“Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 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? 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. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.” (John 14:8-11)
Do you ever look up at the sky and just wish you could see God? How many human beings living today have ever seen God? How many of us can say exactly what He really looks like? How many of us can say we have ever sat on His lap or talked to Him face-to-face or walked with Him on a road or watched Him feed crowds of people with a miracle meal? How many of us have ever seen God cry or bleed or eat or take off His shoes or be born?
Since God the Father is a spiritual being, He does not have a body in the same sense that people have a body. But Jesus is also God, and He came to Earth to be born in the form of a human being. Unlike spiritual beings, human beings are visible (able to be seen with human eyes).
The people who lived in Jesus’ time had the opportunity to “see” God with their own eyes. Mary and Joseph saw Jesus’ birth, and the shepherds were there to visit Jesus as a newborn infant. Jesus’ friends and disciples had all kinds of chances to see Him live, to see how He responded to what happened around Him, to see what He could do for people, and to see how good and great He really was. Many people were watching Jesus during His last days, and both unbelievers and believers alike were amazed at His words and actions. He lived a sinless life, was crucified unjustly, and rose again from the grave! Only God could have done what Jesus did, and Jesus was God incarnate (God in the flesh, God in person). Jesus’ life on Earth showed everyone the things that God the Father wanted to show about Himself. God told us about Himself in the written Word, and He showed us about Himself in the Living Word: Jesus Christ.
None of us alive today have ever gotten to see Jesus “in person,” either, because He already ascended (went back up) into heaven to be with God the Father again. But it is because of what Jesus did – His perfect life, His sacrificial death, and His glorious resurrection – that we can one day “see” God ourselves. Jesus made it possible for people who trust in Him to have spiritual life! And those of us alive today may not get to meet Jesus in person until eternity, but we have the ability to read about Him and to learn more about God the Father through the story of Jesus’ life and His words. Through Jesus, you might not be able to look up into the sky and “see” God with your own two eyes right now. But you can know more of what God the Father is really like because of Jesus’ life, and you can look up into the sky and talk to God the Father because of what Jesus has already done.
If we know Jesus, we can know God the Father through Him.
My Response:
» Do I really KNOW Jesus and God the Father, or do I just know lots of things ABOUT them?
» How can I keep on learning more and more about God the Father?
» Because of Jesus, am I now able to have a relationship with God the Father?