46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
Sometimes I think we have a tendency to lower God to our own playing fields. He is not our cosmic buddy or pal, winking at sin and “getting down with his bad self” to entertain and pander us. He has no bad self. God is perfectly holy, totally unapproachable Light – where, Scripture tells us, no one can see, survive or even draw near apart from the saving work of Jesus.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 (NIV)
God is the ultimate Ruler of the universe, the eternal One, whose thoughts and ways are boundlessly higher than our own – indeed, God’s Word tells us that His thoughts and ways are infinitely above ours - higher than the heavens are above the earth by comparison:
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)
God is so frighteningly far from our level that it is beyond our fleshly comprehension. I am reminded of Paul’s words to his beloved Timothy in his fitting doxology to God:
God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. 1 Tim 6:15-16 (NIV)
Beyond our wildest imaginations, beyond our thoughts and dreams, is the eternal One that is totally Other. He is the great “I AM”. In our verse for today Jesus tells us that it is He alone that has seen the Father. We find earlier in John similar words regarding our Savior:
18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. John 1:18 (NIV)
Jesus came to make His Father known to us by disclosing God’s essential nature which is pure love. He was sent on a mission from God to restore fallen man to a right relationship with the Father. God had prepared a plan for the salvation of man, Jesus secured it and the Holy Spirit applied it to all believers – the Trinity working in perfect unity. God’s loving purpose in revelation was restoring relationship. A perfectly holy God cannot commune with sin. Sin separates us from His majesty.
“The revealed truth of God is that without the atonement He cannot forgive – He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross. God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm...Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.” Oswald Chambers
“(Why does God) bother to speak to us? The truly staggering answer that the Bible gives to this question is that God’s purpose in revelation is to make friends with us. It was to this end that he created us rational beings, bearing his image, able to think and hear and speak and love; he wanted there to be genuine personal affection and friendship, two-sided, between himself and us—a relation, not like that between a man and his dog, but like that of a father to his child, or a husband to his wife. Loving friendship between two persons has no ulterior motive; it is an end in itself. And this is God’s end in revelation. He speaks to us simply to fulfill the purpose for which we were made; that is, to bring into being a relationship in which he is a friend to us, and we to him, he finding his joy in giving us gifts and we finding ours in giving him thanks”. J I Packer, God Has Spoken
9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" -- 1 Cor 2:9 (NIV)
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Eph 3:20-21 (NIV)
“God delights in His covenant and so we are sure He will not turn back from it. It is the joy of His holy heart. He delights to do His people good. To pass over transgression, iniquity, and sin is the recreation of Jehovah. Did you ever hear God singing? It is extraordinary that the Divine One would solace Himself with song, yet a prophet has thus revealed the Lord to us: ‘The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.’ (Zephaniah 3:17). The covenant is the heart of God written out in the blood of Jesus.” Charles Spurgeon, Grace, God’s Unmerited Favor