Why can you not see God?

Why can we not see God? Have you ever asked that question or thought about it? We are told in the Bible that if we were to see God we'd die, but there are some people who have seen God. Let’s read a passage today that looks at this issue. As you examine your heart, do you know where you can go to see God?

Let’s read Exodus 24:1-18 as we look at this topic. It says:

Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.” When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction.” Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. He said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we come back to you. Aaron and Hur are with you, and anyone involved in a dispute can go to them.” When Moses went up on the mountain, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain. Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.

One of the things I've missed most about the time of isolation through the COVID crisis is meals with people. Not only loved ones, but friends and neighbours, with whom we could talk about anything, as well as fellowship around common values. Why should we eat together? There's something special about eating together. In the Bible, we constantly see this picture of God calling us to eat together and to enjoy doing so. In this particular passage that we are looking at, we see a picture of God inviting His people to come and eat with Him. Particularly, the seventy Elders, Moses, Aaron and his sons come to eat with God.

Meals have had great importance way back in the book of Genesis. There was the meal that Abimelech had with Isaac in Genesis 26. There was also that meal that Jacob had with Laban when he fled with Laban's daughters. As well as the meal in this particular passage where God met with the people and even the prophet Isaiah looks forward to a meal that is still to come in Isaiah 25:6-8. He says: “On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” This heightened the symbolic language of Isaiah, in the Old Testament, it points forward to a coming meal of God. We look forward to what God is going to do, not just on this mountain that Moses went up on. Jesus Himself speaks of a great meal in Matthew 8:11, and says, “ I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus looks forward to that future meal.

In John 6 Jesus even had a prefiguring of that meal when the five thousand came to Him and He fed them all, on the mountain. We see the same picture of that eschatological meal in Revelations 19:9, where that wedding banquet of the lamb takes place. There is not just a meal but a wedding feast with our Saviour. These meals are of key importance in the church. We look back to the Passover meal that God gave to His people as He brought them out of Egypt. We also look back to the Lord's supper, that Jesus gave us just before He redeemed us on the cross and gave us new life there. The Passover meal and the Lord's supper are also meals looking forward to the final meal when all nations will join with Jesus and eat with Him. That meal is of great significance. Which is why the Bible tells us to constantly show hospitality to one another. We are told to eat together and rejoice together.

Since meals are important, we need to see why they’re important. The first thing I want us to see is that they are part of the covenant being confirmed by God. In this passage, it's all about a covenant that God is confirming. From Exodus 24:1-12, we see this covenant confirmed. The Passover meal and the Lord's supper in Exodus 24 all involve not just a meal but remind us of the blood that is sprinkled on the people. With the meal and the sprinkling of the blood there is a picture of God confirming His covenant.

In Isaiah 52:13-15 we read about a final meal where we it says: “See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him— his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness— so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.” This passage refers to the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, who will sprinkle many nations. Here we sit in this country as God's people, sprinkled by Jesus, set free. God's Suffering Servant will be a light to the gentiles. It's a miracle that we as people living thousands of kilometres away from Israel geographically, have been brought into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Isaiah foresaw in Isaiah 49:6: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servantto restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” Here we sit at the ends of the earth. God has brought us to know Him. This reference to the Servant being a light to the Gentiles, parallels what we read in Isaiah 52:15, that the servant will sprinkle many nations and that his blood is the means by which we are consecrated and set apart for God. It tells us that out of Israel's humiliation, all nations will be brought into a relationship with God.

Ultimately at the great wedding feast of the Lamb. Hebrews develops this idea. Hebrews 9:19-21: “When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The cleansing power of the blood of animals in the Old Testament made temporary atonement for sin. Now the blood of Jesus Christ, once and for all, is the final sacrifice. This means that Christ was sacrificed once and for all, to take away the sins of many people. The shedding and the sprinkling of blood in Exodus 24 points forward to Jesus coming and shedding His blood for you and me. Hebrews 10:22 speaks of having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from our guilty consciences by the sprinkling of Christ's blood. The ceremony that we read about in Exodus 24, by which the covenant between Israel and God is confirmed, involves eating with Him and being sprinkled by the blood of bulls in that case. The church remembers that we too look forward to a meal with Jesus and we eat our Lord's Supper regularly to remember that future meal. We have realized that we are sprinkled and cleansed by Jesus’ death on the cross. We have a new covenant with God. We have come to a new covenant because of Jesus Christ. This passage speaks firstly of a covenant confirmed.

