This week we discuss God’s invisibility. It can be defined as follows: God’s invisibility means that God’s total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us, yet God still shows himself to us through visible, created things.
I’ve had a difficult time understanding the implications of God being invisible. Okay so God is invisible…to me that makes him untouchable, less accessible, and just kind of…disconnected some how. How do I explain to you that God is invisible and what does that mean to you…much less what does that mean to me?
Well I’m reading through my chapter on this topic (out of Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem) and it’s awesome because there are these verses like this one:
“To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Tim 1:17)
Pick in your head what you “see” when you “see” God. I don’t really have anything anymore. I think maybe I used to see Jesus on the cross, or this big pulsing orb of light or something. God is beyond my comprehension of Him…even in my imagination. He is the King of ages…he is immortal, he is invisible, he is the only God.
Now that’s pretty smart if you think about it. Lets face it, we are a people who loves to focus on things that we love. Wakeboarding…who doesn’t eat/sleep/breathe it here? If you don’t it’s because there are other things in your life that you value more. The first thing I thought of when I got my computer at work was, “what wakeboarding desktop am I going to put on it?” We’re really good at going over board on things. Problem is that if we had some visual representation of God to focus on, my bet is that we’d be waaaay too focused on that thing.
So God is invisible. God’s total essence, all of his spiritual being, will never be able to be seen by us.
Has God revealed himself to us (humans as a whole) in visible ways? Sure. These are called theophanies. “an appearance of God”. For example the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night in the Old Testament. (Ex 13:21-22).
The most amazing “appearance of God” was found in the person of Jesus Christ himself.
(John 14:9) He who has seen me has seen the Father”
One of my favorites and amazingly applicable here…
(Collosians 1:15) He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God. The Firstborn of all creation.
(Hebrews 1:3) “the bright radiance of the glory of God” “the exact representation of his nature”
So an unseen God can be seen through Christ. To me one of the miracles of life is that Awesome God, Omnipotent Creator, Invisible Being…created…loves…communes…
Sacrificed.
I pray that you would see Christ. Invite him in to your heart…every moment. Not just for a moment and then it’s gone. Seek the communion between created and creator. Go to the God that made you, through the visible image of the invisible God that he is.
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
