I recently did an extensive
study of the question "Can a
man see God?" I used as my
source the Bible and related
pseudepigraphic works, so that
my findings could be of use to Christians in general. In the
course of my study I found 2
scriptures that flat out say
that God can not be seen, 1
scripture that seems to show
that God can be seen, but that his face can't, 1 scripture that
says that the man which is of
God has (past tense) seen God,
and many instances of men
actually seeing God. My
conclusion? The writers of the Bible were either confused or
there is some deeper principle
at work. I know that they were
not confused, so I began to
look for that "deeper principle."
Here are my findings: Man Cannot See God? I will start with the scriptures
that seem to say that man can
not see God. The best example
of this is found in John 1:18
which reads: "No man hath
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father, he hath
declared him." This seemed
fairly straightforward. The Son
declares the Father but no one
sees the Father. The next best one is found in 1 John 4:12
which reads: "No man hath
seen God at any time. If we
love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected
in us." Again this seemed very straightforward. No man can
see God, but he can dwell with
us if we love one another. And
in vs. 20 it continues "...for he
that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen?" This verse is talking to
the average person who has
not seen God, but isn't definite
in saying that no one ever can
see God. But perhaps the most interesting reference that I
found was the one in Exodus
33:18-23. Here it is: "18 And he [Moses] said, I
beseech thee, shew me thy
glory. 19 And he said, I will
make all my goodness pass
before thee, and I will proclaim
the name of the LORD be- fore thee; and will be gracious to
whom I will be gracious, and
will shew mercy on whom I will
shew mercy. 20 And he said,
Thou canst not see my face:
for there shall no man see me, and live. 21 And the LORD said,
behold, there is a place by me,
and thou shalt stand upon a
rock: 22 And it shall come to
pass, while my glory passeth
by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover
thee with my hand while I pass
by: 23 And I will take away
mine hand, and thou shalt see
my back parts: but my face
shall not be seen." It appears from this that man
can see God, but not his face.
Just over the page however,
we read "And the LORD spake
unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his
friend..." (Exodus 32:11) What
is going on? It also appears,
from these scriptures, that
when man does see God he
appears in the form of a man, having a "hand" and "back parts"
and a "face". This should not be
surprising as we are created in
God's image. (see Genesis
1:26-27) In 3 John 1:11 we read: "Behold,
follow not that which is evil,
but that which is good. He that
doeth good is of God: but he
that doeth evil hath not seen
God." People who do evil (which can be interpreted as all of us
because we all sin at one time
or another) will not see God. It
seems that as part of the fall
of Adam, we are cut off from
the presence of God. This "second death" or "spiritual
death" (not the death of the
spirit, but the spirit's
banishment from God's
presence) is upon us all
because of the Adam's transgression. Because of the
fall we can no longer abide
God's full presence. For this
reason God the Father is
sometimes called the
"invisible" God. [Jesus Christ] "Who is in the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of
every creature;" (Col 1:15)
Notice that this God still has an
image, after which Jesus Christ
was made, with arms, hands, feet, and a face, but the
fullness of that image can not
be seen by us in our present
condition. Hebrews 1:3 says
much the same thing, [Jesus
Christ] "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,..." Christ had a definite image.
When he appeared he had both
form and substance, arms,
legs, hands, feet, etc. (see
Luke 24:36-43) God is the
same we are told. Man Can See God? Now let us discuss the
scriptures that seem to say
that man can see God. I will
start with a transition
scripture, Matthew 5:8:
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Of
course the question still
remains, when shall they see
God, after they die or in this
life, and who are the "pure in
heart"? John 6:46 reads: "Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God,
he hath seen the Father."
