YES!

GOD HAS BEEN SEEN

By Ronnie Bray

YES! GOD HAS BEEN SEEN!

By Ronnie Bray

Isaiah 6:1: In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. The Lord - In the original here the word is not [ yehovah] but '[ adonay]. Here is applied to Yahweh; see also Psalm 114:7, where it is also so applied; and see Isaiah 8:7, and Job 28:28, where Yahweh calls himself "". The word does not itself denote essential divinity; but it is often applied to God. In some MSS., however, of Kennicott and DeRossi, the word Yahweh is found. Isaiah evidently meant to say that it was Yahweh who appeared to him. He is expressly called in Isaiah 6:5-8, and in Isaiah 6:11. It is equally clear, from the New Testament, that Isaiah did not see el Shaddai, but that he saw the Messiah. John quotes the words in this chapter, Isaiah 6:10, as applicable

to Jesus Christ, and then adds John 12:41, 'these things said Esaias [Isaiah] when he saw his glory, and spake of him.' John took this as referring to the Messiah, but not to the Father-God of the Messiah, and thus established the propriety of applying to the name ,that is, John has affirmed that the Lord Jesus is divine and that the names and refer directly to the pre-existent Jesus. This understanding means that we must reconsider the persons present at the Creation as described in Genesis chapter 1 as being the Father-God, also referred to by the superlative, The Highest, and to the One he called his Firstborn, namely or ,who ha also called his Only Begotten Son after the Divine incarnation of as the manGod Jesus, born of his mortal mother Mary and of his divine parent The Highest, as we read in Lukes first chapter: 30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called THE SON OF THE HIGHEST, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. 35 And the angel answered and said unto her,

i. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and ii. the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: iii. Therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called THE SON OF GOD. The only way to understand the Bible is to read it and not to be led away by the sophism that replaced inspiration by generations of uninspired commentators that forced their own interpretations into the plain and precious words of the Bible to make it seem that it does NOT mean what IT SAYS, but that it means what THEY SAY it means. According to the Holy Bible, others have seen God. For example: Genesis 12:7 And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. Genesis 17:1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him.... Genesis 18:1 And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre. Genesis 26:2

And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Genesis 26:24 And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not. Genesis 32:30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. Genesis 35:9 And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padanaram, and blessed him. Genesis 48:3 And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan. Exodus 3:16 The LORD God ... appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you. Exodus 4:5 That they may believe that the LORD God ... hath appeared unto thee. Exodus 6:3 And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob....

Exodus 24:9-11 Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel ... They saw God, and did eat and drink. Exodus 33:11 And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend. Exodus 33:23 And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my backparts. Numbers 14:14 For they have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face. Deuteronomy 5:4 The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire. Deuteronomy 34:10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Judges 13:22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. 1 Kings 22:19

I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. Job 42:5 I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Psalm 63.2 To see thy power and they glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Isaiah 6:1 In the year that King Ussiah died, I saw, also, the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Isaiah 6:5 For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Ezekiel 1:27 And saw ... the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward.... Ezekiel 20:35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Amos 7:7 The LORD stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. Amos 9:1

I saw the Lord standing upon the altar: and he said, smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake. Habakkuk 3:3-5 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran .... He had horns [rays of glory] coming out of his hand. Matthew 18:9 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. In John 1:14, the apostle John writes: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ was seenHe was "seen in the flesh." This was no ordinary human being! It was the very Son of God that people "beheld." In verse 10, John has this to say about the Word or Logos: He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. The people in His day and age saw Him. Did they see the Son of God in the flesh walking with them? Did they hear him teach them? Did he explain the truths of eternal life

and salvation? Did he set out for them the example of how God wanted them to live by his words and also by his perfect example? The truth is that he did, but it is equally true that not all that heard his teachings were convinced that he was Gods divine Son, although he told them he was. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to them who believe in His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. [verses 11-13] Just as those that saw and heard him found it hard to accept the truths he taught because they went against the traditions of the religion in which they had been nurtured, including its unauthorised changes from the torah, because what they had been led to believe was not what God had originally delivered to them through the mouths and pens of the prophets. That is why people today that have been nurtured in what we may call traditional or historical forms of Christianity find it just as difficult to go back into the Bible and read where God showed himself to people in times past. With ease they point to a few lines of scriptures that say that God cannot be seen, and forget or else ignore all the passages of Scripture that show where he has been seen because he chose to reveal himself in open vision from time to time.

The New Testament contains seven lines in which it is said variously that God not only has never been seen, but that he cannot be seen. Exodus 33:20 There shall no man see me, and live. Yet, in Exodus 33:11 we find Moses and God speaking to each other face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. It is likely that gazing upon the form of God without the protection of God would prove fatal, as Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But, if God chooses to show himself, then he will afford his protection to those he permits to see him. We shall see the perfect operation of Gods protection to one he permitted to see him as he was being murdered for his witness that God and Christ live. John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time. We have seen from the Scripture itself that this is not always the case. Some have seen God, for the Bible says they have. John 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father.

We shall see later that at least one, and who knows how many more, actually saw God the Father. Colossians 1:15 The invisible God God is only invisible when he chooses not to show himself. When he chooses to reveal himself to man for his own purposes, then he is plainly visible. 1 Timothy 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. God is only invisible when he chooses not to show himself. When he chooses to reveal himself to man for his own purposes, then he is plainly visible. 1 Timothy 6:16 Whom no man hath seen nor can see. Paul might have been unaware of an event that had already taken place when he wrote this. Yet, Saul says the Son of God appeared to him on the road to Damascus. 1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time.

God is only unseen when he chooses not to show himself. When he chooses to reveal himself to man for his own purposes, then he is plainly seen. To show that the above seven passages denying the ability of God to show himself to mankind, we will look briefly at a passage that shows that explanations are required if we are to accept what they say as truth. The following account will show that by themselves, the seven statements do not tell the whole of the story. When [the Jews] heard these things [spoken by Stephen], they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Stephen reported what he saw, God with Jesus stood at his right side, and Luke, the author of the record of The Acts of the Apostles, included it in his history of the Christian Church. Not only is the passage a clear exposition of a three-person Godhead, but it controverts the later dogma of the Triune

God of Nicea, Chalcedon, and other Councils, showing them to be erroneous. Shall we say, in order to cling to the unbiblical Trinity Dogma, that Stephens dying testimony uttered while the Holy Ghost was indwelling in him, is to be regarded as a fairy tale, a myth, an egregious error on the part of the martyr Saint Stephen? Or, are we to allow ourselves to be led by that same Holy Spirit to trust the Divinely Inspired record, and the witness of the proto-martyr Stephen, that he saw what he proclaimed he saw, and that the early Christian Church had no difficulty accepting his dying testimony?