Is It Possible To See God?

Is it possible to see God? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi there.

Happy Friday. I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. We would love to hear from you. Jot our phone number down. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Our phone lines will be open for the next 25 minutes or so. By the way, you can also watch us on YouTube. Adriel's live in the studio every day at 1130 a.m. Pacific time, so if you go to the Core Christianity YouTube channel, you can send him your question that way, and you can always feel free to email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Janita, who left a voicemail for us. Hey, Janita, thank you for that question.

That question comes up from time to time when we're looking at the first few chapters of Genesis, Let Us Make Man in Our Image, and then there in Genesis 3, verse 22, After the fall, the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Why the us? Why the first person plural? Who's there with God? There are, I think, two legitimate options. One is we're talking about the Holy Trinity here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That's one route that some people have gone. The other route is God is speaking about the angelic hosts, the heavenly hosts that are there with him in his throne room, if you will. That's actually the view that I take. The us refers to God in his royal court with the angels around him, you know, ministering to him, if you will. I think this makes sense specifically in Genesis chapter 3, because if you continue reading, so I'll just start again in verse 22, the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of out from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Really interesting there, but right there, even in the context, you have the angels, the cherubim, who are there.

And so I take it that the us is the angelic hosts. Thank you so much for your question, Janita, and God bless. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, theology, or doctrine. Maybe you have some questions about the Christian faith. Hey, feel free to call us at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. We also get emails here at The Core. Let me share one with you today. This is from Jamie, and this is a hard one. She says, My mother has always been one to lose her temper and be controversial. She doesn't want to hear anyone else's side and automatically assumes she is right. I've tried so hard to be civil with her, but she uses the Bible to validate her actions. Her hurtful actions have taken their toll on me. I resent reading the Bible or even listening to Christian music because I think about the verses my mom has yelled at me.

She says people don't like her because they are persecuting her. I have some medical problems, and she's told me they are God's plan because I'm a bad person. How do I not allow my mom to shape my relationship with God? Jamie, man, I am so sorry to hear that, and it sounds like I pray that the Lord does a work in your mother's heart so that there's some reconciliation there because it sounds like there's a real rift in the relationship, and it sounds like she's using God's word in a way that's unhelpful and harmful.

We ought to be humble. The more we study scripture, the deeper we dig into the Word of God, I think the more humble it should make us, the more open to listening. That doesn't mean that we always agree with what everybody else says or that we don't have strong opinions, but we need to hold those views, those convictions that we have with grace, with charity, that is love, and when we don't do that, when we're incapable of speaking the truth in love, a lot of times what happens is we end up using the Word of God as a tool to tear others down, and it sounds to me like that's what you've been experiencing. You asked, how do I keep that experience from shaping my relationship with the Lord? I think it's really important that you've at least recognized this, that the impact, the influence of my mom, her behavior, the way she uses scripture, that's been really hard for me, and it's actually driven me away from the Lord. I think recognizing that and seeing that there's a disconnect there is really important, and then for yourself, pursuing Jesus, opening up the scriptures, letting the Word of God, letting God speak to you through his word by the grace of the Holy Spirit and receiving it with humility and asking God to build in you the love that you want to see your mother exhibit as well as someone who is a believer who claims to be a believer. When we have that very sort of arrogant, prideful approach to the Bible and we're using it like a hammer to tear everyone else down, that's not pleasing to the Lord.

The religious leaders in the New Testament, the ones that Jesus confronted over and over again in the Gospels, it seems like this is how often they would use God's Word, and Jesus had strong rebukes for them, driving people away from the Kingdom of God. Jesus said, I came to seek and save the lost, and Jesus said, Jamie, come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart. And so I would say to you, hear those words from Jesus to you, come to me and receive rest. Get to know who I am.

I'm gentle and lowly of heart. And as you study the scriptures, let God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, shape your mind. And when you're tempted, as we're all tempted through these experiences, especially with family, when you're tempted to have a view of God that is skewed because of past trauma, I think taking that to the Lord and recognizing it and praying for God's help, and also I think a lot of healing can come through conversations with your mother and hopefully reconciliation, that the Lord is able to work there.

It's important for her to see how her behavior is impacting the people around her, even her own children. And so God bless you, Jamie. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you and draw you near continually to him as you grow in the grace and the knowledge of Christ. And so thank you for reaching out to us.

