Week 4—Saturday 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
JESUS WAS THE MESSAGE
We meditate upon the last line of the wonderful passage: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). “No one has ever seen God”—that rules out all dogmatic assertions by theologians as to what God is like, all so-called visions of God by mystic dreamers; and it puts a damper on the prophets when they assert that God is this, that, and the other. “No one has seen God”—neither philosopher, nor priest, nor person. “The only Son . . . has made him known.” Apart from Jesus we know little or nothing about God the Father, and what we know is wrong.
You see God in the face of Jesus Christ, the Son, or you do not see God. You may see your imagination of God, but you do not see God. That is what Jesus meant when he said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” Through Moses you can come to Jehovah and all that conception contains and can give; through Confucius you can come to Heaven and all that conception contains and can give; through Buddha you can come to the Vast Question Mark and all that conception holds and can give; through Shankara you can come to Brahma and all that conception holds and can give; through Krishna you can come to Vishnu and all that conception holds and can give; through the modern philosophers and theologians you can come to the conceptions they hold and can give; but if you come to the Father, the Reality about God, you must come through the Son. For he said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” So if you haven’t seen God in the face of Jesus, you have not seen the Father. You have seen something else. The emphasis here is upon “the Father”—you see the Father only in the Son. Note I say, “in the Son,” not merely “by” or “through,” but “in.” “God spoke to our forefathers . . . through the prophets. But in this the final age he has spoken to us in the Son” (Heb. 1:1-2, NEB). Note “through the prophets” and “in the Son.” The prophets brought a message; Jesus was the Message. The gospel was in his Person.
O Jesus; I see the Father in you—in what you are, in what you do, in what you say—in everything about you. You are the silence of eternity interpreted by love. You are the language of eternity translated into the speech of time. You are my God. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When Jesus speaks, the eternities listen, for they know their Master’s voice.