Knowing God

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

KNOWING GOD

John 1:18

18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

NIV

All those records of when Adam walked with God, and Moses spend with God in light of this truth might well have been walking and talking with the One and Only who is now at the Father’s side. We know, of course, the One and Only as our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God the Father. John makes sure we understand that Jesus is God, not just a creation of God. But John also makes sure we know that Jesus has plainly made God the Father known to us. If we have seen Jesus then we have seen the Father. Jesus has seen God, as we already saw, Jesus was with the Father all the time, from the very beginning of time, and that it was Jesus who did all the creating and now he is back where he was from the very beginning. It is so far out there, it is no wonder some people just cannot get past their human understanding. They are trapped by their own minds, unable to free themselves from their own minds, and simple accept all this with faith that it is true. Once receiving Jesus in faith, the intellectual facts are as plain as day. The record reveals so much that not only is faith needed but the ability to allow the Spirit to reveal all this truth and thus gain understanding beyond the human level. Sometimes people think that only those people some two thousand years ago were able to see Jesus while he walked among them, but any of us today can see Jesus if we look for him. True, maybe not in the physical sense since he is at the Fathers side, but we can still see Jesus and thus know God.