John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesess – Episode 18, Jesus Is the Only One Who Has Seen God

If we would understand how John intended us to understand John 1:1c, “and the Word was God” (could he possibly, as Jehovah’s Witnesses assert, mean Jesus was “a god”?), we need to see John’s representation of Jesus in places outside of John 1:1, that is, in the remainder of his Gospel.

The Only One Who Has Seen the Father

After Jesus feeds the 5,000 and walks on water, the crowds come to him seeking more free food, choosing to see Jesus as only a provider of their physical needs. But Jesus does not give them that option. He is the source of all their life, of eternal life.

And they were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now be saying that he is come down from heaven?” Jesus responded, “Don’t grumble with each other. No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard from the Father and learned will come to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God, he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died. This is the bread that has come down from heaven, that anyone who eats of it may not die. I am the bread of life come down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:42-51)

What does Jesus mean when he says no one but him has seen the Father? What about angels who attend Yahweh and sing “holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Almighty”? What about those who have reported seeing Yahweh, like Abraham and Moses? Even John has been given a glimpse of the Father according to his account in Revelation 4&5.

No, Jesus must mean something different than this. What does it mean to truly see God? John has told us in chapter 1, verse 18, that no one has seen God. Paul describes God in 1 Timothy 6:16 as, “The only one who has immortality, the one who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen nor is able to see, to Him be honor and eternal sovereignty.”

The vision that angels and chosen saints like Abraham, Moses and the apostle John have seen of God, is not the ultimate seeing of Him. It is seeing a representation of Him. Only God can see Himself in the ultimate sense. And that is what Jesus claims of himself. He alone has seen the Father.