Audio Transcript
Welcome again to Job week on the podcast. On Monday, we learn Job 16 collectively and needed to parse out which of Job’s claims are true and which of them are false — one of many explicit challenges of studying Job. As we speak we learn Job 19 and this daring declaration from Job in Job 19:26–27: “After my pores and skin has been thus destroyed, but in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and never one other. My coronary heart faints inside me!” After Job dies, he will likely be in his flesh — and in his flesh, he’ll see God. That’s his declare.
To that declare comes this associated query from Eric, who listens to the podcast in Joliet, Illinois: “Pastor John, howdy! First Timothy 6:16 says that nobody can see God. But Matthew 5:8 tells us that the pure in coronary heart will see God. Is there any sense by which we can ‘see’ God bodily in heaven? Or is that this textual content alluding to the incarnate and glorified Christ? It’s a robust promise, and I wish to perceive it higher.”
Let’s put the texts — those that he refers to and some others — in entrance of us, after which see if we are able to reply the query.
- 1 Timothy 6:15–16: “He who’s the blessed and solely Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable gentle, whom nobody has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and everlasting dominion.”
- 1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the one God, be honor and glory.”
- 1 John 4:12: “Nobody has ever seen God; if we love each other, God abides in us.”
- Exodus 33:20: “You can not see my face, for man shall not see me and stay.”
- Deuteronomy 4:12: “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the hearth. You heard the sound of phrases, however noticed no kind; there was solely a voice.”
That’s one aspect. You possibly can’t see him. Now right here’s the opposite aspect.
- Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in coronary heart, for they shall see God.”
- Genesis 32:30: “Jacob referred to as the identify of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I’ve seen God head to head, and but my life has been [spared].’”
- Job 19:26–27: “And after my pores and skin has been thus destroyed, but in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and never one other.”
There you’ve got either side of the problem. And the answer to this seeming inconsistency lies in the truth that the phrase see, as everyone knows, has a number of completely different makes use of. And in case you have a look at all of the texts, you see that there are two completely different senses by which his individuals can see God and two senses by which they can not see God.
So, let me break these out and see if individuals can comply with me — see if they will see.
How We Can’t See God
First, the methods we can not see God.
1. We will’t see him with our bodily eyes for the straightforward cause that he’s a spirit, and he doesn’t have a physique. That’s in all probability at the very least a part of what Paul means when he says that Christ “is the picture of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).
2. We will’t see him even spiritually with unmediated directness. That is partly owing to our sinfulness and partly owing maybe to our creaturely weak point. He’s too nice, too vivid, too wonderful, and we couldn’t stay if we noticed him with unmediated directness. We should at all times have Christ, our Mediator, as a go-between.
I feel that’s what Jesus meant when he says in John 6:45–46, “It’s written within the Prophets, ‘And they’ll all be taught by God.’ Everybody who has heard and discovered from the Father involves me — not that anybody has seen the Father besides he who’s from God; he has seen the Father.” Now, when it says, “besides he who’s from God; he has seen the Father,” he means not with bodily eyes as a result of Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t have bodily eyes earlier than the incarnation. And that’s what he’s contrasting our seeing with. Solely the Son can see the Father with nonphysical, unmediated, direct seeing. We can not see God spiritually the way in which the Son of God in unmediated directness can see him.
So, these are the 2 methods we are able to’t see God after we use the phrase see in numerous methods.
How We Can See God
And listed below are the 2 methods we can see God.
1. We use the phrase see to imply that we lastly perceive and discern the wonder and glory of God after being blind to it, like after we say, “Oh, now I see.” Our soul is tuned in to the glory in order that the glory of God that shines by the gospel is seen as wonderful, and we’re now not spiritually blind to it. That’s the primary manner we see him.
2. The second manner is that, within the narrative of the Bible, we see the glory of God — and, lastly, we’ll see him head to head — by Christ, by seeing Christ. “The Phrase grew to become flesh and dwelt amongst us, and now we have seen his glory, glory as of the one Son from the Father. . . . Nobody has ever seen God; the one God, who’s on the Father’s aspect, he has made him recognized” (John 1:14, 18). So, we see God by seeing Jesus. “We all know that when he seems we will be like him, as a result of we will see him as he’s” (1 John 3:2).
So, the implication is that this: pursue purity of coronary heart, purity of religion, purity of life in order that our coronary heart, your coronary heart, is ready to see God’s magnificence as what it truly is within the Scripture, and in order that when he comes or when he calls us in dying, we’ll see him head to head and be glorified with him.
