Did Father Abraham Had Really Met God The Father?
Question : I read your article titled "Who Is Melchizedek?", and you have explained beautifully one of the most mysterious Character in the entire Bible in a simple and clear manner for me to understand this wonderful theme of Melchizedek the royal-priest of God, through whom by His own will we who have believed Jesus Christ have been privileged to become His children as royal priest (John 1:12-13; 1 Peter 2:9). Thank you. My question to you is, Paul said in one of his epistles, "15 ...[God] will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen." (1 Tim 6:15-16). Here in the above verse it says, God dwells in "unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see" which to me means plainly that no man has seen or can see God, then how come you can tell that Father Abraham was met by the royal priest Melchizedek who is God the Father?
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! Yes what you have asked is indeed a tough and a very nice logical question right from the Scripture.
Let us see the whole context of the verse and find what it does truly speak about?
Yes Paul the apostle said in his epistles, ""13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen." (1 Tim 6:13-15).
When Paul speaks in the above verses, he is saying it "in the sight of God...and before Jesus Christ," which conveys to us that he is speaking not only about God the Father who is in heaven but also about Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father God in heaven in all authority and power over the entire universe (Matt 28:18; 26:63-64; Eph 1:20-21). So the following description about God as "15...He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see..." equally honors God the Father in heaven and Jesus who is at His right hand, and it means both in their full glory "no man has seen or can see." We know "the King of kings and Lord of lords" is the name that will actually be written on the robe and thigh of Jesus Christ when He will return back to this present earth to consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy the False Prophet, Antichrist and his armies of humans that followed him with the brightness of His coming along with the armies of saints from heaven (2 Thes 2:8; Rev 19:14, 16). That ensures that the theme is talking more about Jesus Christ in his glory which He has regained with the Father, which he had left when assigning himself as the Son in relating to His creation by his own choice before the present world was formed with ministering angels to assist Him in his creation (John 17:5; Pro 8:4, 22, 24, 27, 30-31, 36; Job 38:6, 7).
In other words, by discussing with in the Trinity initially before all creation, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit by agreement took the agreed upon assigned designation with the same title relating to humans and revealing themselves to them in this way (Matt 28:19; John 10:18). So once Jesus took on the role of the Son of God within the Trinity of the God-head, immediately he left his glory which He only chose to regain it after his death on the cross (Php 2:8, 9). But as the Son of God in itself he was so glorious than any other created being of any kind in the whole universe, and He was God even when He acted as the unique Angel of the LORD and has never ceased to be God who is worthy of all worship, but when the Son chose to become a man and became one, being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Php 2:8).
The above verse also speaks equally about God the Father I believe, because it also says, "13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus...14...you keep this commandment [i.e. good confession and fight of faith] without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time..." Here in the above verses we see Paul saying "Jesus Christ’s appearing...[God] will manifest in His own time" which is what Jesus also agreed to have said about His secret coming of Rapture to the disciples of His (Acts 1:7; Matt 24:36).
So coming to the point of your question, 'How can man see the God who dwells in "unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see"?,' means that God in His full glory without restraining Himself do dwell in "unapproachable light [in heaven], whom no man has seen or can see." God has said that heaven is my throne and earth is His footstool, which means God reveals on earth only a foot placing level of His glory to the inhabitants of it, though he has a lot more [i.e. infinite level of glory] to reveal than that capacity, the humans on earth cannot handle any more capacity of Divine glory in their physical level of seeing Him in their dust bodies (Isa 66:1; Acts 7:49). Neither the tents or temple built by humans can contain His full glory, nor the human body as the temple of God can contain or withstand the full glory of God. So whatever ways God reveals Himself to man is only a part of the full glory and not the full glory which no man has seen or can see.
That is why Jesus had left his glory which was in the form of God in heaven to become in to the form of man on earth which is a humble state for the person who has created the whole universe which made him leave a lot and stay only with a little of his own (Php 2:8), yet he never ceased to exist as God because inside that body of Jesus, the eternal Son was in the spirit which resided in that body (Isa 9:6).
