The Problem With Perfection: Who Is The Messenger Who IS God's Face (Is. 63:9)? -- A Thorny Question

God can be anything It desires to be. It is, then, that thing It has become. That is one meaning of Exodus 3:14's 'ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh, "I AM WHAT I BECOME" (agreeing with Robert Young, I try to read the Old Testament as much as I can without the future tense, for the ancient Hebrew language did not have one; see the introduction to Young's Literal Translation). God LOVES what It has become, serves it, and pursues its perfection. God, of course, has become everything in the universe. Perfecting it all into Its perfect and complete Manifestation is a tall order, but It knows what It is doing.

Everything God has become is "the angel (or messenger) of His Face": "Through all their afflictions, He did not cause them [more] distress, and the Messenger of His faces saved them; through His mercy and care He saved them, and He lifted them and took them up all the days of the universe" (Isaiah 63:9 Alexander). The Messenger of His faces "was an idiomatic expression which meant the Messenger who is His face, i.e. who is the outward expression of His essence" (Robert Morey, 1996, The Trinity: Evidence and Issues, Iowa Falls: World Bible Publishers; emphasis mine). "The face of God is His self-revealing presence. The genitive...is not to be taken objectively in the sense of 'the angel who sees His face,' but as explanatory, 'the angel who is His face, or in whom His face is manifested'" (Delitzsch, cited in Morey, p. 201).

What I think that just said is that the burning thorn bush Moses saw of the angel or messenger of God was literally the face of God in his presence. That burning thorn bush was Moses' own life. Read this as our self-caused lives (God doesn't give us more problems than we ourselves make) are to us literally the face of God, His Messenger. They are Him trying to save us, to conform us to His image. Said Jacob the inner man to Esau the outer man after wrestling with the angel, "(N)ow I have seen that your face is the face of the angel (the Messenger Who IS the face of God) in my vision" (Genesis 33:10 Alexander, parenthesis mine). We really have to praise God for them, for without them we would never seek and find Him.