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FAQ # 158
QUESTION 158 : Can men SEE Him? Did Old Testament Men actually
see God?
Adam and Eve heard a "voice" walking in the
"cool [Hebrew: wind] of the day" (Genesis 3:8). The invisible
God manifest Himself to Adam and Eve as a voice in the wind. We have no
evidence that the voice came from any particular body, but obviously came
from an invisible source in mid-air, in the same manner that it would
later be heard by the young child Samuel (1 Samuel 3), by John the Baptist
(Luke 3:22), and by Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:4).
The invisible Spirit (Father, Lord, and King) manifests
Himself to Abram in a "vision" in Genesis 15:1. He manifest
Himself as a "man" in Genesis 18:2, 22, 23, 33; but the "man"
was apparently an "angel", according to Genesis 19:1, 10.
Then God manifest Himself to Abimelech in a "dream"
in Genesis 20:3.
Later, Jacob also "saw" the Lord in a "dream"
(Genesis 28:12), standing at the top of a ladder that reached into heaven.
God manifest Himself to Jacob as a "man" in the wrestling match
of Genesis 32:24,30, but the prophet Hosea identified that "man"
as an "angel" (Hosea 12:3,4).
God's Spirit again "appeared" as an "angel"
to Moses in the burning bush of Exodus 3. The "angel" said,
"I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob". Yet God is not a mere angel. He only occasionally
appeared as one.
In Exodus 19:10-19, God "appeared" to the
people of Israel at Mount Sinai. They did not actually "see"
Him however, because He "descended upon it in fire, and the smoke
thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked
greatly". There were "thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud
upon the mount".
"Moses spake, and God answered Him by a voice",
verse 19b. Moses and seventy elders of Israel "saw" an apparition
of God, which must have been ghost-like: "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" (Exodus 24:10).
This was a translucent manifestation of an invisible
Spirit, not a flesh and bone appearance, because "God is not a man"
according to Numbers 24:19 and Job 9:32, and Jesus testified that "A
spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39).
"A cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door
of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses", in Exodus 33:9.
Then, "the Lord spake with Moses face to face,
as a man speaketh to a friend", in verse 11.
Even though God was "face to face" with Moses,
Moses did not actually see a face.
The only physical manifestation was a cloud, for in
verse 20, God said, "thou canst not see my face; for there shall
no man see me, and live".
The cloud obviously did not satisfy Moses, so he said,
"Shew me thy glory", (Exodus 33:8) to which God replied, "I
will make all my goodness pass before thee" (verse 19).
Was His glory or goodness a body? God agreed to put
Moses in a "clift of the rock" and "cover thee with my
hand while I pass by: And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see
my back parts: but my face shall not be seen" (verse 19).
God's "hand" would "cover" Moses.
Was God's hand six feet tall? And how could an invisible Spirit extend
a "hand"?
Exodus 34:5 describes exactly what happened: "And
the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed
the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him".
The hand of the Lord must have been the cloud, because
in fact, that is all Moses saw. Again, there was no actual view of God.
We look painstakingly for a description of what Moses
"saw", but we find no evidence of any literal physical body
of God at all. Only a cloud.
But God had not promised to show him a body; only the
"back parts" (verse 23) of "my goodness" (verse 19)
and "my glory" (verse 22).
In one last Old Testament story, we read of the prophet
Daniel's great vision of Daniel 7.
He "saw" the Father God, as the "Ancient
of Days", "whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of
his head like pure wool" (Daniel 7:9). Then Daniel "saw"
that "one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven and
came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before Him"
(Daniel 7:13).
Since this is a vision that Daniel is having, we must
not assume that he was actually "seeing" God in real time, but
was viewing an allegorical representation while in a dream-like trance.
Keep in mind that he just "saw" a lion with
eagle's wings, a bear with three ribs in its mouth, a leopard with four
wings and four heads, and a fourth dreadful beast with iron teeth and
ten horns.
No one would construe these to be literal beasts, but
figurative and illustrative of a series of world empires in prophetic
roles.
When we take into account that "God is a spirit"
(John 4:24), we must understand the Daniel's vision of the Ancient of
Days was an allegory: figurative and illustrative of the God who is the
"Blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach
unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power
everlasting. Amen." (1 Timothy 6:15b, 16).
Of the forty-four so-called "appearances"
of God in the Old Testament, no one in fact ever "saw" God at
all!
The overwhelming evidence is that the Lord God, Father
and Holy Spirit of the Old Testament did not actually have a body at all.
What was "seen" was a wide variety of manifestations
of God. Voices, dreams, visions, fire, smoke, clouds, whirlwinds, earth-quakes,
angels, men, and even ghostlike figures.
None of these forms were actually the fullness of God
in a bodily form. They were only temporary, nameless manifestations of
the invisible, omnipresent, holy Spirit who calls Himself our Father.
The invisible God had manifest Himself in many forms
in the Old Testament, but the highest revelation of God in the Old Testament
had been by His Word. It was the Word of God spoken and written by holy
men and prophets that was the most consistent and reliable revelation
of the invisible God to the Old Testament world.
Jesus Christ was the embodiment of all God had ever
said about Himself. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us"
(John 1:14). God chose not to remain invisible, but to become visible!
{Source: Ken Raggio}
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