Can We Ever See God or Not?
00:00:00.000 | We're back for another week of answering your tough pastoral and ethical and biblical questions.
00:00:10.560 | And today's question comes in to us from Eric in Joliet, Illinois.
00:00:13.840 | Pastor John, hello.
00:00:16.320 | First Timothy 6.16 says that no one can see God, and yet Matthew 5.8 tells us that the
00:00:22.480 | pure in heart will see God.
00:00:26.000 | Is there a sense in which we will be able to see God in heaven, or is it talking about
00:00:30.040 | the incarnate and glorified Christ here?
00:00:32.400 | It's a powerful promise, and I want to understand it.
00:00:35.800 | Pastor John, what would you say to Eric?
00:00:39.320 | So let's put the texts, the ones that he refers to and a few others in front of us, and then
00:00:45.000 | see if we can answer the question.
00:00:48.160 | First Timothy 6, "He who is the blessed and only sovereign, King of kings and Lord of
00:00:54.960 | lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever
00:01:02.320 | seen or can see, to him be honor and eternal dominion."
00:01:08.160 | First Timothy 1.17, "To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor
00:01:17.120 | and glory."
00:01:18.120 | First John 4.12, "No one has ever seen God.
00:01:22.960 | If we love one another, God abides in us."
00:01:26.200 | Exodus 33.20, "He said, 'You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.'"
00:01:34.760 | Deuteronomy 4.12, "Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire.
00:01:40.880 | You heard the sound of words, but saw no form."
00:01:45.920 | There was only a voice.
00:01:48.240 | That's one side.
00:01:49.240 | You can't see him.
00:01:50.240 | And here's the other side, Matthew 5.8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
00:01:57.240 | God."
00:01:59.200 | Genesis 32.20, "Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, 'I have seen God face
00:02:06.320 | to face, and yet my life has been spared.'"
00:02:10.040 | Job 19.26, "And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,
00:02:19.320 | whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another," et cetera.
00:02:25.840 | So there you have both sides of the issue.
00:02:29.480 | And the solution to this seeming inconsistency lies in the fact that the word see, as we
00:02:36.680 | all know, has several different uses.
00:02:40.880 | And if you look at all the texts, you see that there are two different senses in which
00:02:49.120 | his people can see God, and two senses in which they cannot see God.
00:02:56.360 | So let me break these out and see if people can follow me, see if they can see.
00:03:01.680 | First, the ways we cannot see God.
00:03:05.800 | One, we can't see him with our physical eyes for the simple reason he's a spirit, and he
00:03:14.720 | doesn't have a body.
00:03:16.720 | That's probably at least part of what Paul means when he says that Christ is the image
00:03:22.680 | of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
00:03:28.260 | Second meaning of what we mean by see, we can't see God.
00:03:32.400 | We can't see him even spiritually with unmediated directness.
00:03:41.580 | This is partly owing to our sinfulness and partly owing perhaps to our creaturely weakness.
00:03:49.400 | He's too great, too bright, too glorious, and we could not live if we saw him with unmediated
00:03:57.320 | directness.
00:03:58.320 | We must always have Christ our mediator as a go-between.
00:04:04.320 | And I think that's what Jesus meant when he says in John 6, 45, "It is written in the
00:04:11.960 | prophets and they will all be taught by God.
00:04:16.280 | Everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me, not that anyone has seen
00:04:23.280 | the father except he who is from God."
00:04:28.200 | He has seen the father.
00:04:30.800 | Now when it says, "Except he who has come from God, he has seen the father," he means
00:04:38.920 | not with physical eyes, because Jesus, I mean, the son of God didn't have physical eyes before
00:04:44.360 | the incarnation.
00:04:46.360 | And that's what he's contrasting our seeing with.
00:04:50.420 | Only the son can see the father with non-physical, unmediated, direct seeing.
00:04:58.660 | We cannot see God spiritually the way the son of God in unmediated directness can see
00:05:08.200 | him.
00:05:09.280 | So those are the two ways we can't see God when we use the word "see" in different ways.
00:05:15.960 | And here's the two ways we can see God.
00:05:19.320 | One, we use the word "see" to mean that we finally understand and discern the beauty
00:05:28.440 | and glory of God after being blind to it.
00:05:33.520 | Like when we say, "Oh, now I see."
00:05:37.840 | Our soul is tuned in, tuned in to the glory so that the glory of God that shines through
00:05:46.020 | the gospel is seen as glorious and we're no longer spiritually blind to it.
00:05:53.660 | That's the first way we see him.
00:05:56.240 | And the second way is that in the narrative of the Bible, we see the glory of God, and
00:06:03.520 | finally we will see him face to face through Christ by seeing Christ.
00:06:11.560 | So John 1.14, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
00:06:20.200 | glory as of the only son from the father.
00:06:23.080 | No one has seen God, only the only God who is from the father's side.
00:06:29.040 | He has made him known."
00:06:32.160 | So we see God by seeing Jesus.
00:06:35.660 | And 1 John 3.2, "We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him
00:06:41.300 | as he is."
00:06:43.980 | So the implication is pursue purity of heart, purity of faith, purity of life so that our
00:06:53.720 | heart, your heart is able to see God's beauty as what it really is in the scripture.
00:07:00.780 | And so that when he comes or when he calls us in death, we will see him face to face
00:07:09.220 | and be glorified with him.
00:07:11.800 | I have not seen what that will be like.
00:07:15.360 | Such a glorious promise and a promise with a lot of ramifications for the media that
00:07:20.980 | we consume in our lives.
00:07:22.480 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:24.160 | And thank you for the question, Eric.
00:07:26.100 | And of course, thank you listeners for making the podcast a part of your daily life.
00:07:31.000 | You can find our audio feeds and our episode archive and you can reach us via email all
00:07:34.980 | through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:41.060 | Well speaking of seeing Christ, how soon is his appearing?
00:07:46.140 | Is Christ's return imminent or is it far off like another thousand years away?
00:07:51.980 | We'll ask Pastor John that question on Wednesday.
00:07:54.980 | I'm Tony Reinke.
00:07:55.980 | As always, thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:07:59.020 | We'll see you next time.
00:07:59.660 | [End of Audio]
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