Colossians 1:15-23, Part 5

For the true doctrine, we will begin with John 14:6-9. The teaching that we should "look at" Jesus in order to learn about God was most likely derived from this passage.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?"

Jesus says to the disciples, "You have seen the Father." Philip says, "Show us the Father." And Jesus replies, "I have been with you so long, and you still do not know me? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." From this some have derived the teaching, "If you want to know what God (the Father) is like, just look at Jesus." The ambiguous and improper repetition of this statement, which has become a Christian cliché, has led to some strange and false ideas about Christ as the revelation of God. So now our aim is to consider what we ought to mean when we say that we should "look at" Jesus.

Right away, even if – I do not say that this is the correct view – we interpret the "seeing" in these verses as referring to the empirical, to physical sight, the passage compels us to conclude that this way of "seeing" Jesus carries no necessary relationship with "knowing" Jesus. He says that if Philip knows him, then Philip would realize that to see him is to see the Father, so that because he has indeed seen Jesus, he has already seen the Father as well. However, Philip does not know this until Jesus tells him about it, for until this time he remains oblivious.

Therefore, even without reading further, the passage itself teaches that you can see Jesus and not know Jesus, and if you see Jesus and not know Jesus, then you will not know that to see him is to see the Father. And if you do not know Jesus so that you do not know that to see Jesus is to see the Father, then you can see Jesus and still not see or know the Father. At this point we can already be certain that the "seeing" here does not refer to the mere sensation of sight, but rather to a spiritual-intellectual perception. Even for his immediate disciples, it is the verbal explanation of all of this that removes the obscurity (John 16:25-31). The rest of this large section, John 14-17, will reinforce and extend this position.

John 14:10-11 comes right after the above passage (14:6-9), and provides an explanation: "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." Jesus says, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father," because the words that he speaks come from the Father, and not because he looks like the Father, since God is spirit, and has no visible form. His words bear the exact message that the Father's words would bear, since his words come from the Father, and are the Father's words. It is in this sense that, if anyone has "seen" Jesus, he has seen the Father. And note again that even if one believes on account of the miracles, it is still the message that he believes, since the miracles themselves merely confirm rather than carry or convey the message.

John 14:16-19 says that believers can "see" the Holy Spirit, and that they will continue to "see" Jesus even after his death. Even if we assume that to "see" Jesus after his death refers to his post-resurrection appearances, to "see" the Holy Spirit certainly cannot be explained in empirical terms. Jesus says, "The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him." He is speaking of "seeing" the Spirit in a sense that is possible for believers but impossible for unbelievers, but unbelievers can indeed see the Spirit's outward manifestations, such as the miracles performed through the disciples. This means that Jesus is not referring to seeing the Spirit in the empirical sense, but believers can see him in terms of a spiritual-intellectual apprehension.

A disciple asks in John 14:22, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus then refers to his "teaching" (v. 23) and says, "These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you" (v. 24-25). Again, to "show" himself and the Father has to do with words, or intellectual content, and not appearance or something that can be "looked at" in the visual or empirical sense. Verse 26 says that the Holy Spirit will remind them of everything that Jesus "said" to them – not the sound of the words, of course, but the meaning conveyed by words – and not what he looks like or the visual images of his miracles and righteous actions.

Jesus says in John 15:16, "Everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" – as we have seen, not by letting them look at him, but by conveying intellectual content to them through speech. Verse 22 says that because he has "come and spoken to them," non-Christians "have no excuse for their sin." The "coming" here refers to the incarnation, and the "speaking" refers to the revelation of God, his will, and his righteousness. The world does not reject the "coming" as such, but the "speaking" of the one who has come. There is a difference. That the "speaking" is from the one who has come from heaven, of course, makes the rejection of the spoken message all the more deserving of condemnation.

