jesus was not full of both grace and truth.

To glimpse Jesus is to glimpse God’s glory. He was the essence of perfect grace, and he was also God’s perfect truth. God spoke to Moses of his grace, his goodness, his mercy, patience, and abounding steadfast love. God also spoke to Moses about the truth of his perfect justice and fairness. The fullness of God’s grace and truth includes judgment. God does not “clear the guilty,” and sins are inherited by the coming generations.

Jesus is the model for our own faith, and the pathway for our eternal relationship with God. Jesus is also the model of God’s eternal character. Jesus was and is the glory of God, full of grace and truth.