8 Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
9 Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."
To be sure, I am supremely happy that God did not choose for me to live in Biblical times simply because I have a nagging suspicion I would have ended up in Holy Writ looking as unfavorably as some that we have read about most recently. First we have Peter demonstrating his presumption, next Thomas his doubts and now Philip his dullness in faith. They all appear to bring the humanness side to Scripture and it is anything but shining! I think about poor Euodia and Syntyche whom Paul mentions in Philippians Four. They are sisters in Christ in disagreement and it is not a pretty sight. Seriously, I would hate to be recorded throughout eternity as being in some sort of “cat fight” argument simply because I could not agree with someone! Like I said, it was certainly better for me that I was born when I was born! Paul tells us:
2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow, help these women who have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Phil 4:2-3 (NIV)
Our Lord’s Words to Philip seem to drip with discouragement. Certainly Philip should have known better. It appears the natural wish of man in every age is for some extraordinary revelation of the Father – for an earnest desire for further light – a yearning for the miraculous. “Let us see the Father” was Philip’s plea yet here it reveals not only the weakness of his faith but the lack of his understanding of the gospel way of making God known. Jesus came to flesh out the Father for our eyes to see and subsequently as His followers we are to flesh out Jesus for the world to see. To see with bodily eyes is one thing yet to see with eyes of faith is quite another. The writer of Hebrews gives us the following definition of faith:
1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. Heb 11:1-2 (NIV)
“Want of trust is at the root of almost all our sins and all our weaknesses, and how shall we escape it but by looking to Him and observing His faithfulness. The man who holds God’s faithfulness will not be foolhardy or reckless, but will be ready for every emergency.” Hudson Taylor
Faith is not only having a surety and certainty regarding unseen realities and hopes but it is also to be the eyes with which believers are to view all of life’s experiences. It is not a blind hope rather a firm grounding in the Truth of the Lord Jesus. In His High Priestly Prayer Jesus states:
25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." John 17:25-26 (NIV)
20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17:20-23 (NIV)
Jesus was clear earlier in John as well when He cried out:
44 Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." John 12:44-46 (NIV)
There is a close and mysterious and insoluble unity between the three Persons of the Trinity with which our finite minds can perhaps grasp but only a glimmer. How very little we realize the fullness of this Unity! The Lord taught His disciples many things when He walked on this earth and of these, certain mighty Truths simply passed right over their heads. It was not until afterwards that His Words were remembered and became clearer. Their dullness gives me hope.
"Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire, Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God." Amy Carmichael