Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” That is true of many things in life, perhaps most especially of the great questions of faith. The questions are asked again and again, by each new generation. They may be asked in different ways, in different words, but so many of the questions remain the same. We hold the same basic faith, whether we sing it in modern praise songs or great old hymns, as Christians have held for generations.
Past generations have set down some of the basics of faith in the creeds. The Apostles’ Creed, which we say almost every week, sets down answers to some of the historic questions of faith. “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” answers the question of creation, the question of how to understand the first person of the Trinity, the limits of His power and authority (of which there are none). As you read or think through the rest of the creed, you can imagine the kinds of questions that might have been swirling around at the inception of the creed and you might well realize that you have had to settle many of those questions in your own mind at some point. The answers in the creeds grow out of careful and serious study of Scripture, which holds all the answers we need to the questions of faith. And, in fact, Scripture tells us that we are to, “be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that [we] do not forget the things [our] eyes have seen or let them fade from [our] heart[s] as long as [we] live.” Scripture exists to answer our questions and to remind us what it is that we believe.
Take our New Testament passage for today. It answers the question of the humanity of Christ – He became flesh and dwelt among us. It answers the question of where Christ came from – “who came from the Father.” It answers the question of how many Messiahs there might be in the words, “the glory of the one and only Son.” It answers any lingering questions early Christians might have had about who John was, what his role was, and whether he was a ‘little messiah,’ a concept some believed in at the time. The passage answers the question of what we received from Jesus – grace - and how the grace we receive is related to the grace God had previously promised. And the passage answers the question of the relationship between Jesus and Moses. They are not one and the same nor do they bring the same things, nor does Jesus cancel out all that was taught by Moses and handed down through the ages. “The law as given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
But Scripture also tells us that there are questions that are to remain unanswered, even though we find that frustrating. One unanswerable question I hear frequently, especially from young people who are still brave enough to ask such questions, is, “What does God look like?” I was asked a version of that question recently, in fact, by one of our confirmands. I basically responded that we don’t know, that God is beyond gender, but that if it helps to think of God as an old man, then that’s okay, but to know that God is much more than we can wrap out little pea brains around.
People have been asking that question since the beginning of Christianity, at least. Today’s passage says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[a] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” Those words demonstrate that people have been asking what God looks like since the Gospel writer was writing, and it has been asked at every stage of Christian history.
That question is the subject of an old sermon I’m going to share with you today, at least in part. A few months back I got a call from the librarian at Longwood Library. For once it had nothing to do with overdue books, but instead was an offer of a cd containing historical documents from this congregation. See, the pastor of the congregation that now resides in the building on the site of the original Middle Island Presbyterian Church had found some very old documents, including some sermons from more than 100 years ago. The librarian was calling to offer me a copy of the cd the pastor had made. One of the sermons on the cd was preached in October 1835, and it deals with exactly this historic question about what God looks like. I actually not only read the whole sermon, but transcribed it – if you want me to send you a copy by email, let me know. I believe it was written by the Reverend Frederick E. Allen, but since there’s no date on the article about that man which is included on the cd, I cannot be absolutely certain. My original thought was to share the whole thing with you, but the language is a bit archaic and it is rather long, so instead I will share a portion of that sermon with you and try to translate English to English along the way. The Rev. Allen wrote:
Organs formed from the dust are too gross and too powerless to furnish a glimpse of the glorious Jehovah. The Divine essence, to men in the flesh, is invisible. The invisibility of Jehovah is plainly declared by St. Paul to Timothy….
I believe he means that humans, being formed from mud in the beginning of time, are too pea-brained to be able to deal with seeing God. This is, of course, supported by the passage in Exodus 33 in which God tells Moses no man can see His face and live. There are passages that tell of people seeing God, but seeing God in things, like a burning bush, a pillar of cloud or fire, a dove descending, or even a bright light that symbolizes God is in their midst, but there is no passage that indicates humans could actually see God in all His glory outside the Garden of Eden. We are not capable of seeing what the Rev. Allen calls the Divine essence.
And yet there is on the part of man a trembling solicitude to see the Lord Jehovah. With common criminality and servile dread prevailing in the soul, men would flee from the presence of God, and like the first transgression conceal themselves from the light, and neither see their judge nor be seen of Him. But when the veil is lifted from the heart of man, when he is awaked from slumbers of spiritual death, his burden of guilt is removed and his conscience is purified and pacified by the great propitiatory sacrifice and he looks out upon the works of creation and sees in everything made indications of the Divinity, then it is that he feels a trembling solicitude to see God.
Even though we cannot see God, for reasons of our own good health and welfare in this lifetime, we don’t stop wanting to be able to see God. However, if we did see God, we wouldn’t be glad we did, we’d be terrified and run away like Adam and Eve did in the garden when they became aware of their sin. Even so, believers who accept that the perfect sacrifice has made us clean in God’s eyes can see the evidence of God in all of creation. We don’t see the face of God, but the works of His hand.
The Spirit of God is within him, and he pants for a view of the person. He is created anew and would see Him whose workmanship he is. He is born of God & he would come near to and see with his eyes his Heavenly Father. He has the strong and tender feelings of a child, a child home born and home bound, and he longs to approach and throw his arms around the feet of his divine parent and cry, “My Father, my Father.” This inward prevailing desire has often broken out in the decided and pathetic expressions of the lips…But notwithstanding this prevailing desire and the continued occasion of it, a holy and supernatural affinity with God, here stands the Bible doctrine unchanged and unchangeable the infinite God in the unity of His being is to mortal man invisible. “Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see.”
