Seeing God
Seeing God
18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 1:18
Moses asked to see the face of God, but even the leader of Israel and deliverer of the Egyptians could not do it. Instead he saw what the Bible says as ‘God’s back’. What that really means is that God has to still cover himself before the sinful human being. In the end, even the covered image of God has dramatic consequences to Moses.
So no human has ever seen God… Wait? Is that true? What about Adam and Eve. In their perfect state at the creation of the world, the Bible says that God would meet with them in the garden. Well, we must remember that it was actually Jesus who formed Adam from the ground and walked in the garden. God was busy sitting on his throne and ruling the universe, and as with all things, Jesus is the one that does all the manual labor of God. The Father is the head while Jesus is the hands.
So literally speaking, yes no one has ever seen the Father but I don’t believe that Jesus was focusing on the literal. I believe that he was talking about the heart and soul of the Father. You get that inclination of thought when it says ‘the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father’. This emphasis not just the physical closeness not intimacy that exists between the two. Only Jesus truly knows the Father and vice versa. Only Jesus knows the heart and mind of God.
But then the verse tells us something wonderful. He has declared Him. We too can know the Father and God through Jesus Christ. We learn about the Father through Jesus words. We learn through his actions and love. Everything Jesus did was to show us who the Father was and is. Through this, we are to fall in love and give our lives. With new lives we are then given a gift for our heavenly futures.
3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. 4 They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. 5 There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
Revelation 22:3-5
Revelation says that we shall see his face. Now is it talking about the Father or the Son? Revelation doesn’t distinguish and I believe that’s on purpose because there isn’t a difference. When you see the Son, you see the Father. They are one and we too will be one with them.
God bless,
Pr. Steven Couto