The second thing the passage addresses is our hearts being sprinkled and our need to have our heart sprinkled. The second element is this great reality of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:22 and 1 Peter 1:2 tells us that our hearts have been sprinkled by Christ's blood. Now the Old Testament theme itself should be understood as fully fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus has now achieved what the Old Testament could only point to. We can go to a new level as believers. Jesus has died for us. Hebrews 10:22 puts it this way: “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.” A better translation would be having our hearts sprinkled implies a sprinkling that is a once and for all event, that has recurring and continuous implications for us. What does this mean? This means simply that you can have confidence to come before God because Jesus has forgiven all your sins. Your heart has been sprinkled. Your conscience has been dealt with. Jesus has dealt with the guilty conscience that we have when we sin against a Holy God and that sprinkling is a once and for all act through Jesus Christ's death. That means, 2 000 years ago our guilty conscience was dealt with and now we follow Jesus with a clean conscience knowing that we have been cleansed by Jesus.

You need to fully comprehend that you are now okay with God. You have been put right with your Creator. Your heart have been cleansed from a guilty conscience so you can now draw near to God. The gospel is this wonderful message of forgiveness of sins. Jesus has forgiven you of all your sins. His blood was sprinkled upon you that you might have a clear conscience. He invites you to follow Him without that burden and that weight upon your heart of guilt. He has liberated you in full. You no longer need to have any sense of guilt at all before Jesus. He has paid the price for you. That means you being guiltless is a fact that should shape your identity.

Often we talk about what is our identity in this world. Jesus has taken away your guilt by dying in your place and He has sprinkled your heart and your guilty conscience that you might be free. That means that a nagging guilty conscience should not be part of your experience. An unforgiven guilty conscience can lead you to have neurotic behaviours or thoughts from which only Jesus can deliver you.

We as Christians are not perfect in any way, we are still growing. It doesn't mean that instantly when we follow Jesus everything changes and we become perfect. Jesus has forgiven us of all our sin and now He invites us to follow Him. What happens if you sin again tomorrow? Well, you have access to God. You run to Him, turn from that sin, change your thinking, repent, and you say, “Lord Jesus I gave into temptation. I have sinned. Forgive me. Cleanse me again and fill me with Your Holy Spirit to withstand temptation the next time.” We then live in a daily relationship with God having full access to our God and Creator. We have freedom from guilt and we as God's people are called into a union with Christ. We need to know that we have that wonderful union, and we can approach God at any time with hearts that have been cleansed and will continue to be cleansed even when we sin again. God will give us a supernatural power to increasingly be changed and turn more from sin daily. Your heart has been sprinkled by Jesus and that's the good news.

The third thing I want us to observe in this passage is that now you can see God. Perhaps you may wonder how you can actually see God? Seeing God is a serious matter. In the Old Testament, we see that when Hagar saw the angel of the Lord she said: “I've seen God and lived.” The same was with Samson's parents in Judges 13 when they saw the angel of the Lord they feared that they might die. In Exodus 33 God Himself says that no one may see God and live. A mood of fear surrounds a divine encounter. We are creatures made by God. We can't approach our God any more than you and I can fly close to the sun, even if we had a spacecraft, which would be consumed by the heat. God is a Holy God, and we can't go near to Him unless He comes to us and that's what we see here.

Moses, was a man that the Bible says spoke with God face to face. However, when Moses once asked if he could see God face to face, God said, “No.” He saw God from behind. He saw God's feet but he never saw God’s actual face. Isaiah in Isaiah 6 never saw God. He just saw the feet of God. All of these instances of “seeing” God was always in preparation for what God was doing to save His people. That leads us to the New Testament when we in Jesus the fact that as He said in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” In other words, Jesus has seen the Father and Jesus reveals the Father to us. We have a great hope. “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from the Father; only He has seen the Father,” said Jesus in John 6:46. More than Moses speaking with God face to face, Jesus has come from the very presence of the Father and now He reveals to us what God the Father is like. We can know what our God and Creator is like when we look at Jesus. All humans long for those days in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve walked with God every day, talked with Him and saw Him face to face. Since we have rebelled against God, we are in danger of being consumed if we ever saw God, but Jesus has made a way for us to come to Him.

