Bible Synapse
Can anyone see God?
Hard question · Who God is · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God tells Moses, “there shall no man see me, and live”.
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
“No man hath seen God at any time”; the Son has made him known.
No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
“The Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.”
And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
Moses, Aaron and seventy elders “saw the God of Israel”, with a pavement like sapphire under his feet.
Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.
After wrestling with ‘a man’ all night, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face”.
And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
God dwells in unapproachable light, “whom no man hath seen, nor can see”.
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 tells his opponents, “Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape”.
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. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.
The objection
Exodus 33:20 says no one can see God’s face and live, and John 1:18 says, “No man hath seen God at any time”. Yet in the same chapter of Exodus the Lord speaks with Moses “face to face”, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face”, Moses with the elders of Israel “saw the God of Israel”, and Isaiah says, “I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne” (Isaiah 6:1). People heard God’s voice too, though Jesus told his hearers that they had never heard it.
The answer
The key is the difference between seeing God as he is in himself, in his unveiled glory, and seeing a theophany: a visible form in which God chose to show himself. John 1:18 and 1 Timothy 6:16 speak of the first: God’s own being is invisible, and no mortal could bear the sight of his glory. The Old Testament encounters are the second: a man who wrestled with Jacob (Genesis 32:24), the angel of the Lord, the cloud and fire, a vision of God enthroned (Isaiah 6:1).
Exodus 33 holds both sides together in one conversation. ‘Face to face’ in verse 11 is an idiom for direct, friendly speech, as Numbers 12:8 explains it: “mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches”. In verse 18 Moses asks for more, to see God’s glory itself, and is told he cannot see God’s face; he may see only God’s ‘back’ as his glory passes by (33:23). Exodus 24:10 shows the same restraint: it describes nothing of God himself, only what was “under his feet”. Jacob’s words at Peniel express wonder that he had met God in human form and lived.
John adds that the Son “hath declared him” (1:18): Christians hold that God has made himself fully known in Jesus (John 14:9), and many from the early church on have seen the Old Testament appearances as appearances of the Son. In John 5:37 Jesus is not denying that God ever spoke; he tells opponents who rejected him that they had never truly heard the Father, for “ye have not his word abiding in you” (5:38).
From the classic commentators
Although Jehovah showed Himself to Moses in some peculiar form of manifestation, He never appeared in His own essential glory, but only in such a mode as human weakness could bear.Calvin, quoted by Keil & Delitzsch on Exodus 33:11 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
When he says that no man hath seen God, we must not understand him to refer to the outward perception of the bodily eye; for he means generally, that as God dwells in inaccessible light, (1 Timothy 6:16,) he cannot be known but in Christ, who is his lively image.John Calvin, Commentary on John 1:18 (1553), at Bible Hub
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on Exodus 33 (1857–78), at Bible Hub
- John Calvin, Commentary on John 1, at Bible Hub