Face to Face

[Mr. M]

Genesis 32:30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel:

“For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

After wrestling with an angel all night, Jacob experiences being “caught up” by the Spirit.

My Life is preserved =Nephesh Natsal.

Nephesh is most frequently translated soul.

Barak YHVH nephesh=Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Natsal is most frequently translated delivered.

Shamar Nephesh Natsal= Psalm 25:20. O keep my soul and deliver me.

Natsal literally means to be snatched up and carried away from danger.

The Lord Our Deliverer gives us this assurance.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life,

and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father,

who has given them to Me, is greater than all;

and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. John 10 

When the scribes translated Genesis 32:30 into Greek in the Septuagint, ‘my life is preserved’

is rendered sozo ego psuche. In apostolic writings, this expression is most likely rendered as

‘saved my soul’. Even better is to translate, ‘my life is made whole’.

To come face to face with God is to ‘experience’ salvation and remission from sin.

Luke 1:77 To give ‘knowledge of salvation’ to His people by the remission of their sins,

Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;

to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Remission of sin is deliverance from the carnal nature.

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God,

but with the flesh the law of sin.  Romans 7 

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh,

but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. To be carnally minded is death,

but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God;

for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then,

those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8.

To ‘experience’ the ‘knowledge of salvation’ brings clarity to Romans 7, to enjoy the ‘Spirit of Liberty’

in the remission of sin described in Romans 8.

To come face to face with God is to be enraptured.

I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—

whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows—

such a one was caught up to the third heaven. And I know such a man—whether in the body or

out of the body, I do not know, God knows— how he was caught up into Paradise and heard

inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. 2 Corinthians 12

This being ‘caught up’ in Greek: harpazo; is used to describe the experience of Philip.

Acts 8:39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away,

so the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.

And ultimately, by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,

and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and

remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

The ultimate personal experience in devotion to the Lord is face to face.

Hebrew: pahneem pahneem; Greek: prosopon pros prosopon.

When there is a prophet I reveal Myself to in a vision; I speak to him in a dream.

Not so with My servant Moses. He is faithful in all My house, I speak with him face to face,

plainly and not in riddles. Numbers 12

Faithful to The House of God

Hebrews 3:5, 6. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony

of those things which would be spoken, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house

we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.

Come Before His Face=Come Into His Presence

Hebrews 4 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy

and find grace to help in time of need.

Growing In Grace From The Glory

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part;

but then I shall know even as also I am known.

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,

are being transformed (metamorpho=transfigured) into the same image from glory to glory,

just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

A Friend of God

Exodus 33:11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants,

for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends,

for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15