Let's turn again to the Scriptures, John chapter 14, John 14, continuing the exciting discourse of our Lord as he is now facing the cross and teaching his disciples and these last hours that he will be with them, John chapter 14, verses 7-11. You might recall that the Lord has told them that he will be departing from them, that he is going to prepare a place for them, a place which there is room, plenty of room for them, that they need not worry that they would not be able to join him there. They too will join him there. Thomas was concerned that he didn't know the way. Jesus told him, I am the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the Father but by me. There's no way to be saved except by Christ. And so now we continue in the same teaching that we have been studying. Verse 7 of chapter 14, listen for it is God who speaks to us. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me and does his works, believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me or else believe on account of the works themselves. The Lord bless the reading of his Word, the hearing of his people and to his glory. What is our goal in the Christian life? You can hear it expressed if you go to a funeral, don't you? I mean, when life is over, you hear people say he's now with God or in the presence of God. How many times have I heard those who either are unbelievers or are skeptical of the Christian faith? Who would say, well, if God would just show himself to me or give me a burning bush? In other words, if God would appear, I just can't believe that which I cannot see as if we were asking too much of those who are skeptical of the teachings of Scripture. Those who would say only an appearance of God will be enough to convince me. That would be a spiritual mountaintop experience, wouldn't it? To see God. To see God. Is there anything we might express about the Christian life that would top that as a goal of the Christian life? To see God. And yet, that's the promise of Scripture that in the end we will see God face to face. First, as we begin to study this, I want you to notice something about the disciples. Notice how comfortable they have been and asking these several questions of Jesus as they have been seeking to interpret his discourse. Peter wanted to follow Jesus now. Jesus said, I'm going to depart from you and where I'm going, you can't go and Peter turns and he's so comfortable with the Lord that he says to him, but Lord, I will go and I'm going to go with you right now. You just tell me the way and I'm on there and I will be there with you. Then Thomas and he said, Father, if we're going to have to go later, you're going to have to give us or rather Christ. If you're going to, if we're going to have to go later, you'll have to give us directions. Can you tell us how it is that we can get there? I don't know how to get where you're taking. You're telling us to go. And while all of this is going on and while Jesus has been talking about seeing the Lord, here we find that Philip's mind apparently has begun to wander. His mind has begun to reach higher up into the clouds, perhaps he's beginning to have a bit of a heavenly view of things. And Philip says, Lord, if you'll just show us God now as a pledge, then we can have an assurance of all these things that you say. Philip is now thinking even larger. He said, Lord, just show us God. Now we see how Jesus would call them his friends. And we see something of the atmosphere of compassion and love that is shared between these disciples. And it's important, as we continue through this, to keep in mind the genuine compassion, the genuine love, the genuine concern that the Lord Jesus Christ has for the minds and the spirits and the lives of these disciples. And it's easy to be, for that to be lost because there's so much here to unpack and so much here to understand. It's easy to become lost and forget that the Lord is teaching in the context of a great deep abiding love for his own. And that's why he would call them his friends. It's been a quest of man and every generation to see God in some fashion, in some way. People even today in worship services will strive to have some way that they can communicate I really felt a presence of God. You'll find those on the one extreme in the Pentecostal circles who will equate that to the spirit. The spirit was there as if in other congregations the spirit of Christ is not there. And so it will be a special presence of God that they're trying to explain. On the other hand, you'll have those who turn to icons and they'll erect statues or they'll erect some visual symbol that helps them to somehow feel that God is their candles have been used because of the flickering flame to help people feel that God is present with them. And people have been striving for some sort of concrete evidence or some sort of concrete expression of the presence of God. And they've struggled in that area. The Puritans came in and they cleaned all the churches out. And the congregations in those days, some of you might actually long for that as we stand up for our hymns and confessions, the congregations gathered and did nothing at all. They gathered to hear the word essentially red and expounded, and that was all because the presence of God was understood to be centered in the word of God. As the spirit of God goes out with the word, it never returns void. And so as we have joined in with the flow of history in church, we would say, yes, there has been a quest. So people to understand in what sense is God present with us, if he is present at all? And we have to answer that question, don't we? Is God present or are we simply a Christian institution teaching the precepts and teaching the moral laws of the Scripture, handed down to us through the ages? If God is present, then