And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth …. John 1: 14 NASB
‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’ are the words Jesus spoke to Philip in John chapter fourteen. We glean our knowledge of our Father from Jesus, as His word made flesh.
The gospel of John chapter one goes on to record, ‘No man has ever seen God at any time; the only eunique Son, or fthe only begotten God, Who is in the bosom [in the intimate presence] of the Father, He has declared Him [He has revealed Him and brought Him out where He can be seen; He has interpreted Him and He has made Him known]. The Amplified Bible (Jn 1:18). (1987). The Lockman Foundation.
Last week I noted scripture tells us we are transformed as we behold His image. I’ve written before about the snare of wanting to see Jesus with our physical eye, not realizing that the first place he is seen and discovered is in the holy written word.
As Jesus said to Thomas in John 20:29, “… because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. A few verses before, Jesus challenges Thomas to not be faithless but believing. The book of John chapter twenty concludes with verse thirty one with John saying ‘these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’
Because Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father, we are able to look at scripture and both learn and know him. This is the beholding of him. Jesus’ own testimony is ‘he that has seen me has seen the Father’.
We have a gift from God called imagination. As we look intently at the perfect law of liberty we begin to see something forming. Dependent on the scriptures we consider, they begin to paint images within our imagination. We begin to see Him. The one who is with no beginning and no end, the one who was, and the one who is to come. Each and every part of Him revealed to us by the Holy Spirit as we look intently through the lens of His word.
His word is spirit before it is released, sown, and seen. That our Father was able to see light before he spoke it demonstrates our need to understand the creative workings of a sanctified imagination. Believing, is seeing spiritual realities that contain natural probabilities.
To not just behold him but to see him rightly, we must be prepared to submit to every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
This is the path to abundant life.
This is the beginning of beholding Him.