No one has ever seen God. Really?

[tonychanyt]

After Jacob wrestled with God in Genesis 32:

30 Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

This was a theophany of God, a physical manifestation of God.

Isaiah's experience was a bit different in chapter 6:

1 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up;

This was a vision in Isaiah's brain.

and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

He saw the Lord and some angelic beings in the heavenly realm.

5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

He was awake. It was not a dream. It was a vision. He saw a spiritual reality in his vision. He saw spiritual forms with his spiritual eyes in a spiritual vision.

Some angels see the spiritual form of God. Matthew 18:

10 See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Jesus declared in John 1:

18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

The uncreated Son of God has seen the uncreated God.

But then Jesus admonished Philip in John 14:

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Paul explained it in Col 1:

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

At the same, Paul understood in 1 Timothy 6:

16 [God} alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.

No one can see the uncreated essence of God. God is not a created being, but we are. We cannot see the uncreated form of God.

1. Humans sometimes interact with the physical theophany of God.
2. Humans sometimes see real spiritual visions of God.
3. Some angels routinely see God as a spiritual being.
4. No one has seen the uncreated essence of God except God.

Check also

• We have SEEN his glory but no one has ever SEEN God
• Their angels SEE the face of my Father in heaven