it's an entirely different matter. If God is truly present, then there is a validity to Christian worship that will be proved, certainly in the end, but even in the days in which we live. We're not the first to ask these questions, Moses asked this, didn't he? On the mountain, he asked, what would he ask of the Lord except that he would be able to see God? And we know that God put him in a cleft of a rock and covered him so that he was only able to see God's glory as it passed by. Of you of God we believe would convince us and the world of his power, of his immensity, of his reality. While many today sometimes wish for that same solid evidence, however, we have the benefit of generations who have studied the Scripture, searching them out to answer these very questions and to teach us the truth concerning God. If we have known our shorter catechism, certainly as we've been studying them and teaching them to our children, then we would know one of the questions there is what is God. What is God? Isn't that a question that almost all people in all places would ask, what is God? And we would learn there, God is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, and it continues on, but for our purposes, let's limit it simply to that first part of the answer. What is spirit? He's infinite, he's eternal, and he is unchangeable. Then we would ask, well then, what is spirit? What is a spirit? You say God is spirit? That would mean that I can't see him so, then tell me what is a spirit. A spirit is an immaterial substance without flesh or bones or body parts, and immaterial substance. What are our eyes physically capable of beholding? That which is material. So if God is immaterial in the sense that He is spirit, then our eyes, perhaps, will not behold Him. So we grow up understanding that God is omnipresent, He's in all places in all times. He is spirit and He's everywhere, and He will not be limited by local and physical appearance. Isn't that really what we're asking? If we're asking for God to appear here, we're asking God, who we're asking, who we're asking, who is everywhere present? God who is keeping by His provenance and by His nature, creation, moving, if in fact all that is told of God is true, then nature depends upon God in every aspect and in every place. And yet what we are asking is that God would locally restrain himself or locally confine himself to make an appearance and neglect all of the rest of creation by His presence. Unless we would just be warning a sign, but that's not what people have been asking. They won't God Himself on which all creation depends to limit Himself and confine Himself locally that they may be able to see Him with the eyes of flesh. But let's be sympathetic to Philip. He's not expressing skepticism. He's expressing an honest expectation. There's an excitement in His voice. He wants to see God to have the assurance of all the things that Jesus is saying. He's essentially warning that to seal for Him, all that Jesus has been teaching. Maybe the Word of the Transfiguration had begun to leak out from some of the other apostles. We don't know that, but perhaps that was informing some of His idea about perhaps seeing something that would validate what He was hearing. He simply can't hold His enthusiasm in about all that Jesus has said and He wants it to begin now. He wants to see it now. He wants consummation of these promises now. I wonder if it'd be enough for us if we saw God. Suppose we could see God. Suppose we were to ask that question, I mean, Philip says, after all, Jesus had said, taught and promised, just show us God the Father, and it will be enough. That's what Philip is saying is, it'll be enough. I won't need anything else if you just show me God, that'll be enough. If you could just see God and live through the experience, would it be enough? I will ask you not to answer too hastily and don't be so self-assured because I'm convinced that the answer is no. It would not. In fact, we have seen God, and it is not enough for many. Neither we nor Philip were the first to want to see God. We can't know for sure what His idea was, what His background was that Philip had in mind. I've already mentioned Moses, in Exodus 33, Moses asked to see God's glory, and it was replied, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. In Revelation 22, however, we read, his servants will worship him. And they will see his face. That is, we will look into the face of Christ, and His name will be on their foreheads, which means that our characters will be transformed by His law, which is written on our hearts. So the consummation of history is the accomplishment of the impossible. We will see God face to face. These two passages, Exodus 33, Revelation 22, for our study today, can sort of set bookends, which is a term I like to use as the way my mind works, but to set bookends on our study to help us know, first of all, in the natural state man cannot see God, and yet in the spiritual state, he will see God face to face. So in between there, we have this teaching of Jesus who is saying, if you have seen me, you have seen God. And so how is it then that we are to understand that? Can't we say we have seen God because not only are we lacking a physical manifestation and vision of God as Philip is asking for him, the Creator God, but neither have we seen with our eyes Jesus Christ Himself who has ascended to the Father and sits at the right hand in glory. Philip could see Christ in person. We have neither a vision, physically of Christ, present, nor of God the Father. Philip has heard Jesus teach about the Father many occasions yet he's saying that he's never laid eyes on him, and so he can't know him. While Jesus is talking, Philip's thoughts are beginning to wander. He's beginning to think and beginning