The apostles and disciples were able to see Jesus' glory in a limited way compared to the real one which He has left in heaven by his own choice (John 1:14). John reveals in his gospel, that no one has seen God at any time, except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18), which reveals that Jesus was in the bosom of the Father in perfect understanding with Him when he became man, and it also shows that even in his humanity he was able to co-exist as God with the Father in perfect union, to hear and see and take collective decisions or individual ones by the power of unity in trinity, which made Him declare to humanity about the Father God in heaven who is good and everlasting towards them. Even though Jesus lived on earth, he was able to see the Father God in heaven spiritually and hear Him all the time which made Him co-exist with God spiritually and eternally which has no boundary or time (Matt 3:16-17; John 11:40, 42; 12:28-29, 30; 6:38, 42, 69; John 3:13; Eph 2:6). Only at that time when Jesus hung on the Cross for our sins over a period of three hours, for the first time in eternity, Jesus actually felt as though he has got out of the loop of that eternal unity of trinity in his natural state of his body which although is a fact physically but was not the truth eternally and spiritually (Matt 26:53; 27:45, 46, 50; 54:7, 8). In other words, Jesus was forsaken for a moment with God's wrath doesn't mean that the unity of the trinity actually were disillusioned and got divided for a moment, God cannot cease to exist even for a mere moment as though he doesn't know what is happening. If that is so, then how can God be omniscient knowing the end from the beginning (Isa 46:10)? The very fact that the words spoken by Jesus in Matt 27:46 as saying, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?", is a prophetic Messianic verse of Psa 22:1 which was fulfilled by Jesus on the Cross, which shows to us that the very unity of trinity was not divided at that moment, but the separation of man from God by sin was enacted by Jesus for our behalf and for our sins to be cleansed through his human body as a substitutional sacrifice (Heb 10:5-7, 12, 13, 14; Isa 59:2).
So I do assure you that man can see God in a limited glory which he can handle, the limit of how much we can see him depends on how much we can pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no human can see the Lord or his supernatural activities through them in their natural state (Heb 12:14; 2 Tim 2:21).
God revealed to Moses his glory only in the capacity he was able to handle, as God himself said at that time that no man can see my face and live which means if God shows his full glory, no man will be able to handle it and live further alive in their human body (Exo 33:18, 19, 20-21, 22-23).
The Bible says that Jacob in an encounter with Christ conversed as follows, "Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”" (Genesis 32:24–25, 28–30). Many theologians refer to the appearances of God in these passages, and others like them, as “theophanies” (Greek: theos = “God” + phaino = “appear”) or “Christophanies.” So these words mean “appearances of God” and “appearances of Christ,” respectively.
The Angel of the Lord received worship willingly which only God is worthy to receive (Jos 5:14-15), so now we know that this was none other than our Christ in his pre-incarnate state appearing to humans as theophany, which means God restraining himself and showing himself to humans in a form or way they can relate to Him, so that they can know within them that they have seen God face to face, that which God reveals to them in a limited level of glory which they can handle with their human body which is very fragile and can easily break out if the glory of His Presence is too high or very weighty.
First the Bible says in Gen 18:2, “Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and saw naturally three men [strangers] standing by him, once he saw them intently he recognized his Divine Master [Adonai] and he bowed himself to the ground.” This gives us a clear idea that whenever Abraham met Christ the Master, he had the perception in him to perceive the Divineness in him whom he was meeting. By the time of Genesis 18, God had already appeared to Abraham on at least two occasions (Genesis 12:7, 17:1) and spoken to him in some way several other times (Genesis 12:1; 13:14; 15:1). It is reasonable to conclude that in Genesis 18 Christ appeared in the same form as before so that Abraham would recognize Him. Indeed, when he saw the Lord and the other two “men” (angels), Abraham ran out to Him and bowed down. If Abraham was able to identify clearly the Divine Christ in his pre-incarnate appearance as the Master, why not Abraham could have also identified the Father God as Melchizedek when He met Him as the priest of the Most High God (Gen 14:18-20)?
Do you know that Holy Spirit was seen in the form of dove by the man Jesus and all those around him, the Father God's voice was heard from heaven to all men at that time (Matt 3:16, 17; John 1:32; 1 Tim 2:5)? Again here is a revelation of constrained and symbolic glory.
If the Holy Spirit Himself who has no image as He is a Spirit being had revealed Himself in his self-revelation in the form of a dove to make us understand His Almightiness and harmless purity of His Divine Character, why can't God the Father reveal Himself in a limited glory to Abraham as the High Priest of the lineage of Melchizedek? We do not decide how much of God's glory we can handle without busting out in to oblivion, it is God who decides who or how much we can handle His Glory safely. That is why God's call to holiness is a serious call to us individually which God takes seriously, because He wants to reveal Himself day by day more and more of His Glory (2 Cor 3:18; Psa 84:7). Hallelujah!!
