Growing in the Theological Virtues with Moses – Faith

Just as God uses the theological virtues to lead us through spiritual growth in a way that harmonizes with human nature, he also led humankind through salvation history in the same way. We saw how God taught Abram to trust him, instilling salvation history in the virtue of hope.

It may surprise you to realize that God brought Moses to the next level of relationship by teaching intimacy and instilling the precursor to the theological virtue of faith. God reveals more to Moses about himself than he had to any human person since Adam & Eve.

God’s Name

The first thing that God reveals to Moses is his name. It’s amazing that Moses would even ask for God’s name. In fact, he pushes God for it. To the Hebrew mind, a person’s name was much more than a label used to identify somebody. It was part of a person’s very identity. Moses’ apparently innocent question, “But who should I say sent me?” was in reality an incredibly intimate one. Moses was taking a very big risk asking God for his name.

This risk showed that Moses and the Hebrew people had learned the lessons taught to Abraham and his descendants. They had learned to trust God. Even in the midst of the pagan Egyptian world, they recognized that God had saved and prospered them. It was this trust that emboldened Moses to take the risk of asking for greater intimacy. So God honored Moses’ trust and revealed himself. The mysterious name that meant “I Am Who Am” was also a warning to the Hebrew People that God’s name was not a label that they could use to manipulate him as the Egyptians sought to manipulate their gods by calling on their names. This is the meaning of the second Commandment – do not take the Lord’s name in vain. Do not use God’s name to try to manipulate him.

God’s Power

Next, God revealed to Moses and the Hebrew people his power. We tend to think of the Plagues as a punishment of the Egyptians for enslaving the Hebrews. But the plagues were more for the Hebrew people than they were for the Egyptians. Each of the plagues represented God’s lordship over an area that the Egyptians claimed an Egyptian god had power over. The message from God was, “Do you think that this Egyptian God is the source of goodness that comes from the sky (or the Nile or the land, etc)? No. I am the source of all goodness.” At the same time that God was revealing his power to the Hebrew people, he was also revealing his love. God’s power is the power to create goodness. The Hebrew people recognized that the plagues represented God’s loving care for them.

God’s Law

Finally, as God led the people out of Egypt, he reveals to them his law. We tend to think of the law as a set of restrictions through which God tells us, “You better do this, or else . . .” But if you look at the Old Testament, you’ll actually see that the Hebrew people understood the Law of God to be a great blessing. To them, the Law represented God teaching them how to love him and how to live as members of God’s family.

These three revelations – God’s name, his power and his law – represented the beginning of God opening his heart to humanity in order to be truly known by them. God continues to reveal himself to us throughout salvation history in a way that prefigures the theological virtues. In the Incarnation of Jesus he finally walks among us and reveals his heart to us in a way that human beings could truly understand.