Just a follow-up question for you, Adriel. When does it get to the point in a relationship where we need to say, no, this is just, it's so unhealthy, so destructive, so toxic that I can't relate to you anymore? And of course, it's particularly difficult when it's a family member.

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously when you have situations of abuse and there is such a thing as spiritual abuse, where someone is using the word of God, as I've already said, to coerce or impose or tear down another individual, and we have to recognize that and we have to be careful that we don't fall into that trap and that we don't allow our loved ones to fall into that trap. And so I think it is okay in situations like that to create a wall, a barrier, and to call individuals to repentance. This is where the church is so important. So that when someone is doing this, when someone's acting this way, there are elders that we can go to and pastors that we can talk to and say, hey, this is what's happening.

We need some accountability here. We need some help because the word of God is not being used in a way that's glorifying to the Lord. And actually it's caused a lot of pain and destruction in our family. And so this is where the church is really important. But there does come a point, Bill, and when that is, I mean, I think every situation where you have to exercise wisdom, but certainly if it's destroying you personally, spiritually, if I'm incapable of understanding what God is saying to me because I'm under this weight of this burden, right, this spiritual abuse, well, creating distance I think is a really important thing as you continue to dig into the scriptures on your own and in the context of the local church to grow in Christ apart from that influence.

And so, Bill, such a difficult situation. We pray that God helps this young woman that God gives her grace. Jamie, we will be praying for you in this entire situation.

We know how difficult that may be and must be for you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Our phone lines are open. If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, maybe there's a passage of scripture that's always kind of stumped you and you'd like some clarification on it, or maybe there's something going on in your church that you're really troubled about, you'd like to get Adriel's perspective on it, feel free to give us a call right now. Our phone lines will be open for the next 15 minutes or so, 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. We also mentioned that we have a YouTube channel and you can actually send Adriel a question through YouTube and watch him live in the studio. We have one that came in from Jim, and he says this, is 1 Samuel 18-1 proof that we have soulmates?

Very interesting question. Well, 1 Samuel 18 verse 1 says, as soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. Now, typically when people talk about soulmates, it's a romantic relationship.

This is the person who's meant for me. I don't think David and Jonathan had a romantic relationship. What you have here specifically is two people, two brothers, if you will, and a great bond of affection, a great bond of love that we see played out in 1 and 2 Samuel.

David's love and care for Jonathan and Jonathan's love and care for David. I mean, this is a brotherhood. Sometimes when we talk about male friendships or male relationships, I think we can get kind of weird about it.

This is, well, we got to be tough and we got to be manly. David and Jonathan certainly were, but they also had this intimate bond as brothers caring for each other. That's, I think, what the text is highlighting for us here, that there was this deep love. I wouldn't use this to say every single person has a soulmate out there for them, some sort of romantic partner.

That's not what 1 Samuel is trying to communicate to us here in this passage. It's just highlighting. It's using this colorful language for us, but it's just highlighting the strong bond that existed there between these two men. And so, yeah, thanks for that question. Although I think I would say that my wife is my soulmate, and I think she'd say that too, Bill. That's so sweet.

I have to say that just in case she's listening right now. Yeah, for sure, for sure. By the way, we should also mention that, unfortunately, there are some homosexual activists in the church that have used the David-Jonathan relationship and said, ah, okay, those two guys were gay. Yeah, well, I think that that is, you're totally right, that's unfortunate. That'd be a twisting of the scriptures because homosexuality was prohibited under the old covenant, specifically in various places. And it's also talked about in the New Testament, in places like Romans chapter one and 1 Corinthians chapter six.

And so when people look at passages like this and take them out of context, and they try to read into them something that's not there, like this was a romantic relationship or a sexual relationship that's not being faithful to the actual words of scripture. And so I'm glad that you mentioned that, Bill, because that is such a big issue today. You're listening to Core Christianity.

We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, call us up right now, 833-843-2673. By the way, Core Christianity is really excited about a resource that we're offering right now because it ties in with what's going on in our culture. We just celebrated the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision on the sanctity of human life. So there's been a lot of discussion about abortion.