I hope that you have come to understand by the above explanation that the scenario that you have questioned by another Scripture from 1 Tim 6:16 is indeed possible with God's choice to show his grace but not with man's striving (Luke 18:27). No man has seen or can see God until God chooses to self reveal Himself to him and his understanding in various ways, as he gropes out in this world of darkness to seek Him who is unseen yet seen everywhere in all things and all places which shouts out His Glory and His handiwork! Such seekers will always without fail will find God where ever they might be present in this whole wide world.
Much Blessings....
Answer : Greetings in Jesus wonderful name! Yes what you have asked is indeed a tough and a very nice logical question right from the Scripture.
Let us see the whole context of the verse and find what it does truly speak about?
Yes Paul the apostle said in his epistles, ""13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen." (1 Tim 6:13-15).
When Paul speaks in the above verses, he is saying it "in the sight of God...and before Jesus Christ," which conveys to us that he is speaking not only about God the Father who is in heaven but also about Jesus Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father God in heaven in all authority and power over the entire universe (Matt 28:18; 26:63-64; Eph 1:20-21). So the following description about God as "15...He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see..." equally honors God the Father in heaven and Jesus who is at His right hand, and it means both in their full glory "no man has seen or can see." We know "the King of kings and Lord of lords" is the name that will actually be written on the robe and thigh of Jesus Christ when He will return back to this present earth to consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy the False Prophet, Antichrist and his armies of humans that followed him with the brightness of His coming along with the armies of saints from heaven (2 Thes 2:8; Rev 19:14, 16). That ensures that the theme is talking more about Jesus Christ in his glory which He has regained with the Father, which he had left when assigning himself as the Son in relating to His creation by his own choice before the present world was formed with ministering angels to assist Him in his creation (John 17:5; Pro 8:4, 22, 24, 27, 30-31, 36; Job 38:6, 7).
In other words, by discussing with in the Trinity initially before all creation, The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit by agreement took the agreed upon assigned designation with the same title relating to humans and revealing themselves to them in this way (Matt 28:19; John 10:18). So once Jesus took on the role of the Son of God within the Trinity of the God-head, immediately he left his glory which He only chose to regain it after his death on the cross (Php 2:8, 9). But as the Son of God in itself he was so glorious than any other created being of any kind in the whole universe, and He was God even when He acted as the unique Angel of the LORD and has never ceased to be God who is worthy of all worship, but when the Son chose to become a man and became one, being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Php 2:8).
The above verse also speaks equally about God the Father I believe, because it also says, "13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus...14...you keep this commandment [i.e. good confession and fight of faith] without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, 15 which He will manifest in His own time..." Here in the above verses we see Paul saying "Jesus Christ’s appearing...[God] will manifest in His own time" which is what Jesus also agreed to have said about His secret coming of Rapture to the disciples of His (Acts 1:7; Matt 24:36).
So coming to the point of your question, 'How can man see the God who dwells in "unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see"?,' means that God in His full glory without restraining Himself do dwell in "unapproachable light [in heaven], whom no man has seen or can see." God has said that heaven is my throne and earth is His footstool, which means God reveals on earth only a foot placing level of His glory to the inhabitants of it, though he has a lot more [i.e. infinite level of glory] to reveal than that capacity, the humans on earth cannot handle any more capacity of Divine glory in their physical level of seeing Him in their dust bodies (Isa 66:1; Acts 7:49). Neither the tents or temple built by humans can contain His full glory, nor the human body as the temple of God can contain or withstand the full glory of God. So whatever ways God reveals Himself to man is only a part of the full glory and not the full glory which no man has seen or can see.
That is why Jesus had left his glory which was in the form of God in heaven to become in to the form of man on earth which is a humble state for the person who has created the whole universe which made him leave a lot and stay only with a little of his own (Php 2:8), yet he never ceased to exist as God because inside that body of Jesus, the eternal Son was in the spirit which resided in that body (Isa 9:6).
