The God Who Comes Down: Acts 7:30-34
Introduction: When God Breaks In
We live in a world that is allergic to divine intrusion. Our modern sensibilities prefer a God who keeps His distance, a God who is a polite, abstract concept, a celestial mechanic who wound up the clock and then left the room. We want a God who minds His own business. But the God of the Bible is not that kind of God. He is a God who breaks in. He is a God who speaks, who acts, who invades history. And nowhere is this more startlingly clear than in the account of the burning bush.
Here in Acts 7, Stephen is on trial for his life, and in his defense, he is retelling the history of Israel. He is not just giving a history lesson; he is wielding that history like a sword. He is showing his accusers that their entire story, their entire identity, is built upon a series of divine interruptions. God broke into Abraham's life in Ur. He broke into Joseph's life in a pit and a prison. And here, He breaks into the quiet, forgotten life of a fugitive shepherd named Moses.
Moses had been in the wilderness for forty years. He had tried to deliver his people forty years prior, using his own strength, his own wisdom, his own Egyptian might. The result was murder and exile. He fled, a failure. He was eighty years old, tending sheep on the backside of nowhere. His ambitions were dead. His plans were dust. He was done. And it is precisely at this point, when Moses is at the absolute end of himself, that God shows up. This is a foundational principle. God's power is made perfect in our weakness. His work begins where our striving ends.
This encounter is not just a quaint story for children's Sunday School. It is the pattern of God's sovereign grace. It is a theophany, a visible manifestation of God, that reveals His character, His holiness, His covenant faithfulness, and His unyielding purpose to save. What Stephen is doing here is reminding the Sanhedrin that the God they claim to serve is not a tame God. He is a consuming fire, and He is a God who comes down.
The Text
"And after forty years had passed, AN ANGEL APPEARED TO HIM IN THE WILDERNESS OF MOUNT Sinai, IN THE FLAME OF A BURNING BUSH. When Moses saw it, he was marveling at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord: ‘I AM THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC AND JACOB.’ Moses trembled with fear and would not dare to look. BUT THE LORD SAID TO HIM, ‘REMOVE THE SANDALS FROM YOUR FEET, FOR THE PLACE ON WHICH YOU ARE STANDING IS HOLY GROUND. I HAVE SURELY SEEN THE OPPRESSION OF MY PEOPLE IN EGYPT AND HAVE HEARD THEIR GROANS, AND I HAVE COME DOWN TO DELIVER THEM; COME NOW, AND I WILL SEND YOU TO EGYPT.’"
(Acts 7:30-34 LSB)
The Unconsumed Fire and the Unapproachable God (vv. 30-32)
We begin with the divine appearance:
"And after forty years had passed, AN ANGEL APPEARED TO HIM IN THE WILDERNESS OF MOUNT Sinai, IN THE FLAME OF A BURNING BUSH. When Moses saw it, he was marveling at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord:" (Acts 7:30-31)
Notice the timing. Forty years. This is not arbitrary. It is the same length of time the children of Israel would later wander in this same wilderness. Moses had to be trained in the wilderness before he could lead others through it. God's timetable is not ours. While Moses was learning humility and patience, God was preparing the circumstances, hardening Pharaoh's heart, and bringing His people to the point of desperation where they would cry out to Him.
The appearance is in a flame of fire in a bush. The bush burns but is not consumed. This is a profound picture of God Himself. He is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), yet He is self-existent, self-sustaining. He needs no fuel. His life is in Himself. It is also a picture of His people, Israel. They are in the fire of affliction in Egypt, yet they are not consumed because God is with them. And it is a picture of the incarnation. In Christ, the fullness of the fiery deity dwelt in a human body, yet that humanity was not consumed. The divine and human natures were joined without being destroyed.
Stephen says an "angel" appeared, but then the "voice of the Lord" speaks. The "angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament is frequently a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God. This is no created angel; this is God Himself. As Moses approaches, God speaks. This is not a silent, mystical experience. This is a propositional, verbal revelation. God speaks in words we can understand.
"‘I AM THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC AND JACOB.’ Moses trembled with fear and would not dare to look." (Acts 7:32)
God identifies Himself, not with a philosophical definition, but with a historical relationship. He is the covenant-keeping God. He is the God who made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hundreds of years have passed in silence, but God has not forgotten His covenant. This is the bedrock of our hope. Our salvation rests not on our faithfulness, but on His. He is the God of our fathers.