What can be said in conclusion. How can we see God? We need to know very clearly that this longing to see God goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Some people have asked me: “Pastor, why doesn't Jesus just reveal Himself again? Why can't I see God?” Many people have asked those questions. In fact, when we look back in history we see all the empires of the world have tried to picture what God is like. They've made statues of what we call idols of their gods. The Egyptian nation, the Greeks, the Romans and the Mesopotamians, all of them have tried to represent their gods with idols. Interestingly, God says that you shouldn’t make any image of Him, it's one of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:4. We are not to make any image of God or attempt to capture God by moulding an image of any creature on earth, or anything in the heavens above on the earth below that God has created to try and represent God. We need to remember while Moses got glimpses of God, Jesus is the one that shows us what God is like. That's why in John 1:18, we see that no one has seen God but Jesus Christ. Jesus makes known to us the glory of God and we cannot see God, but we can see what the Father is like when we look at Jesus. When we fix our eyes on Jesus. Paradoxically God cannot be known and seen apart from Jesus. We can't say that we want to see what God is like and not look at Jesus. We have to see God in Christ and that's the mystery of what we have here. I remember when I was growing up, I had a mental picture as a little child of God being an old man with a white beard. We are told that is not true, God is Spirit. We see a picture of God in Jesus. Jesus said, “If you've seen Me you've seen the Father.” Jesus is the final self-revelation of our God and Creator to us.

Jesus says that we can see Him also in His body in the church. We begin to see in 1 John 4:12, where He tells us that the invisibility of God is seen in our love for one another. That in our care for one another, in loving each other, we begin to see what God is like. I know that I came to faith in Jesus because of the love of God seen in an aunt of mine and that love pointed me to Jesus. I have seen that love continually, as people have shared the love of God with me. I have seen tangible signs of God in the kindness of others during this COVID crisis. In times I have been tempted to give up. I have been through tough times, but it's been the kindness of people that have gone out of their way to encourage and strengthen me. Hence, I can share this message today. That's when we begin to see God. It's through the love and thoughtfulness of God's people.

God's love can be seen in the littlest things. It's that call that comes out of the blue that becomes the shot in our arm to help us to keep going as 1 John 4:12 tells us. A timely phone call that makes all the difference. It's that wise counsel from somebody that perhaps just reaches out to you when you think you cannot go on. It's not only when we receive love that we see God but when we give love as well. We shouldn’t wait till somebody loves us and then we feel loved, but we are to love others and to reach out whether it's through a hug, an encouraging word, giving people time, gifts that we give them, sharing with them the word of God or encouraging them in some way. You begin to see God not just in Jesus but in the love that we receive and in the love that we give.

The challenge of this passage is that in Jesus, you can see God and now the challenge is to act on that. To share that love with others. To reach out. To be the hands of Jesus to somebody. To be the voice of encouragement to a broken heart and to be like Christ. In the same way to have the ears to hear Jesus speaking to you through the kindness of others and revealing God to you through that. In Jesus, you can see God. Have you seen our God and Saviour in Jesus and His death on the cross for you? Has He sprinkled your guilty conscience, so that you have access to the Father. Have you seen His resurrection for you and have you experienced that love, even through His people today? If you have and you've trusted Him, praise Him. If you haven't, join me in prayer and cry out to Him to save you.

Let's pray: Lord Jesus, as we look at You and what You did for us on the cross in dying for us, we want to thank you that we can come to You and cry out to You and say, “Jesus save me.” Sprinkle my life and free me of my guilty conscience with Your blood. Forgive me all my sins. Come into my life and lead me from this day forward as my God and Saviour. For in You Lord Jesus, I see what the Father is like. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that You are revealing Jesus to me. Even now come into my life Holy Spirit and change me I pray. Lead me to love as You have loved me. As You have loved me even through your people. Lord Jesus guide me now in the way you would have me go. For this I pray, in Your all-powerful name, the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

If that was your prayer and you've sensed that He's heard you, get in contact with me, in the comments. May God bless you to now live your life to the glory of God as He has cleansed you, called you into a relationship with Himself, that you will one day see fulfilled ultimately at the great wedding feast of the Lamb. Until then glorify God by loving and being loved as Christ reveals God to you. For when you look at Jesus you see what God is like and to Him be all the glory now and forevermore, amen.