John 1:18

[Ite_ad_Ioseph]

18
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, 12 who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.

I can honestly say I don’t know how to interpret this.
‘Who has seen Me has seen the Father?’ right?

 

[DavidFilmer]

No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, 12 who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.

I can honestly say I don’t know how to interpret this.
‘Who has seen Me has seen the Father?’ right?

John 1:18 says that God is revealed by the Son. John 14:9 (the other verse you quoted) says that God is revealed by the Son.

These are the same thing. Do you see some contradiction here? You need to walk us through it.

 

[Nita]

18
No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, 12 who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him.

I understand this as referring to a full “seeing” of God in the fullness of His Divine Nature. Only God - the three Persons of the Trinity - can see Himself in that way.
No created being is capable of seeing/comprehending/etc. God fully.

‘Who has seen Me has seen the Father?’ right?

This would mean that those who see Jesus, see the Father/God *to the degree that the Divine Nature can be manifested through a human nature.
*It is a limited “seeing” by us; Jesus manifesting Himself (Deity) within the limits of human nature. I call it a “limited seeing” because it is a “limited manifestation”.
This verse reflects the oneness/unity of the Three Persons of the Trinity.

 

[Ite_ad_Ioseph]

okay; so in other words, No one has ever seen God BUT he is revealed to us through the Son, and who sees the Son sees the Father, so really, some have “seen” God (that is the Father). St. John means then that BEFORE Christ no one has seen the Father.
(Moses talked to God but did not see him; when he died he saw a vision of God’s back…?..if I remember…)
I think that makes sense. Thank you all.

 

[CentralFLJames]

okay; so in other words, No one has ever seen God BUT he is revealed to us through the Son, and who sees the Son sees the Father, so really, some have “seen” God (that is the Father). St. John means then that BEFORE Christ no one has seen the Father.
(Moses talked to God but did not see him; when he died he saw a vision of God’s back…?..if I remember…)
I think that makes sense. Thank you all.

Correct. God’s spirit is infinite in depth and a human soul being finite does not have the capacity to behold God as He knows Himself. Not even Mary, highest of all created beings can know God as He knows Himself since she also has a finite soul. Jesus however can since He is present in His full Divinity as well as hypo-statically through His human soul. We can only behold God through Christ’s Human nature since He is our new Adam and our new Human prototype.

We must assume that God is in spiritual form because it is the highest and best possible form to exist in. We have to assume that the reason He does not reveal much more of Himself than through His angelic messengers and in His human person of Jesus is because He protects us from being overwhelmed by His splendor and magnificence. We would instantly die in an unbounded rapture of joy (or die from shame in contrast of holiness and feelings of unworthiness) if He revealed anything more than a single ray of His full splendor to us. This is why nothing impure can enter heaven - it could not suffer to stand the spiritual pain before God in anything less than purity. People don’t normally see it this way but hell is really a mercy for those disgraced souls who have no place to escape the spiritual pain of God’s burning glory. Likewise our greater human nature is spiritual and if we could see our spiritual image as God might see us then we would be either repulsed by the corruptness of those in grave sin (probably appearing as leprosy or demonic in appearance) or be overwhelmed at the inner beauty of those who are saintly and in a state of grace.

Grace is beautiful stuff and even if the least human soul in heaven were to visit one of us in their full glory we would faint at the beauty and want to worship them. This is why the angels often take the image of humans or as fire or bright light to shield us from becoming overwhelmed.

James