The apostles and disciples were able to see Jesus' glory in a limited way compared to the real one which He has left in heaven by his own choice (John 1:14). John reveals in his gospel, that no one has seen God at any time, except the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18), which reveals that Jesus was in the bosom of the Father in perfect understanding with Him when he became man, and it also shows that even in his humanity he was able to co-exist as God with the Father in perfect union, to hear and see and take collective decisions or individual ones by the power of unity in trinity, which made Him declare to humanity about the Father God in heaven who is good and everlasting towards them. Even though Jesus lived on earth, he was able to see the Father God in heaven spiritually and hear Him all the time which made Him co-exist with God spiritually and eternally which has no boundary or time (Matt 3:16-17; John 11:40, 42; 12:28-29, 30; 6:38, 42, 69; John 3:13; Eph 2:6). Only at that time when Jesus hung on the Cross for our sins over a period of three hours, for the first time in eternity, Jesus actually felt as though he has got out of the loop of that eternal unity of trinity in his natural state of his body which although is a fact physically but was not the truth eternally and spiritually (Matt 26:53; 27:45, 46, 50; 54:7, 8). In other words, Jesus was forsaken for a moment with God's wrath doesn't mean that the unity of the trinity actually were disillusioned and got divided for a moment, God cannot cease to exist even for a mere moment as though he doesn't know what is happening. If that is so, then how can God be omniscient knowing the end from the beginning (Isa 46:10)? The very fact that the words spoken by Jesus in Matt 27:46 as saying, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?", is a prophetic Messianic verse of Psa 22:1 which was fulfilled by Jesus on the Cross, which shows to us that the very unity of trinity was not divided at that moment, but the separation of man from God by sin was enacted by Jesus for our behalf and for our sins to be cleansed through his human body as a substitutional sacrifice (Heb 10:5-7, 12, 13, 14; Isa 59:2).
So I do assure you that man can see God in a limited glory which he can handle, the limit of how much we can see him depends on how much we can pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no human can see the Lord or his supernatural activities through them in their natural state (Heb 12:14; 2 Tim 2:21).
God revealed to Moses his glory only in the capacity he was able to handle, as God himself said at that time that no man can see my face and live which means if God shows his full glory, no man will be able to handle it and live further alive in their human body (Exo 33:18, 19, 20-21, 22-23).
The Bible says that Jacob in an encounter with Christ conversed as follows, "Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”" (Genesis 32:24–25, 28–30). Many theologians refer to the appearances of God in these passages, and others like them, as “theophanies” (Greek: theos = “God” + phaino = “appear”) or “Christophanies.” So these words mean “appearances of God” and “appearances of Christ,” respectively.
The Angel of the Lord received worship willingly which only God is worthy to receive (Jos 5:14-15), so now we know that this was none other than our Christ in his pre-incarnate state appearing to humans as theophany, which means God restraining himself and showing himself to humans in a form or way they can relate to Him, so that they can know within them that they have seen God face to face, that which God reveals to them in a limited level of glory which they can handle with their human body which is very fragile and can easily break out if the glory of His Presence is too high or very weighty.
First the Bible says in Gen 18:2, “Abraham lifted his eyes and looked and saw naturally three men [strangers] standing by him, once he saw them intently he recognized his Divine Master [Adonai] and he bowed himself to the ground.” This gives us a clear idea that whenever Abraham met Christ the Master, he had the perception in him to perceive the Divineness in him whom he was meeting. By the time of Genesis 18, God had already appeared to Abraham on at least two occasions (Genesis 12:7, 17:1) and spoken to him in some way several other times (Genesis 12:1; 13:14; 15:1). It is reasonable to conclude that in Genesis 18 Christ appeared in the same form as before so that Abraham would recognize Him. Indeed, when he saw the Lord and the other two “men” (angels), Abraham ran out to Him and bowed down. If Abraham was able to identify clearly the Divine Christ in his pre-incarnate appearance as the Master, why not Abraham could have also identified the Father God as Melchizedek when He met Him as the priest of the Most High God (Gen 14:18-20)?
Do you know that Holy Spirit was seen in the form of dove by the man Jesus and all those around him, the Father God's voice was heard from heaven to all men at that time (Matt 3:16, 17; John 1:32; 1 Tim 2:5)? Again here is a revelation of constrained and symbolic glory.
If the Holy Spirit Himself who has no image as He is a Spirit being had revealed Himself in his self-revelation in the form of a dove to make us understand His Almightiness and harmless purity of His Divine Character, why can't God the Father reveal Himself in a limited glory to Abraham as the High Priest of the lineage of Melchizedek? We do not decide how much of God's glory we can handle without busting out in to oblivion, it is God who decides who or how much we can handle His Glory safely. That is why God's call to holiness is a serious call to us individually which God takes seriously, because He wants to reveal Himself day by day more and more of His Glory (2 Cor 3:18; Psa 84:7). Hallelujah!!
I hope that you have come to understand by the above explanation that the scenario that you have questioned by another Scripture from 1 Tim 6:16 is indeed possible with God's choice to show his grace but not with man's striving (Luke 18:27). No man has seen or can see God until God chooses to self reveal Himself to him and his understanding in various ways, as he gropes out in this world of darkness to seek Him who is unseen yet seen everywhere in all things and all places which shouts out His Glory and His handiwork! Such seekers will always without fail will find God where ever they might be present in this whole wide world.
Much Blessings....
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