Come See God's Face!

Hello Emmanuel,

THIS SUNDAY!!!  It’s National Back To Church Sunday!  You are invited to worship with each other at 9:00 or 10:30.  A light breakfast will be served in the Fellowship Hall.  Free food tastes best!

September has brought a new change to my newsletter.  September will be Ask Pastor Joe instead of Monday Morning Pulpit.  Submit your questions to me via email at pastorjoe@emmanuel-umc.com.  I’ll give you an answer.  Who knows?  It might be a good one.

How many people in the Bible have seen God face to face besides Moses?

It seems like a simple question…. And then….  Ugh!

Exodus 33:20 states that no one can see God’s face and live.  John 1:18 says no one has seen God except Jesus Christ.    But yet 33:11 says Moses talked to God in the Tent of Meeting ‘face to face.’…. ????    what????

There are other biblical examples of people ‘seeing God’, though always in a certain form.  Jacob saw God appearing as a man (Gen 32:30).  In Judges 13, Sampson’s parents saw God ‘as an angel’.  And, of course, Jesus is believed to be God ‘in the flesh’.  Also, the Bible states that ‘the LORD appeared to Abraham’; ‘the LORD visited Sarah’; ‘Enoch walked with God’; ‘the LORD appeared to Isaac’; on and on….

The question is a difficult one because of how we interpret God’s presence with someone.  Often, we do not think in the literal.  We can think in spiritual terms as if ‘feeling’ God’s presence among us.  One could even argue that Moses did not actually see God ‘face to face’, but that ‘face to face’ is simply describing the kind of relationship they had (i.e. ‘as a man speaks to a friend – Exodus 33:11).

So my answer is that no one else has actually seen God’s face and maybe not even Moses.  I give this answer because, consistently, the Scripture describes how God’s glory is so fierce and awesome that we could not see it in its entirety and live.  God does appear to us, but only in ways that we can comprehend.

And the best avenue to comprehending God is to look at and speak ‘face to face’ with Jesus.  Of all the examples of God appearing to people, I believe Jesus is the closest we can come to seeing God’s face.  He is God incarnate and One who is willing to speak to you ‘face to face’.  Go into your ‘Tent of Meeting’ and have that relationship. 

To read more, go to http://www.immanuelapproach.com/2012/08/15/people-in-scripture-who-saw-god-appendix-5/.  It describes in more detail about God’s appearances in the Bible.

In the meantime, consider how God may appear to you today.  Pay attention!  Don’t miss Him!

God is Good,

Pastor Joe