Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I had an interesting evening, but it seems all worked out well for me and most of those involved in the end. I ask that you pray for me as I continue down the path of Christlikeness. Much is being learned. There is still much more to learn. I also ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers concerning a certain area in my life of which I do not wish to give the details at this time. For now, let’s go to the text and we’re going to deal with a refutation supposedly of the Trinity tonight in 1 John 4:12.
12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
John has been telling us that God is love. No one can see God, but if we love one another, then we are revealing the love of God in our lives and his existence is made known to those who deny. However, this is a passage that I have seen anti-Trinitarians use in an attempt to refute the doctrine of the Trinity and so we must look at it in our Trinitarian study. I wish for readers to know about the passages that proclaim the Trinity and about the passages that supposedly argue against it.
The argument is that Trinitarians say Jesus is God. Several people saw Jesus, but the text says that no one has seen God. Since that is the case, then that means that if people saw Jesus, then they didn’t see God. From that, it can be concluded that Jesus is not God. What are we to say in answer to this?
We must ask why no one has ever seen God. It is because God in his essential nature is immaterial. God is not a composed being made of matter and so he cannot be seen as all that we are capable of seeing, that is, with our physical eye, is that which is material in some way.
Jesus, on the other hand, in his humanity is material. Notice this however. We do not say that Jesus in his humanity is deity. That would be heresy. The humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus cannot be confused. Both must remain distinct within the one person. He was and is fully man and fully God. He has all the essential attributes of both.
Thus, when we see the body of Jesus, we are seeing a body where the nature of God dwells, but that body is not the nature of God. To see the body of Jesus is not to see God in his essence. Now Jesus does have that nature, but it is nothing that can be seen, much the same way human nature cannot be seen.
I can say people saw Jesus and no one has seen God because God as he is cannot be seen. God can, however, appear in forms that can be seen. This would include theophanies in the Old Testament and the Son appearing in the flesh in the New Testament. Yet another objection fails.
We shall continue tomorrow.
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