Audio Transcript

Welcome back to Job week on the podcast. On Monday, we read Job 16 together and had to parse out which of Job’s claims are true and which ones are false — one of the particular challenges of reading Job. Today we read Job 19 and this bold declaration from Job in Job 19:26–27: “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!” After Job dies, he will be in his flesh — and in his flesh, he will see God. That’s his claim.

To that claim comes this related question from Eric, who listens to the podcast in Joliet, Illinois: “Pastor John, hello! First Timothy 6:16 says that no one can see God. Yet Matthew 5:8 tells us that the pure in heart will see God. Is there any sense in which we will be able to ‘see’ God physically in heaven? Or is this text alluding to the incarnate and glorified Christ? It’s a powerful promise, and I want to understand it better.”

Let’s put the texts — the ones that he refers to and a few others — in front of us, and then see if we can answer the question.

• 1 Timothy 6:15–16: “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion.”
  
• 1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory.”
  
• 1 John 4:12: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us.”
  
• Exodus 33:20: “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”
  
• Deuteronomy 4:12: “Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice.”
  

That’s one side. You can’t see him. Now here’s the other side.

• Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
  
• Genesis 32:30: “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been [spared].’”
  
• Job 19:26–27: “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”
  

There you have both sides of the issue. And the solution to this seeming inconsistency lies in the fact that the word see, as we all know, has several different uses. And if you look at all the texts, you see that there are two different senses in which his people can see God and two senses in which they cannot see God.

So, let me break these out and see if people can follow me — see if they can see.

How We Cannot See God

First, the ways we cannot see God.

1. We can’t see him with our physical eyes for the simple reason that he’s a spirit, and he doesn’t have a body. That’s probably at least part of what Paul means when he says that Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15).

2. We can’t see him even spiritually with unmediated directness. This is partly owing to our sinfulness and partly owing perhaps to our creaturely weakness. He’s too great, too bright, too glorious, and we could not live if we saw him with unmediated directness. We must always have Christ, our Mediator, as a go-between.

I think that’s what Jesus meant when he says in John 6:45–46, “It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me — not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” Now, when it says, “except he who is from God; he has seen the Father,” he means not with physical eyes because Jesus, the Son of God, didn’t have physical eyes before the incarnation. And that’s what he’s contrasting our seeing with. Only the Son can see the Father with nonphysical, unmediated, direct seeing. We cannot see God spiritually the way the Son of God in unmediated directness can see him.

So, those are the two ways we can’t see God when we use the word see in different ways.

How We Can See God

And here are the two ways we can see God.

1. We use the word see to mean that we finally understand and discern the beauty and glory of God after being blind to it, like when we say, “Oh, now I see.” Our soul is tuned in to the glory so that the glory of God that shines through the gospel is seen as glorious, and we’re no longer spiritually blind to it. That’s the first way we see him.

2. The second way is that, in the narrative of the Bible, we see the glory of God — and, finally, we will see him face to face — through Christ, by seeing Christ. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. . . . No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:14, 18). So, we see God by seeing Jesus. “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

So, the implication is this: pursue purity of heart, purity of faith, purity of life so that our heart, your heart, is able to see God’s beauty as what it really is in the Scripture, and so that when he comes or when he calls us in death, we will see him face to face and be glorified with him.