Notice the past tense... he hath
SEEN God the Father. The
question we now ask is: what does he mean when he says
"of God"? This is much like 3
John 1:11 in that it is saying
that evil can not abide in the
presence of God, but with the
implication that this can be overcome! But now let us go into the
accounts of people actually
seeing God. As there are so
many of them I will just list
them in the order that they
occur in the scriptures, putting *'s by the really good ones: [Genesis 17:1] "And when
Abram was ninety years old
and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am
the Almighty God; Walk before
me, and be thou perfect." [Genesis 32:30] "And Jacob
called the name of the place
Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." [Genesis 33:10] (Jacob
compares seeing Esau's face to
seeing the face of God) * [Exodus 24:9-11] "Then
went up Moses, and Aaron,
Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy
of the elders of Israel: And
they saw the God if Israel: and there was under his feet as it
were a paved work of a
sapphire stone, and as it were
the body of heaven in his
clearness. And upon the nobles
of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink." (Wow, 70 people saw
God at one time! And he
appeared to them in form like a
man, having a "hand" and
"feet"). *[Exodus 33:11] "And the LORD
spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speakest unto his
friend." (I would assume that
to talk to someone face to face
you first have to see their
face). [Numbers 14:14] "And they
will tell it to the inhabitants of
this land: for they have heard
that thou LORD art among this
people, that thou LORD art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and
that thou goest before them,
by day time in a pillar of a
cloud, and in a pillar of fire by
night." [Deuteronomy 5:4] "And the
LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire," [1 Kings 3:5] "In Gibeon the
LORD appeared to Solomon in a
dream by night:" [1 Kings 9:2] "That the LORD
appeared to Solomon the
second time as he had
appeared unto him at Gibeon." [1 Kings 11:9] "..LORD God of
Israel, which had appeared unto
him (Solomon) twice," [Job 19:25-26] "For I know that
my redeemer liveth, and that
he shall stand at the latter day
upon the earth: And though
after my skin worms destroy
this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (Job is talking of
seeing God in his resurrected
body, although this doesn't
show that God can be seen
here in mortality, it is
important to note that God can be seen with a resurrected
body, and that a resurrected
body actually has flesh! (see
Luke 24:36-43; Philippians
3:21)) *[Isaiah 6:1-5] "In the year
that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train
filled the temple. ... Then said I,
Woe is me! for I am undone;
because I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of
a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King,
the LORD of hosts." (more on this appearance later) [Ezekiel 3:23] "Then I arose,
and went forth into the plain:
and, behold, the glory of the
LORD stood there, as the glory
which I saw by the river of
Chebar: and I fell on my face." * [Acts 7:55-60] Stephen sees
Jesus "standing on the right
hand of God." * [Revelations 1:17] John the
revelator sees Jesus Christ in
vision. I do not place much trust in
apocryphal writings, I feel that
for the most part they are the
interpolations of men.
However there are parts of
them that do contain much truth. They are surely of
incalculable valuable in
showing the prevailing
thoughts of their day, whether
or not the stories contained in
them are factual. In "The Martyrdom of Isaiah" (From
"The Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament" by R. H. Charles,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913)
we read the story of Isaiah's death. In the story he is
challenged by Hezekiah's evil
son Manasseh, and his false
prophet Belchlra. Belchlra's
accusation of Isaiah is
interesting. Belchlra says that Isaiah is a false prophet
because, first, he accused
Israel of sin, second, he
"...Prophes[ied] against
Jerusalem and against the
cities of Judah that they shall be laid waste..." (3:6), and
finally, Isaiah's huge crime,
making him worthy of death,
consisted in the fact that
"Isaiah himself hath said: 'I see
more than Moses the prophet.' But Moses said: 'No man can
see God and live': and Isaiah
hath said: 'I have seen God and
behold I live.' Know therefore,
O king, that he is
lying..." (3:8-10) It seems that the methods of those who
accuse the prophets of lying
have not changed in the last
few thousand years. Isaiah
claimed to have seen God,
therefore he must be a false prophet. Nothing could be
further from the truth, yet
today people are quick to use
the same logic on Joseph Smith,
that Belchlra used on Isaiah. All this was, needless to say,
very confusing to me. The
Bible seems to be contradicting
its self. I do not understand
how anyone could come to any
kind of a conclusion based on what little the Bible has to say
on this subject. The only
conclusion that I could come to
is that people's faces have a
tenancy to shine after they
"see" God, something that the Bible say's can not be done.
Here are more references that
I found: Face shown: Exodus 34:29 (Moses's face
shown)
Matt 17:2 (Jesus's
transfiguration)
Mark 9:2-3 (Jesus's
transfiguration) etc. There are more. (also see) Luke 3:6 "All flesh shall see the
salvation of God"
1 Corinthians 9:1 Paul has seen
Jesus Christ in vision. The Clarification of the
Restoration I eventually turned to the
teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith for help. I had
exhausted the Bible and I
hadn't found an answer.
Suddenly the answer became very clear. Man cannot see God, in his natural state. But a
man can see God either 1) in a vision, (Like Solomon seeing
God in a dream), 2) with his
spiritual eyes, or 3) with his
body being temporarily changed
by the Spirit in some way to
protect him from God's presence. A body thus changed
can endure God's presence in
the same way a resurrected
body does. (see Job 19:25-27
for an example of a
resurrected body seeing God). When this happens it is called
transfiguration, and afterwards
the face of a transfigured
person will shine. Now all the
supposed contradictions in the
Bible made perfect sense. Moses had seen God face to
face in vision or through
transfiguration, but he wished
to see God with his natural
eyes, thus the comment "shew
me thy glory" (ex. 33:18). To this request God responded by
showing Moses his back but
not his face, warning him that
he could not see his face with
his natural eyes and live. This
also explains all the comments that man cannot see God,
without causing any
contradiction with all the
numerous accounts of people
actually seeing God. This is a
powerful example of modern revelation clarifying what
would otherwise appear to be a
contradiction in ancient
scripture. We should be eternally
grateful for the restoration of
the gospel which clarifies so
much that would otherwise be
mysterious from the Bible
alone!
