1 Timothy 6:16
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in
the light which no man can approach unto; whom
no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.
Amen.
Jesus himself stated:
John 5:37
And the Father himself, which hath sent
me, hath borne witness of me.
Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
Note:
In the Old Testament those who are
described as having ‘seen’ God
had in fact seen the ‘Angel of Yahweh’.
God himself declared:
'Thou canst not see my face:
for there shall no man see me, and live'
(Exodus 33:20).
It was in this form that God appeared to Manoah (Judges 13.19-23),
Moses and the elders of Israel saw God and ate and drank (Exodus 24.9-11 & Exodus 33.18-23).
It was the angel of Yahweh that wrestled with Jacob (Genesis 32.24-30)
and shared a meal with Abraham (Genesis 18.1-8).
Notice also that Jesus added to the
fact that God was invisible, stating
that he is also inaudible:
John 5:37
And the Father himself, which hath sent
me, hath borne witness of me.
Ye have neither heard his voice at any
time, nor seen his shape.
So how can they have heard his voice giving the 10
commandments?
Exodus 20:1
¶And God spake all these words, saying,
Exodus 20:22
¶And the LORD said unto Moses,
Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have
talked with you from heaven.
Deacon Stephen explains:
Acts 7:38
This is he, that was in the church in the
wilderness
with the angel which spake to him in the
mount Sina, and with our fathers:
who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
Once more, it was the angel of Yahweh
So if Jesus was both seen and
heard. How can he be God?
The man Christ Jesus is the means
by which the God who cannot be seen chooses to reveal himself, to man by man.
This was both the plan of God and
Israel's request when the glory of God appeared on Mount Sinai.
Exodus 20:18
¶And all the people saw the thunderings,
and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and
when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto
Moses,
Speak thou with us, and we will hear:
but let not God speak with us, lest we die.
In response, God promised them:
Deuteronomy 18:15
¶The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee
a Prophet from the midst of thee,
of thy brethren, like unto me; unto
him ye shall hearken;
16 According to all that thou desiredst of the LORD thy God in Horeb in
the day of the assembly, saying,
Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God,
neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
17 And the LORD said unto
me,
They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto
thee,
and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I
shall command him.
19 And it shall come to
pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my
name, I will require it of him.
Moses then was a type of the
prophet who was to come. He was a symbol of what Christ would be.
Moses was absolutely human,
yet both walked in the power of God and brought Israel the word and law of God:
John 1:17
For the law was given by Moses, but grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ.
Moses and Jesus have much in
common, for example:
The massacre of infants at their birth
Both were rejected by the Jews the
first time they come to deliver them, and found a Gentile bride.
Christ will come back the second
time in the power of God and his judgement, just as Moses did on his return to
Egypt.
Both fasted for 40 days and nights
(Moses did this twice)
When Moses went up Mount Sinai the
second time in order to receive some replacement stone tablets for the ones he
broke, he asked God:
"I beseech thee, shew me thy
glory" (Exodus 33:18).
After the glory of God had passed
before Moses, the Bible tells us that his face also shone.
Exodus 34:29
And it came to pass, when Moses came down
from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came
down from the mount,
that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with
him.
30 And when Aaron and all
the children of Israel saw Moses,
behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
This glory upon Moses did not make
him the source of the glory.
What the Israelites saw, indeed
what frightened them so much that Moses had to wear a veil over his face, was
the reflection
of God's glory.
The face of Moses became a mirror
for the glory of God and shone in the same way as the moon does when it
reflects the glory of the sun.
So Jesus, the prophet like Moses
also ascended a mountain and shone with the glory of God:
Matthew 17:1
¶And after six days Jesus taketh Peter,
James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
2 And was transfigured
before them:
and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
And not just the glory, but the
character, love, mercy, power, message and self-expression of God are all
revealed to man by Jesus.
2 Corinthians 4:6
For God, who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts,
to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That is why the scripture states
about Jesus:
Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of his glory,
and the express image of his person,
and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
John 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time;
the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared
him.
Colossians 1:15
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Since God cannot be seen, heard and
touched, he has always chosen to reveal himself to man by means of man.
Not through an angel, but through a
human being who can relate to people's weaknesses, sufferings and temptation:
Hebrews 2:16
For verily he took not on him the nature of angels;
but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
17 Wherefore in all things
it behoved him to be made like unto his
brethren,
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succour them that are tempted.
1 Timothy 2:5
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus;
He did this firstly through
witnesses such as Abel, Enoch and Noah. Then through the patriarchs- Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. Then through Moses and the prophets.
Lastly through the man Christ Jesus:
Hebrews 1:1
¶God, who at sundry times and in divers
manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath
appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
It is God's ultimate and highest
revelation of himself to us by means of his flesh and blood Son that is the
very mystery of Godliness!
1 Tim 3:16
16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
God was manifest in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Note-
Manifestation means to make known or
to show forth
(Strongs 5319- to render apparent).
Try this for yourself by replacing 'manifested' with either
of these words in any of the places where it appears in the Bible-
Mark 4:22, John 2:11, John 17:6, Romans 3:21, Titus 1:3, 1
John 1:2, 1 John 3:5,1 John 3:8, 1 John 4:9
In setting forth the Son as the
ultimate vehicle of his revelation to man, God in no way reduces the Son's own
personality and humanity.
He had his own mind as well as his
own free will and chose to yield it to God.
John 14:7
If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:
and from henceforth ye know him, and have
seen him.
8 Philip saith unto him,
Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
9 Jesus saith unto him,
Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
he that hath seen me hath seen the
Father;
and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
After explaining that everything it
is possible for a man to see of the Father can be seen in him,
Jesus explains why:
10 Believest thou not that
I am in the Father, and the Father in me?
the words that I speak unto you I speak
not of myself:
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
Because Jesus chose to do only what
the Father had shown him
To see him work was to see the 'arm of Yahweh' at work.
John 8:26
I have many things to say and to judge of
you: but he that sent me is true;
and I speak to the world those things
which I have heard of him.
27 They understood not that
he spake to them of the Father.
Because he chose only to speak the
words which the Father had given him.
To hear his word was to hear the
undiluted word of God. 'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!'
Furthermore, it is God's desire
that we too, by looking at Christ should bask in the glory of God shed upon us
by him in order that we too should shine to the world
2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with open face beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
The reflection of God's glory and
his revelation to us through Christ doesn't make Christ God Almighty any more
than it did Moses.
So there you have it. To know Jesus
is to know everything it is possible for a human to know about God.
He is nothing less than the ultimate and highest revelation of God to man.
By him the invisible attributes of God's love, mercy, grace, compassion,
power, truth and free forgiveness are revealed to us through the life of the
humble carpenter from Galilee, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
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1. Introduction |
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10. Seen! |
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17. Jesus- a Godsend |
18. 1 Creator |
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20. The firstborn |
21. The name of God |
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