to soar to the clouds when we think of wandering thoughts. Usually it means that our thoughts are beginning to wander down, but not for Philip. His thoughts are beginning to go up and to go higher and he wants to see God. Jesus says they have seen God, and Philip is saying, Lord, I don't recall it. If I've seen God, I sure have no memory of it. Jesus in a tone of disappointment says, Philip, have you been? Have you been together with me for so long, and you still don't know me? If Jesus would just show them now, it all be settled in Philip's mind. Martin Luther spoke of him last week, Martin Luther in his comments on these verses finds a great comfort when we consider our own immaturity and wavering as we look at these disciples. Philip had completely missed the mark with his question. He was completely off-Mart. Luther said to our great comfort, however, this demonstrates how our shameful nature and reason finds it so difficult to dismiss its own notions. He's saying, Philip had an idea, Lord, I want to see God. That should have been dismissed out of his own mind, but our fleshly nature causes us not to be able to dismiss such absurd thoughts. We cling to them and then require them to validate a faith. To desist and speculating about God and to cling to Christ alone. Even the apostles themselves who had Christ with them in person had heard him discourse with them on the subject could not shake off this rubbish. I love the way the reformers simply call it like it is, this rubbish. They had Christ with them. Jesus's own tone of disappointment betrays that they should have known this, but yet they don't. He's Luther's own comfort as ours, that while the disciples thought it's wondered, and though they would stumble and be weak in their faith, they did not run away from him as Judas had. They did not betray him as Judas did, but they remained with him. They were delighting to hear his word, even though his hopes were beginning to look elsewhere beyond the cross in himself and in his own person. Jesus still regarded them as his own, and he judged that they did, in fact, know the Father. Even if they didn't understand it and wouldn't until later. Their case is similar to the blind man, which we read about in Mark 8. This sometimes puzzles folks because it seems that Jesus had to take two tries at healing the blind man. You know the story. Jesus spit upon the man's eyes and he put his hands on him and he said, what is it that you see? He opened up his eyes, previously was completely blind. He said, now I see men who look like trees walking around. So Jesus again lays his hands on him and then he asks him, what does he see? And he says, I see plainly and I see clearly. Here the disciples are seeing like men walking and looking like trees. They are able to see Christ and they hear Christ, but they don't see clearly those things which are spiritually apprehended. Many come to the scriptures and their view of God is simply not clear. Many read the Bible, many read the scriptures that we have before us, many will read the verses we have before us, many will have them opened up to them and still they walk away feeling incomplete. They walk away feeling that they just didn't quite grasp what this was all about, that it was not clear to them yet. They know that Jesus taught something and they know it must be important, but they just can't quite apprehend what it is that our Lord is opening up to them. Some will turn to other devices for their spiritual nourishment to give them some satisfaction or some sense of progress, but it would be best if the Spirit of Christ was to teach them the words of Christ as He delivered them to the disciples. The disciples were limited in their seeing. Jesus says to Him again and that disappointed tomb, have I been with you so long? And still you do not know me, Philip, whoever has seen me, has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you hear in Jesus saying, after these years, after the miracles, the healings, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, after the multiplication of the food to feed many, the stilling of a storm after the debates with the Pharisees and after our private teaching as I gathered with you to instruct you in the things of God, after all of that, do you still essentially not know me in the essence of who I am? They do not know Christ except as they themselves are. Paul acknowledges the same and 2 Corinthians 5, 16. He says, we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, but no more, no more. By virtue of the incarnation, already considered, we studied it at length in John 1 now some time ago. The Word was with God, the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That same idea of incarnation is elaborated and Hebrews 1, He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature and He upholds the universe by the power of His Word. The disciples have before them the very thing they are requesting, a Vizio Dei, a vision of God. They want to see God and God stands before them. What they are looking for is an appearance that will be a manifestation of power. That's really what they're asking for. If you are not content with the teaching of the Scripture, if you're not content with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, then what you really want is for God to show Himself in His power. You want to see Him in His majesty. You want to see Him in His reign and in His power in His omnipotence. What they couldn't grasp yet was that the Lamb of God and holiness and love standing before them was God. But they weren't looking for that. They weren't looking for the Lamb of God. As we read in the book of Revelation, there was a great sound that sounds like a lion and then as John turns around, He beholds there a bloody lamb. Jesus standing before