Face to Face?
Where is God?
The obvious answer would be ‘‘He’s everywhere’’;
as a spiritual being God is there wherever He wants to be, the omnipresent God.
It could also be said ‘’He lives in the hearts of everyone who loves in Him --
who seek Him sincerely”. These answers are true – but the Bible also tells us
God lives in heaven surrounded by angels and other “heavenly hosts”. Is there is actually be a place called heaven – a
geographical entity -where God resides? – If I may dip into vernacular, does God have
a permanent residential address? However odd it might sound, the answer is yes!
The scriptures make it clear:
Nehemiah 9:6 you alone are Lord. You created the heavens,
the highest heavens with all their host……
Psalm 102:25
…. the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Psalm 115:15
……..The LORD, the Maker of heaven and
earth.
Psalm 136:5 By His insight He made the heavens.
Isaiah 45:18
For thus says the LORD--He who created the heavens;
God says in 2Chron
7:14 “ If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and
pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from
heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land”. Verses like
these and several others make it clear that a place called heaven does exist,
it is not a metaphor, but the omnipresent God created it as His residence.
Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father who is in heaven”. But, where is this
heaven?
The Bible doesn’t say anything about the physical locality
of heaven, but the general assumption is: heaven is up above in the sky.
However vague this assumption might be, there are many good reasons for this
belief. The fiery chariot that took Elijah aboard carried him upwards. The
‘great dragon’ who fought against Michel and his angels (Revelations 12) lost the battle, lost their place in heaven and
were hurled down to the earth. Verses
like the following place heaven squarely in the sky:
Psalms 14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any
understand, if any seek God;
Psalms 102:19
For He looked
down from the heights of His
sanctuary;
Psalms
103:11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward
them that fear him.
Jesus climbed into the sky in plain view of
onlookers, marking the end of His earthly mission, in order to join His Father.
The disciples were comforted ‘’He will come back in the same way you have seen him go into
heaven.” St. Paul
Apart from this, the Bible doesn’t give us a great
deal of information on heaven, our desired, final resting place. Whatever we
know about heaven is sketchy, paradoxical, spread thin across the Bible and
even sounds like folklore in some places. He is spirit but occupies a throne; He
has His Son Christ Jesus on His right side. He is surrounded by heavenly hosts
of many varieties and hierarchies; He’s three persons in one. He lives among
praises of angels in light no man can see. He’s the embodiment of love and a consuming
fire at the same time.
It is a basic Bible premise that no human eye has
seen Him; no man can see God and live. A few samples from the Bible:
Exodus 33:20 – “you cannot see my face, for no one
may see me and live.”
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.
1Timothy 6:16 Only God lives forever! And he lives in light
that no one can come near. No human has ever seen God or ever can see him.
It is here we run
into some difficulties. There is another basic Biblical premise that the Bible
does not contradict itself. But there are a number of instances where God had
personally met people. For example:
1.
Abraham’s encounter “The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees
of Mamre’’ - starts this curious story and goes on to describe in great detail the account of Abraham’s meeting
with God. The episode was a spiritually uplifting
experience in which Abraham comes to know God’s plan to destroy the sin cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah
2. Jacob’ Celestial visitor -- A stranger appears at Jacob’s doorstep
while Jacob was all by himself. His
thoughts were all about the uncertain future he was facing. Probably Jacob
thought the man was a burglar. A tussle began between the two and during a
wrestling match Jacob recognizes the divine identity of the caller. He
dislocates Jacob’s hip, then blesses him and gives him a new name. Though
crippled, he was happy to be alive at dawn – doubtless, he had seen God. (See Genesis 32).
3. Isaiah’s unique experience – This great prophet claims he saw the Lord, high and exalted,
seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings:
At the sound of their voices of praising the building shook to its very
foundation, filling it with smoke. Frightened
to the core, convicted of his sinfulness and unworthiness, he screams My
eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty”. (Isaiah 6:1-10).
Isaiah comes out unscathed – assured of forgiveness, cleansed - commissioned
for God’s service. He would go on to live for almost half a century.
4. Manoah and a mystery visitor. Manoah and his wife were a God-fearing couple, but childless.
A stranger appears from nowhere and tells the wife that she was going to give
birth to a son. The perplexed woman tells her husband and he expresses a wish
to meet him personally. God answers his prayer and arranges another meeting.
During this meeting the visitor asks them to prepare a sacrifice to the Lord.
During the burnt offering, the man disappears into the flame! The petrified
couple were sure they had seen God and they were going to die, but of
course, they didn’t. Read their story in Judges 23.
There are more instances of epiphany like this in the Bible. Could Enoch
have walked with God without looking at His face? Joshua meets a battle-ready
‘commander of the Lord’s army’ whom he worships. (Joshua 5:15) Gideon was
accosted by a heavenly being (Judges 6). Job asserts he has seen God with his own eyes (Job 42:5,
6). To top these, the Bible says explicitly
of Moses: Thus the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend
(Exodus 33:11).
On all of the above occasions, the visionaries
worshipped the stranger, who accepted the homage gracefully. Angels are
ministering spirit and are not worshipped. See Revelations 22:9. Visionaries were always frightened, convicted
of their worthlessness, convinced they were in the presence of the sovereign
God, convinced they were going to die. Callers refused to give their names.
(Angels usually introduced themselves - e.g.
in Book of Daniel, Zechariah at the temple, Virgin Mary’s experience, at the tomb after Jesus’ resurrection etc). It becomes clear the above
described ‘visitors’ were not angels. So who was it? What happened to the
precept one cannot see God and live? (God was so strict with it that once he
had to put Moses into a crevice, covered his eyes, and then, only then, He let
Himself go past Moses!)
When Adam and Eve deliberately disobeyed God, sin
entered in to the world. God is too holy and too pure to tolerate or ignore
sin. See Habakkuk 1:13. Transgression has to be punished; He threw the man and
woman out of Eden
It is my contention that the Divine entity we come
across in the above scenarios, the
person the Almighty had employed to deal with mortals, is none other than the
second Person in the Trinity, the Logos,
the Word that was with God, that was
God, known to us as the Son or Christ! We must go back to the Bible to find evidence
to this hypothesis:
1. St. Peter says of Jesus: He was chosen
before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for our
sake. (1Peter 1:20 NIV). It is very important to remember Christ existed always
as coequal and coexistent along with the Father, long long before His Bethlehem
birth. (Christmas is not Christ’s birthday,
as it is falsely claimed in some circles!).
2. There is a surprising statement in John 12:41 –
“Isaiah said this, because he saw the glory of Jesus and spoke about
him”. It is well known that Isaiah spoke in more than 120 prophetical
utterances announcing the coming of the Messiah - 750 years before the Lord’s arrival
on earth. But here the Gospel writer claims Isaiah actually saw His glory
and wrote about Him! It is clear he was referring to the astonishing scene
described in Isaiah 6.
3. Read the first five verses of 1Corinthians 10
carefully. Paul asserts here it was Christ who went before the Israelites
through the desert.
Christ had been serving humanity through the
millennia as the Mediator between man and God; His birth of a woman, His ministry
on earth, His rejection, suffering and death on the cross were only a
continuation of this role. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth
his Son, born of woman, born under the law (Galatians 4:4) That is why he is
the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people; so that all who are
called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ
died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under
that first covenant (Hebrews 9:15NLT).
For God, who said,
"Let there be light in the darkness," has made this light shine in
our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ
(2Corinthians 4:6.NLT)
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