Verse 24 indeed makes a parallel statement regarding his miracles, but we have already addressed this. That is, the miracles are intelligible only because they occur within the context of and in association with a message. They are to confirm and not to carry or convey the spiritual-intellectual content that confronts the minds of men. Also recall the illustration taken from John 13, where Jesus washes his disciples feet, an example that they do not understand until it is explained to them. The example serves the message; it does not stand by itself.

Then, as Jesus explains the work of the Holy Spirit in John 16, he does not say that the Spirit's revelation consists of a feeling, or an impression, or some sort of visual representation through which we can "see" Jesus. Rather, the Spirit reveals truth by speaking: "He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only when he hears" (v. 13). All that the Father has belongs to Christ, and the Spirit takes from what is Christ's and makes it known to the disciples (v. 14-15). And he does so by "speaking," by imparting intellectual content that is conveyed and represented by words. It is in this manner that Christ's teaching work continues, not by something inherent in his physical incarnation, but by speaking to his disciples in intelligible speech through the Holy Spirit (v. 25-30).

John 17 makes a transition so that Jesus turns from teaching his disciples to addressing God the Father in prayer. We read in verses 6-8, "I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me." He does not say, "I have revealed you by being born as a man, by walking around on the earth, and by letting them look at me." But he says, "I have revealed you" – how? – "For I gave them the words you gave me." He says again in verse 14, "I have given them your word." Verse 20 indicates that these disciples will continue this work of revelation when others believe "through their message" (not their appearance or example).

The above defines how we should understand a verse like John 1:18, and all similar statements: "No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known." How did Jesus make known the invisible Father? He did not do it by taking up a human body just so he could become visible and be looked at. He did it by using words to tell people about the Father. Corresponding to this, when Jesus was baptized in water and the Holy Spirit came upon him, the Father thundered, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:5). He did not say, "This is my Son, take a good look at him!"

All of this is consistent with Hebrews 1:1-2, which says, "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe." The passage does not say, "God spoke through his prophets in the past, but now he has revealed himself through the incarnation of the Son." And contrary to yet another Christian cliché, it does not say, "The prophets spoke God's words, but Christ was God's Word." It does not make the incarnation a superior revelation to verbal revelation, if the incarnation is a revelation in itself at all. As we have seen, the truth is that for the Word to reveal God, he must speak words just like the prophets did. To contrast Christ against the Scripture, or the words of the prophets, is a theologically devastating error. It is also blasphemous because, since God cannot be higher than himself, to make Christ essentially superior to the Scripture as a revelation, one must deny the divine inspiration of Scripture, that is, to call God himself uninspired.

By now we have established that to "see" Christ is to perceive his message, a message that he received from his Father and delivered to his disciples. Under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the disciples then continued to transmit this message. It is by receiving this same message that we can still "see" Christ today, and to see him is to see the Father also, since the Father is the source of this message, this revelation, and the whole system of Christian revelation. It is in this way that the invisible God is made, in a manner, visible.

Christ indeed brings a fuller revelation, but it is not in the incarnation as such, but in words spoken by and spoken about the incarnate Son of God, as they are recorded in the New Testament. If we want to know God, we should indeed "look at" Jesus, for to see him is to see the Father. But all this means is that we should read the words spoken by Jesus, and the words spoken about Jesus.

In addition to dispelling the false piety that often accompanies the common expressions, there are significant advantages to the above explanation. First, it sets forth the true biblical teaching, and this reason alone is sufficient for us to affirm it. Second, now that we understand what it means to "look at" Jesus, we can actually do it and reap the benefits. Third, now we can "show" Jesus to other people, so that they also can "look at" him. We show them Jesus, and thus also the Father, with words – that is, just by telling them about Jesus. The knowledge of God is not something mystical or nebulous, and in the sense that it has been revealed, it is not even mysterious. God sent his Son, an exact representation and a perfect messenger, to talk to us. This incarnation of deity performed many miracles and righteous deeds, and these are also recorded for us in the words written about him. Through these words we have a clear perception of both the Father and the Son – we "see" them – as the Spirit grants us understanding.