The Word became flesh

  BY Argie Simonis

Philip had a question:

"Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it suffises us.

Jesus said to him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father?" John 14:8-9

Look what's happening here! Philip was looking at God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) and was not satisfied. If Jesus does not please you, then what or who will? Philip believed that seeing the heavens open and being able to look at God sitting on the throne would be enough, but Jesus answers that seeing Him is as good as seeing the Father. Awesome!

We cannot know God only in the physical realm. We must also know Him through the Spirit.

"God is a spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24). 

If they knew Jesus in the spirit, they would need nothing more. They had him in front of them and they just did not understand what they had.

Philip asked basically the same thing that Moses asked at Exodus 33:18 to 34:8. The difference was that Moses did not have Jesus standing before him like Philip. Jesus is the perfect image of the Father in the flesh (Hebrews 1: 3). There is no better manifestation of God than what Jesus Himself gave us. Having open skies and seeing Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father is exactly the same as looking at God through Jesus.

And it is not the physical flesh of Jesus that revealed the image of God. Jesus was simply the body in which God dwelt. What trully revealed  God the Father was the actions and words of Jesus.

We get the same revelation by knowing Jesus through His Word, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

"And Thomas answered and said to him, My LORD and my God. 

Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:28-29 

Our Lord and God are one. If the Father and the Son are not the same, then we would not worship one God.

The prophet Isaiah says:

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given: and the government shall be on his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6 

All these names used by Isaiah belong to the one and only true God. What is clearer than this to understand that the Son and the Father are one and the same? There are many references in the Bible that support this. I just quoted some of them.

We are created in the image and likeness of God. We have a spirit, a body and a soul but we are one entity. So is God.

God is one. He is a Spirit and he was clothed with a human body, he became flesh to reveal Himself to us. We must not see the tree and miss the forest.

I wish the mystery of deity as Paul writes in 1 Tim. 3:16 to be revealed to all, because this topic has caused great confusion and division in the body of Christ, and does not give glory to the Lord.

We need to be very careful with this, because " all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.  He that honors not the Son honors not the Father which has sent him." John 5:23