We are not satisfied with being unable to see God, despite having the Spirit of God dwelling in us. We are made new by God, but that is not enough for us because we want to see the One who made us new. We want to praise and thank the One who created and recreated us, but since we cannot see God, humanity has, on occasion, tried to express this desire in words. Some Psalms show this desire to see God, but even through the millennia of God’s covenants with His children, the rule stays in place that humans are not allowed to actually see God in this lifetime. God remains invisible to us.
And is there no relief for the mind, no satisfaction for the restless desire? There is partial relief in the word of divine inspiration. It is not easy for us to entertain any distinct perceptions of an invisible Spirit or the attributes of an invisible Spirit, without some notion of a defined personality associated with such a Spirit…. And to aid our perceptions in relation to this fact, it is said, “His eyes behold and His eyelids try the children of men.” To encourage His people in prayer and in waiting upon Him for His help & blessing it is said, “that His ear is not heavy that is cannot hear nor His arm shortened that it cannot save.” In revealing the doctrine of His universal providence, and His attention to the wants of all living creatures, the inspired writer says, “All these wait upon God that He may give them their meat in due season. That which He giveth them, they gather. He openeth His hand, they are filled with good.”
By the mention of eye, ear, arm & hand we seem to be somewhat relieved, and assisted in forming our ideas about the invisible Spirit, and the manner in which He exercises His perfections, because our thoughts immediately fly to those organs and members, parts of the human body which are plain and familiar to us.
We get some relief of our frustration from Scripture when we read passages that make it seem that God has human features like eyes, ears, arms, and hands. We then begin to think we know what God looks like – like us – because the words are there that describe parts of our own bodies with which we are familiar. This is, however, an accommodation and encouragement from God, not a true description.
But those names to make the most of them are but an illusion. Carrying the human form in our mind as we read about God, we seem to see the incomprehensible Spirit. We entertain some notion about the mode in which He exists and acts. But the fact is we are altogether ignorant on this subject. If there is anything real in the universe, there is reality in the existence of the great first cause, but this existence as to external essence and the unity of the Divine nature is not like anything we that have ever seen or known or heard of….
When we get to thinking that God looks like us, we are mistaken. We really have no idea what God looks like, as if we have the capacity to even see the attributes of God. God is so far beyond our understanding that we could not even create words to describe God because God is like nothing we could possibly imagine.
The doctrine of the Trinity is a blessed doctrine. It is full of interest. It clusters with rich & soul satisfying and everlasting fruit. There is all that we need to enlighten, to sanctify and elevate our undying spirits. And here, too, is all that we need to command our views, to fix our attention, to satisfy desire, to bring us near to God and to honor and immortalize the whole man.
The Spirit for purity and the Son for vision. The Scriptures saith not in vain, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The doctrine of a triune Deity provides for our seeing God in the truest, most satisfying and blessed manner.
Understanding God as Trinity is the only way we can see anything of God. We don’t have to understand how God can be three and yet one, but accepting the truth of a triune God is to be enough to shore up our lagging spirits and to draw us near to God. We have the Spirit to help us in purity and the Son to help us in vision of God and from God. And if we are pure in heart, we will one day get to heaven and see God fully, as Paul promises in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” We do get to see all of God, just not in this lifetime.
Since God is made manifest in the flesh, we faint not with unsatisfied desire. We are not heartsick with hope deferred. We look not in vain for the consolation of Israel. We look unto Jesus, and here the eye rests and the soul is satisfied….
In this lifetime, we must accept that Jesus, the fully human manifestation of God, God in the flesh, is the only way we can see God. So when we need to think of how God looks, it is best to think of how Jesus looks. Of course, the Rev. Allen doesn’t mention that there was no photography in Jesus’ time and that all the artwork depicting God is not only imagery, which is strictly forbidden by Scripture. He also doesn’t mention that Jesus, being a Jew from the Middle East, was far more likely to look Semitic than like the wavy-tressed, blue eyed, white-skinned guy we remember from Bible pictures and movies and Sunday School classroom walls. But the Rev. Allen does point out that what is most important about seeing God in the face of Jesus is not the body parts, but the declaration of God’s existence, love, grace, and mercy. Jesus shows us God, not in the color of His hair or shape of His face, but in his words and deeds, person and works.
The approach of that pastor was somewhat more theological than my answer to our confirmation class. But it doesn’t matter if it’s a first generation group of believers asking often enough that John included it in his Gospel, a congregation on Long Island in 1835, or a modern-day teenager in a confirmation class, often the great questions of faith remain the same. What does God look like? We don’t know and what’s more, we aren’t supposed to. However it helps you to connect with God, imagine Him – or Her – looking that way. It’s not about what God looks like, but about who God is, and what God has done, is doing, and will do.
The questions of faith really don’t change because ours is a historic faith. It is handed down to us from those who lived before and we are to hand it down to those who come after us, as it says of God’s commands in Deuteronomy, “Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” Teach the next generation what is important about who God is and what God has done. And encourage them to wrestle with the great questions of faith for it is in wrestling with these questions that we grow in faith and knowledge of God’s Word.
Faith is supposed to be mysterious and some answers are supposed to wait. History repeats, and so do questions. Some things never change – like the answers found in Scripture. There’s nothing new under the sun, but there is the historical comfort of the promises of God. The words and songs we use to praise Him may be different, but God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Praise God! Amen.