Dr Paul Allen

 Can we see God? Why is God invisible?

If you were a Jew, you understood that it doesn’t get any better than Moses. It’s all downhill after Moses. No one will outstrip Moses and what he has given to God’s people. What came before is always better because what came before is Moses. So what is Jesus saying through this sign? He’s not just performing some cheap parlour trick to impress his disciples. Nor is he simply showing them that he has power to do what he wants. No, this whole miracle is a parable of a deeper truth about who Jesus is and about how Jesus is going to defy Jewish expectation. They thought that the pinnacle was Moses. But Jesus is saying, “No, my Father has saved the very best for last, and it’s me. It’s me.” Do you remember what John the Apostle wrote in the Prologue? John 1:16-18, “16 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace in place of grace. 17 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18 No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who...

One of those most frequently brought forward is the apparent contradiction between John 1:18, where we read, “No man hath seen God at any time,” and Exodus 24:10, where we are told that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel “saw the God of Israel. ” (There are also other passages in which men are said to have seen God.) Now this certainly looks like a flat contradiction, and many besides skeptics have been puzzled by it. The solution of this apparently unanswerable difficulty is in reality very simple. We must remember first of all that two statements which in terms flatly contradict one another may both be absolutely true, for the reason that the terms are not used in the same sense in the two statements. For example, if you should ask me if I ever saw the back of my head, I might answer, “No, I never saw the back of my head,” and this statement would be strictly true.  Or I might answer, “Yes, I have seen the back of my head,” and this statement wo...

Thomas Aquinas once was asked, "Thomas, do you think that Jesus enjoyed the beatific vision through his whole life?" Thomas said, "I don't know, but I'm sure that our Lord was able to see things that our sin keeps us from seeing." Remember that the promise of the vision of God in the Beatitudes is a promise made to whom? To the pure of heart.  Beloved, the reason why you can't see God with your eyes is not because you have a problem with your optic nerve . What prevents us from seeing God is our heart, our impurity. But Jesus had no impurity, and Thomas said He was pure in heart, so obviously he had some experience of the beauty of the Father until that moment that my sin was placed upon him and the one who was pure was pure no more. And God cursed Him. It was as if there was a cry from heaven—excuse my language, but I can be no more accurate than to say—it was as if Jesus heard the words "God Damn You." Because that's what it m...