The Answerer

Well done to think on this and ask about it. Only Moses had the honour of having God speak with him ‘face to face’. That’s very rare! The Bible says: ‘No one can see God and live.’

In Numbers chapter 12 God spoke from the ‘cloud’ and said to Aaron and Miriam: ‘Even with a prophet, I would communicate by visions and dreams; but that is not how I communicate with my servant Moses. He is completely at home in my house! With him I speak face to face.’ (Numbers chapter 12 verses 6 to 8)

This is before we got a Bible: Moses was to instruct the people of Israel in God’s laws, and later write down all that God wanted us to know.

To see God is indeed a frightening thing that not many have done. Isaiah, one of God’s great prophets, did see God. I’m not sure if it was a vision, or a dream, or that he did actually see God. Isaiah ‘saw’ God in the Temple and his ‘train’ filled the Temple. Isaiah wrote: ‘The year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord! He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the Temple was filled with his glory. Hovering about Him were mighty, six winged seraphs (flying angels). With two of their wings they covered their faces; with two others they covered their feet, and with two they flew. In a great antiphonal* chorus they sang, “Holy, holy ,holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is filled with His glory.”’ Such singing it was! It shook the Temple to its foundations and suddenly the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke. Then I said: ‘My doom is sealed, for I am a foul-mouthed sinner, a member of a sinful foul-mouthed race; and I have looked upon the King, the Lord of heaven’s armies.’ (Isaiah chapter 6 verses 1 to 5).

*Antiphonal means two or more choirs singing different parts, but together, to make a great sound, Try Handel’s ‘Halleluiah chorus’ from ‘The Messiah’. It was so ‘Grand’ that the King of England stood up when he first heard it, out of respect and reverence for God. For a Christian, it makes the hair on the back of the neck stand up. Grand ‘stuff’ indeed. Heavenly music! That piece of music, from the Messiah; ‘The Halleluiah Chorus’ is used sometimes on advertisements on radio and maybe TV too. If somebody got a picture of God, it would soon be on drink bottles and breakfast cereals. Think of that! Oh YUK!!

Being in God’s presence is frightening stuff’, so imagine being there then, with Isaiah, a ‘foul mouthed sinner’ would be scary indeed. Maybe in the fear and wonder of seeing God, Isaiah immediately recalled all his sins. ‘…woe is me for I am a foul mouthed sinner!’ But God had a Seraph take a live, hot coal from the fire and, using tongs touched Isaiah’s lips with the hot coal saying: ‘Now you are pronounced, not guilty, because this coal has touched your lips. Your sins are forgiven.’ (Isaiah chapter 6 verses 6 to7) God is a forgiving God and used Isaiah to write one of the great and profound prophecies, with much in it about Jesus in the Bible. N.B.: No other ‘religious’ book tells the future, only the Bible, and it’s never wrong.

So, to the answer: We are not meant, or allowed, to see God. He is not a person, a statue, or a carved image. You will stand before Him after you die and then you’ll see Him in all his glory and majesty. Me, I look forward to that!