Everything changed the day Jesus Christ was born as a babe in Bethlehem.  One of the things that changed was our view of God.  The God enshrouded in the mystery of history stepped into our world and introduced Himself to us in the Person of His Son.  Our view of God would never be the same as a result.

Photo Credit: Simon_K via Compfight cc

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.  John 1:18

No One Has Seen God

God had been revealing Himself throughout the history of His dealings with people.  No one, however, had gotten a full on look at Him.  The children of Israel heard a voice but saw no form (Deuteronomy 4:12).  Moses saw His back but not His face (Exodus 33:21 – 23).  Others caught glimpses of Him in visions and dreams, but no one ever saw Him in the full manifestation of His glory.

The One at the Father’s Side

One came into our midst, however, who was fully qualified to reveal the Father to us.  Having lived in a place of intimacy with the Father from all eternity, He had seen and known Him fully.  This is what Jesus said in John 6:46.  Speaking of Himself He said,

“…not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.”

He Made Him Known

In the Greek text, the tern for “made him known” literally means to lead forward.  Think about a little girl leading her daddy into her grade school classroom so she can tell them all about him.  That’s the picture here.  Jesus Christ led His Father forward so we could see what He was really like.  As a result, we could never view God the same way again.

Now We Know

The guess work is forever gone.  We now know what God is like by looking at His Son.  E. Stanley Jones says it best:

“We know that God is like this that we have seen in Jesus.  He is Christ-like.  And if His is, He is a good God and trustable.  If the Heart that is back of the universe is like this gentle Heart that broke upon the cross, He can have my heart without qualification and without reservation.  I know nothing higher to say of God than that He should live like Christ.  ‘The question to my mind’, said a Yale professor, ‘is not as to the divinity of Jesus, but as to whether God will act like Jesus.’  Strange, a Man lived among us, and when we think of God we must think of Him in terms of the Man, or He is not good.  We may transfer every single moral quality in Jesus to God without loss or degradation to our thought of God.  On the contrary, by thinking of Him in terms of Jesus we heighten our view of God.  All those who have tried to think of Him in other terms have lowered and impoverished our idea of Him.” *

The coming of the Lord Jesus gave us a new view of God.  May this view of Him guide us continually on our journey of living in the Reign.

M

*If anyone knows the exact reference for this quote, please let me know and I will include it here.  The book I obtained the quote from was written prior to 1948 and did not include a reference to which of Rev. Jones’ works it was taken from.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.