Jesus Himself used this very verse to prove the resurrection to the Sadducees (Matt. 22:32). He says God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alive in God's presence at that very moment. The covenant God makes is an everlasting covenant, and it secures not just a piece of land, but everlasting life for His people.
Moses's reaction is the only proper reaction to a direct encounter with the holy God: fear. He trembled and did not dare to look. This is not the cringing fear of a slave before a tyrant, but the awe-filled terror of a creature before the Creator. Our modern, buddy-buddy approach to God is a sign of profound theological sickness. We have forgotten that He is holy, holy, holy. If we do not tremble before His holiness, we have not truly met Him.
Holy Ground and a Divine Commission (vv. 33-34)
God's holiness has immediate practical implications for Moses.
"BUT THE LORD SAID TO HIM, ‘REMOVE THE SANDALS FROM YOUR FEET, FOR THE PLACE ON WHICH YOU ARE STANDING IS HOLY GROUND.’" (Acts 7:33)
The ground was not holy because of some intrinsic quality in the dirt. The ground was holy because God was there. Holiness is not a place; it is a Person. His presence consecrates whatever it touches. This command was an act of worship. Taking off his sandals was a sign of reverence, humility, and submission. It was an acknowledgement that Moses was a creature, and a sinful one at that, standing before his uncreated, holy God.
This principle is perpetual. We are always on holy ground because we live and move and have our being in Him. When we come to worship, we are to remember this. We are to put off the "sandals" of our pride, our distractions, our self-sufficiency, and recognize that we are entering the presence of the King. This is why we treat worship with reverence and not with the casual flippancy of the world. God's presence makes the place holy.
Now, from the heights of His holiness, God reveals the depths of His mercy.
"I HAVE SURELY SEEN THE OPPRESSION OF MY PEOPLE IN EGYPT AND HAVE HEARD THEIR GROANS, AND I HAVE COME DOWN TO DELIVER THEM; COME NOW, AND I WILL SEND YOU TO EGYPT.’" (Acts 7:34)
Here is the heart of the gospel. God sees. God hears. God comes down. Our God is not a detached observer. He is intimately aware of the suffering of His people. He sees their affliction. He hears their groaning. This is a profound comfort. In our trials, we are not forgotten. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry (Psalm 34:15).
And because He sees and hears, He acts. "I have come down to deliver them." This is the language of salvation. It is the language of incarnation. God did not send a committee or a memo. He came down. In the Exodus, He came down in judgment and power. In the fullness of time, He came down in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, to accomplish an even greater deliverance. He came down to deliver us not from a human pharaoh, but from the tyranny of sin, death, and the devil.
And then comes the commission. "Come now, and I will send you to Egypt." This is the logic of grace. God does not need Moses. He could have delivered Israel with a word. But He chooses to use broken, weak, failed instruments like Moses, and like us. He comes down to save us, and then He sends us out to be the agents of His saving purpose in the world. The divine commission always follows the divine encounter. God reveals His holiness and grace to us, and then He sends us out into the world to declare it.
Conclusion: The God Who Still Comes Down
Stephen's point to the Sanhedrin was this: the God you think you have contained in your Temple is the same untamable, holy fire who met Moses in the wilderness. He is the God who initiates, who invades, who saves by His sovereign grace alone. And just as He sent Moses, a man they now revered, He sent another deliverer, Jesus, whom they had rejected and murdered.
The pattern holds. God still finds us in our own personal wildernesses. He finds us when we are at the end of our own strength, when our grand plans have turned to shepherding someone else's flock. And there, He breaks in. He confronts us with His holiness, a fire that exposes all our pretense.
He speaks His name to us. Not just "God of Abraham," but "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." He tells us to take off our sandals, to abandon our self-righteousness, for the only ground made holy enough for us to stand on is the ground at the foot of the cross, consecrated by the blood of Christ.
He tells us that He has seen our bondage to sin, He has heard our groans under the weight of the law, and He has come down in Jesus to deliver us. And having delivered us, He gives us our commission. "Come now, and I will send you." He sends us to our families, our workplaces, our city, to announce the good news of this great deliverance. We are to go and tell a world in bondage that the God who sees, the God who hears, is the God who has come down.