Every once in a while you hear someone say they don’t believe in God or the Bible because, they say, the Bible has contradictions. Most people would probably be hard-pressed to actually name one, but as I watched an episode of Young Sheldon – the television show about a budding scientist and atheist who is forever exasperating his Christian mother by raising his hand in the middle of church to ask the pastor a question – he asked one particular question I thought was intriguing and I took it as a challenge.
In the middle of the service, Pastor Jeff quotes Jacob in Genesis 32:30, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Sheldon immediately turns to his mother and says in all his precociousness, “Is this an appropriate time to mention that John 1:18 says, ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ Who’s right? Jacob or John?”
Hm. Who is right?
So I started with Genesis, jumped to the beginning of chapter 32 and read to the end of it. There’s a lot going on in these verses, so I’ll keep my answer focused on the immediate action Pastor Jeff quoted.
Jacob is on his way to meet up with his brother Esau, and he’s a little freaked out. It’s nighttime and he’s alone, when suddenly a Man appears and wrestles with Jacob until dawn. After refusing to let the Man go until He blesses him, which He does, “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (meaning Face of God): ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”
Then I flipped over to the book of John, chapter 1. John begins by describing the God/Man Jesus – the Word, the Logos, or expression of the Father – that He was in the beginning, that He was with God, and that He was God. He goes on to describe the deity of the Man, Jesus Christ, that He is the Light born into this world by the will of God.
And then John goes on to say “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
Of course Jacob and John are both right.
Jacob saw God in the form of a Man. In fact he wrestled with Him all night. (Ever wrestled with God in prayer?) Jacob was able to handle seeing and dealing with God in this humbled form covered by flesh.
So when John says no one has seen God at any time, he is saying no one has seen the full glory of the Almighty God (but the Son has shown Him to us).
Even Moses was only allowed to see the back of God.
There have been many times I’ve casually read a portion of scripture that seemed to make no sense at all. It didn’t line up with my preconceived idea of who God is, or it seemed to contradict another part of scripture. By now though I know the Bible isn’t wrong. I am. 100% of the time.
Because I don’t understand it just means my mind is smaller than God’s. Any god whose mind is no bigger than mine is no God at all. And yet the grace of God has revealed Himself to us in His Son.
Because our human understanding is limited, it takes the Spirit of God to interpret His Word and give us understanding. I know that if I pray for wisdom, and really dig into God’s Word, study it and learn what it actually means, I’ll discover the Bible is never contradictory. Not even between the Old Testament and the New. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. His Word is unerring and perfectly compatible with itself.
And by studying it my understanding of God grows, and so does my love for Him.
If you are reading this and you’ve kept your distance from God because you’ve heard the Bible has contradictions, maybe you even have something in particular in mind you believe is a contradiction, I encourage you to read it for yourself. Seek out someone you believe might have the answer, or can dig into God’s Word with you to discover the truth. There’s a website, Got Questions, that allows you to submit questions and also has a large archive of past articles. And I’d be willing to give any questions you have a shot.
And for us who are believers, let’s keep studying God’s Word, or maybe we need to start. There is a lot of teaching out there that is very unscriptural, even among some who seem to have authority, and we need to have a solid understanding of God’s Word, and discernment, so the enemy doesn’t deceive us, leading us to believe things about God that aren’t true, causing disillusionment and drawing us away from Him.
Let us emulate our Berean brothers and sisters, who were “of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:10-11
There are a lot of treasures in there to uncover.
Happy studying,
Study the scriptures e.g Exodus 3, Judges 6, Judges 13- you’ll see them calling angels God. You can see Acts 17:53, Galatians 3, Hebrews 1, Hebs 2,
To say God came in the flesh would mean Jesus was since in the Old Testament. And scriptures/ prophecies won’t be fulfilled
Hi Miss B,
First, I wanted to thank you so much for stopping by. I wanted to just quickly address some of the things you brought up.
Yes, there are many instances in the Old Testament that refer to either an angel of the LORD, or the angel of the LORD or of God. The word for angel means messenger, someone sent from God. We know two of the angels God sent as messengers by name – Michael and Gabriel. There may have been many more angels God sent as messengers, too. In some instances where it speaks of “the angel of the Lord,” we’re given an indication that this manifestation is God, such as in Judges 13:21-24. Many believe in this instance, and others, like the scripture I referenced in Genesis 32, the angel of the LORD is the preincarnate Christ.
Still, the appearances of God as an angel were a significantly restrained manifestation of Himself, a version of God, if you will, that people could handle. No one can handle seeing God in His full glorious nature, and He has never appeared to anyone that way.
As for Jesus being God in the flesh, John 1:1-3, and 14 states “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And in John 8:58 Jesus Himself said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who claimed to be God (John 10), did indeed fulfill the prophecies of the coming Messiah, as the Old Testament prophecied – Isaiah 9:6; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Proverbs 19:21; Lamentations 1:16; Jeremiah 23:6; Isaiah 7:14; Zechariah 2:10-11, and the New Testament shows. Of course there are many, many other instances in scripture that show the Messiah, or Christ in Greek, is God who comes in human form – the Son of God.
This is why John said in John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God, BUT, the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.”
We can’t handle seeing the full glory of God the Father, but God the Son has shown Him to us by by coming in the form of a man, and before He was seen as a man, He sometimes showed Himself as an angel.
I pray you ask God to open His Word to you as you read it, and to give you wisdom to understand who Jesus Christ is and to believe in Him as Lord and Savior. God bless you.