them was the moral perfection of God's character manifested in the incarnation of this man. The idea of moral union between Christ and between the Father is something that cannot exhaust the idea of incarnation. We who are saved can't say, for example, if you've seen me, you've seen Christ. I can't say that. I can't say if you've seen me, you've seen Christ because my morality is not as perfected as that of Christ. There's a unity and a spiritual union between myself and Christ. But I cannot say if you've seen me, you've seen Christ, but the Lord Jesus Christ because of not only the unity that He shares within the Trinity, but because of the perfect moral or rather the moral perfection which He shares with the Father's own moral perfection, He can say, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. There is no difference in the moral perfection of God, the Father and of Christ. The idea is that Jesus who is the Son reveals the Father as the living Word of God, as words reveal character, as words show forth, the man Jesus shows for the Father, again echoing the reading in Hebrews 1, that He is the radiance of His glory and the exact imprint of His nature. So just as every study of Scripture is not the same, so every seeing of Jesus, quote-unquote, is not the same. What do I mean by that? Everyone here today, for example, will hear the same words spoken. But many will see Christ differently because of levels of maturity, because of time spent in the study of Scripture, because of willingness to grasp and hold on to, or because of belief or unbelief, because of the indwelling of the Spirit or the lack thereof. But all here the same, just as Christ walked before all those people, and yet not all apprehended Him as the Messiah. James Montgomery Boyson, his commentary on John, brings a wonderful illustration of this difference in seeing from the post crucifixion appearance or resurrection seen at the tomb. Here he tells very simply the story of Peter and John who are told that something has happened at the tomb. He told that Christ is gone, but all they know is there's a disturbance, and they just don't know what to believe. And so they both run to the tomb. John being fleeter of foot for whatever reason gets there first, stops at the door and surveys the inside of the tomb. We read, he came and he saw the tomb was empty. Now that word that is used for he saw, there's three different words for see. He was being used in that passage. The word that is used for Saul is the word that would be used to describe something like a picture that is taken. He surveyed the scene in total, but had no conclusion that he was drawing on it. He was taking in this as information, and he didn't know exactly what to do with it. It was like you look up and you see a picture in its total. He saw that there were linen clothes, and he saw that the body was missing. Later arrives, we assume very shortly thereafter, and being as he is, doesn't say excuse me or pardon me, simply pushes his way past John, and into the tomb he goes. And there we read Peter in his looking and observing the place where Jesus was laid, Saul the linen clothes. And this word used for Saul is to communicate a contemplation, a thinking about it. It means that he's giving close inspection. What he saw is that the linen clothes, if the body had been stolen, first of all, wouldn't be there. Secondly, if they were left, the body would have been unwrapped, and the clothes would have been disheveled, and perhaps put to the side, but they were not. They were still in the shape of the body, and in the placement where the body was, with the spices still inside, and that the head linen, in particular, was where it was supposed to be as well. And so when we read about this, we read something, and Peter's mind now is puzzling over the data that he is receiving, and he's beginning to try to make it make sense. He saw it in a different way. Now he sees it like an investigator, and he's beginning to try and discern what it is that happens, happened. Then John enters, and we come to the third and last of the words used to describe seeing, John comes in, and oreo, he sees and believes. It's a seeing with understanding, the seeing and believing. That's the word that's used in John 14. When Jesus says that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. That old saying that seeing is believing is reversed for the Christian. We do not see until we believe. We believe in what we cannot see. That is by definition faith. Faith is the apprehending and the believing, and that which is not seen, faith is the reaching out with assurance that we know that when our hand closes upon the object of our faith, it will in fact be there. We believe, and then we see, because we perceive the truths that are taught in Scripture, and as we do believe, we will one day behold our Lord. The words and the works of Christ make clear who he is. I want to stress that once again. Scripture is not our textbook. It is the word accompanied by the Spirit. Jesus Christ was the word of God incarnate, and these are His words. If you would see Christ at all, it will not be through some super spiritual experience apart from the Word. It will not be through meditation, it will not be through music, it will not be through some transcendental state. It will be through the Word. We open the Word to show the people Christ. Jesus told them, have you walked with me all this time? And still, I'm just words on the page, and you don't see the Father. Have you been with me all this time, and still, you can't commune with me here by the power of the Spirit? Have you been with me all this time, and still do not see God? Have you been with me all this time, and still do not see God? Have you been with me all this time, and still do not see God?