No Man Hath Seen God

"'No man hath seen God at any time' John 1:18. What about Enoch, Moses and Elijah who were taken to heaven. They were men and are now in God’s presence according to the Bible. Or not?"

In all interpretations of Scripture, it is important first to look at the overall intent of a section in order to discern the point of its inclusion, and then fasten one's attention to the immediate context. The entire first section of the first chapter of the Book of John focuses on the nature, purpose, and divinity of the One, or Christ. It starts by asserting His timelessness, proceeds by maintaining His oneness with God while trumpeting His individuality, and ends by talking, almost matter-of-factly considering, of life whirling and writhing within Him that illuminates humankind.

The preface fades, all these terse truths are left hanging in space like planets, and the author of John proceeds to discuss the Baptist. And it is in the Baptist's words that we find the statement in our present difficulty. As if further expounding on the nature and purpose of the One, John expresses the following:

“This one was the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’” For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known."

Now the Baptist asserts once again in this chapter Christ's timeless status. And in some way, he has it that Christ is greater than him because of it - that because He is older (even if from eternity), He must be better. Alone, one might question the reasoning here. There are fallen angels who have happened upon this world prior to any of us ambling about in it. In the next verse, which begins "For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another", the reader is given a hint at how His eternity is a testament to His significance, since introducing a sentence with 'for' gives greater explanation to the preceding statement. Christ is greater because it is by Him that John can even testify of Him; He has preceded Him and everyone who has received "gifts one after another". In this particular instance, the Baptist may very well refer to his own gifts, which have no doubt made him quite the public figure. For those who might then argue that Moses gave the Law, and laud the value of the Law over everything else, he supplants the overarching value of the Law with the grace and truth given by Christ. He is here praising, and trumpeting, and shouting, and emphasizing, underscoring, and underlining who the fount of every blessing is and has ever been. And why is He the only one who supplies such gifts? Why is He the light that illuminates the Father? Why is He the manna, and the living water, and a million other metaphors which signify some thousand other sustenances and near hundred other needs? Why could no one else run such an office? It is because "No one has ever seen God," it is because He is the only one who "is in the bosom of the Father."

To say that others have gazed upon some theophany, some physical manifestation of God, is to miss the point that runs and cuts deeper than any in the Gospel of John. To ask whether it is true that no one aside from Christ has seen God, as Aunt LouAnne has asked, because "Moses was mooned by the Lord on the mount / when He showed him His back parts. Does this count?" is really to misconstrue everything. It is as if the skeptic here believes the Baptist is extoling Christ because He may have gazed upon the Father's nose. It is as the Bible is saying Christ gives every gracious gift and affords every truth because He has seen the Father, and by 'seen' we most definitely mean that Christ saw God's torso and noted God's beard. It is as if the skeptic here would have it that seeing someone, particularly in religious language and texts, necessarily means using one's optic sensors in the eyes to develop a mental representation of that person. But, of course, that is not what it means, and that is not what John the Baptist was saying. No one has seen the Father like Christ has seen the Father, just as no one has seen a mother quite like her daughter. It is obvious that we mean something more by 'seeing', and it should be no surprise that the skeptics do not understand this (do not 'see' this, if you will), since they have eyes but cannot see. Christ sees God by fellowship - "the closest fellowship" - with the Father. Using a common idiom, John says that Christ is "in the bosom" of the Father. And we are taken back here, by John the Baptist's testimony, to the preface supporting the very purpose of the entire Gospel of John, specifically that the Word that was with God and was God was now personified upon Earth to bring the life and light that illuminates God.

And really, many of the Biblical characters used to reinforce this alleged contradiction, upon analysis, really reinforce the Baptist's point. If we are to suppose that seeing God is more than just a matter of optics, and more a matter of close fellowship, understanding, and revelation of character, what can better show this than the matter of Moses and Jacob? If we are to suppose, as many skeptics suppose, that the Old Testament was a compilation of myths, metaphor, and allegory, then what really could attest to Moses' understanding of God, then that Moses, before the Cross was erected, could only gaze upon His back? Any priest or scribe that heard the Baptist say that one has seen God would have immediately been struck by that - that there was now One among them who towered above Moses, that there was one who had seen a God who the Psalmist said hid amidst the clouds and reveled in the darkness. And Jacob had seen God, or someone anyway, but did Jacob see Him in the sense the Baptist means? And again, if the Old Testament is merely a compilation of myths and allegory, what would best show Jacob's complete ignorance of God than that he had to ask Him His name? Or that he did not know Him until he was told? Over and over again, throughout the entire Old Testament, we are presented with a God that refused to be represented in imagery, that manifested Himself in smoke and flames, and hid in the clouds and shadows, who defined change in the world without so much defining Himself. And then a Man comes who says that He has seen through the clouds and the smoke and flames and shadows, and has peered into the very essence of the Father. It is almost as if there was always some murmur at the beginning of history, some secret rarely told, a shade of some color never entirely exacted. Then in the apex of history, the murmuring became shouting, the secrets were shared, and the colors were given more satiety than anyone had thought possible. And it was all because a Man came who could peer into the spring through which all things flow.