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(John 1: 18;
I John 4: 12).
In addition to this John records the Saviour's own
declaration:
"Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape" (John 5: 37).*
[* - These words can bear a different interpretation to which we may refer later.]
Yet every reader knows that passages can be found in the O.T. which declare that
man has both `seen' and `heard' His voice. In Genesis, Jacob in some apprehension says
of Esau his brother, "Afterward I will see his face" (Gen. 32: 20), and before the
chapter is finished Jacob says "I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved"
(Gen. 32: 30). When Moses and the elders of Israel went up into the mountain `they
saw the God of Israel' (Exod. 24: 40). So with respect to hearing. Moses ask:
"Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, AS
THOU HAST HEARD, and live?" (Deut. 4: 33).
No man has seen God at any time; no man has heard His voice at any time, yet Israel
both saw the God of Israel and heard His voice. Once again Christ is the glorious
solution of the mystery. He is the IMAGE of the invisible God, He is the WORD, the
God of Israel seen by Moses and the Elders, the God Who gave the law at Sinai, and the
"Man" who would not reveal his name Who wrestled with Jacob at Peniel (the face of
God). He is none other than the self same One Who in the fullness of time emptied
Himself, took upon Him the form of a servant and stooped to the death of the cross. He
is Emmanuel "God with us". He is God "manifest in the flesh", and we today, even as
Israel of old in their degree, see the glory of God "in the face of Jesus Christ". If Christ
be not God, then we must admit that there are contradictions of a most serious nature in
the Scriptures concerning God. No one has seen Him at any time, yet Israel saw the God
of Israel. No one has heard His voice, yet Israel heard the voice of the Lord. If, however,
the God of Israel be He Who was the Image of the invisible God and the same as the One
Who in the fullness of time became man and lived on earth, Who could say "He that hath
seen Me, hath seen the Father" then, although still confessedly great is the Mystery of
godliness (I Tim. 3: 16), this most glorious fact does reconcile all the statements of
Scripture that otherwise must remain contradictions to the honest enquirer after truth.
"God was not always Lord until the work of creation was completed. In like
manner he contended that the titles of Judge and Father imply the existence of sin
and of a Son. As, therefore, there was a time when neither sin nor the Son
existed, the titles Judge and Father were not applicable to God." (The Bishop of
Bristol on Tertullian in The Ecclesiastical History of the 2nd and 3rd centuries).
These admissions of Tertullian, if taken to their logical conclusion, would have led to
the construction of a very different creed from that attributed to Athanasius.
One of the most conclusive pieces of evidence that `Jesus' is `Jehovah' is provided by
the last chapter of the book of the Revelation. When John records the actual words of the
Lord Himself he says "I JESUS have sent Mine angel" (Rev. 22: 16) but when he
records the statement of the angel he writes: