Wisdom unsearchable, God the invisible,
Love indestructible in frailty appears.
Lord of infinity, stooping so tenderly,
Lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne!
O what a mystery! Meekness and majesty,
Bow down and worship for this is your God!
- Graham Kendrick
When Philip asked Jesus to show the Father to him and his colleagues, he did not quite know what he was asking for. He must have assumed that he would be able to see the God of the Old Testament, the fearsome one of whom his ancestors were so scared that they had asked Moses to go and listen to Him instead of hearing Him directly (Exodus 20:18-19; Hebrews 12:19). Philip must have thought that the one whom Jesus so familiarly addressed as Father would have been of somewhat manageable proportions! Perhaps Philip (and we along with him) would not have been surprised if Jesus had said something like this in reply: "You know it is really very difficult to see Him, but I will try my best to see what can be done." Instead, Jesus replies, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:8-9).
...There is a unity between the Father and the Son that we cannot ignore. In chapter 10, John records Jesus proclaiming his oneness with the Father. He uses the neuter gender in the Greek language, implying oneness of substance or essence, and emphatically not oneness of Person. (If he had wanted to mean oneness of Person, he would have used the masculine gender.) This is fundamentally important but is not often heard. Simply put, Jesus says that he is of one essence with the Father, but is not the same Person. As a result, we see a continuing invitation from Jesus to "come and see" his actual humanity, the uniqueness of Christ, the person of God incarnate.
Today, at the right hand of God, we have an intercessor who is "the Man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5). In other words, the humanity that Jesus assumed is with him forever. In that humanity, the redeemed Church is made a worthy and compatible partner to the Lamb. It is a heavenly marriage in which we are worthy only because the Bridegroom is God who has forever become Human, and we are humans who have become participators in the divine nature by the promises of God (II Peter 1:4).
Comments:
It is quite interesting to consider Christ retaining his human-ness.
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