It would be shocking, overwhelming in fact, to have stood before Jesus and hear him say something like this:
If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
John 14:7
Can you imagine? I think everyone would say that one of the most challenging things about believing in God is that we can’t see him. God is spirit, not a physical man…except when he was here on earth having come into the earth as a physical man.
The disciples had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They believed that he had been sent by God.
Peter even completed his confession back to Jesus in saying that they, the disciples, believed that he was the Son of God.
Jesus, though, now goes on to tell the disciples that if they have seen him, they have seen the Father. As the disciples look at Jesus, they are looking into the face of God. As the disciples hear the words that Jesus is speaking, they are hearing words that are coming directly from God. They aren’t hearing a prophet. They aren’t hearing someone who is speaking for God. They are hearing God, and him directly.
Philip goes on to push the question further though. Neither he nor the rest of the disciples can really even begin to understand what Jesus is telling them, so Jesus answers him as clearly as he possibly can:
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
John 14:8-10
Jesus even seems to chide Philip to a certain extent. “How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?'”, he responds to Philip. “Don’t you believe?”
I think that Jesus asks us the same question even today:
Don’t you believe?
Belief, though, isn’t just the religious label that we place upon ourselves. It isn’t a group with whom we align ourselves. To say that we believe isn’t like alignment with a political party, signaling to the world our leanings to the left or to the right. No, to believe means that we are hearing what God himself is saying to us and everything changes based on those words.
Today, we can hear God through his word, the Bible, and we can hear God through his Spirit, the Holy Spirit that Christ gives to us as we believe and follow him. He desires to speak, and even moreso, he desires that we listen and do what he has called us to do.
Jesus showed himself physically to his disciples. He was a real person who walked the earth, and yet his primary identity, who he really was, was God the Father who had come in the person of Jesus Christ. God showed himself to the people of that time, but he continues to show himself to us even today. But he will only be known if we will listen. He will only be known if we will change to do what he has called us to do. We can know God. We can see him, if we will look, listen, and believe.