See God and Live

In the process of receiving the Ten Commandments, Moses asked to see God’s glory. God responded, “You cannot see my face because people cannot see me and live” (Exodus 32:20). We might take the comment in two ways. Does it mean we cannot see God while we are alive, or does it warn that seeing God would kill us? Some of the ancients seem to have had this belief (Genesis 32:30; Judges 6:22-23; 13:21-22). The less extreme meaning equals Paul’s comment that in the next stage of existence we will see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12), or as John puts it, “We will be like him and see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Several scriptures say that no one has ever seen God directly (John 6:46; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 11:27). That is because people are not able to see him (1 Timothy 6:16). This cluster of observations highlights the fact that, by becoming a human being, “the only Son . . . has made God known” to physical eyes (John 1:18). Passages like Isaiah 6:5, then, speak of visions, “I saw the Lord high and lifted up,” something that Christ’s coming surpasses.

At this table we see the Lord lifted up on a cross. The One nobody can see has become visible in human flesh and in that condition gave himself to reconcile us to the Father. Reenacting this ancient rite brings again into our consciousness the personal relationship we can have with God and the restoration of that relationship through the death of the incarnate One, represented here by emblems of his body and blood.