You may actually have friends or work associates who have a very different perspective on the abortion issue than you do. And this will help you as you have a dialogue with them. It's a new devotional called Fearfully Made. Yeah, the great thing about this resource is it's free. You can get ahold of it over at corechristianity.com forward slash offers. It's a digital copy.

So you download it directly to your computer or to your phone. But it does get into this topic of abortion and life and the importance of standing for life and unpacking it with the scriptures from a biblical perspective. So get ahold of this free resource over at corechristianity.com.

Once again, it's called Fearfully Made, and you can find that and a lot of other great resources at our website. We'd encourage you to spend some time browsing around, look at our core questions, our core guides, our great Bible studies, which you can use individually or you can use as a group. So check it out, corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Well, we do receive voicemails here at the core. You can call us 24 hours a day with your question.

Here's the number, 833-THE-CORE. Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named Sue. I had called you a couple of weeks ago about a little boy who has cancer in his lungs and liver. He had the surgery two days ago, and it went very well.

They believe they got all the cancer, but they're not sure. But anyways, I wanted to tell you when he came out of surgery, he told his mother that basically he said, I believe I saw heaven today. Right before I woke up from surgery, there was this person who I believe was God. But as I got closer, I didn't really get to see him, and then I woke up. So my question is, is it possible, because so many people have been praying for him, that God wanted to let him know that he was present with him?

Thank you. So the answer to that question, is it possible, is absolutely. It's possible. The Lord can do whatever he wants. I mean, oftentimes he works through means.

Ordinarily, he works through means, but he's free to work apart from means. And when I say means, I mean through the preaching of the word of God, through the administration of those ordinances that Jesus gave to the church, baptism, and the Lord's Supper, that's primarily where we go, where we look for God to work, or even the means of good doctors who are treating us when we have things like cancer. And I praise God for the good report, how heartbreaking it is to see children suffering under such severe affliction.

And the Lord does hear our prayers. And so I can't say, well, no, that didn't happen. You don't know. Paul has this amazing story that he tells in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 2. He says, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know.

God knows. And he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Paul says, hey, I got a guy, I know a guy who, you know, some time ago, he was transported into heaven. I don't know if it was a vision, if it was an out of body experience. I don't know if his whole body was taken there. I don't know, Paul says, but he heard things that were just, you wouldn't believe them.

I can't even share them with you. Boy, what it'd be like to be that guy or to have a conversation with that guy. But one concern that I have, Sue, is there are many people who, this is what they chase after. There were some books that were published some time ago, you know, people claim to have near-death experiences, children even, who were saying, you know, I went to heaven and I saw Jesus. Some of that was debunked after the fact, but there was a whole genre of book. It was heaven tourism. You know, people who said that they had died and gone to heaven and were telling you what it's like, you know, sort of serving as your tour guide.

I don't think that's something we should chase after. I think when God works in extraordinary ways, we can say, okay, great. We always want to go to the scriptures. We want to let God reveal himself to us in the scripture.

And so anytime there's anything that contradicts what the word of God says, I think we go with God's word. If it doesn't contradict the word of God, I think we say, okay, well praise God for this healing that's taken place, and praise God that this young child had a sense of the presence of the Lord. And of course, man, we've been praying for him.

Why would we expect anything else? And so may the Lord continue to bring healing for this child, and peace, and a sense of his presence, and be at work in this situation. And so thank you for your question, and God bless.

Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you think of a question after our show ends here in a few minutes, and you're like, I really wanted to ask Adriel that, well, you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day over the weekend at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Sean calling in from Missouri. Sean, what's your question for Adriel? Yes, my question is, well, God is love, but back in the Old Testament days, when he would tell them to go in and basically wipe out a whole people in the city.

Women, children, men, livestock, everything. How does that, I was just kind of wondering what your take is on how does that figure into him in general? Yeah. Yeah, Sean, you're totally right. God is love. But I think in our society today, we have really confused ideas about what love is. For many people today, they say things like, well, you know, love is love, and you just need to accept what another person does or believes.

And if you don't, if you don't embrace, if you don't celebrate it, right, we just coming off of quote unquote Pride Month, right, where it's everybody's encouraged to celebrate sinful behavior. And if you don't, well, then you're just not loving. We have these crazy definitions of what love is today. And so I think people hear God is love. And then they look at the Bible and they say, well, well, he he seems stern at times, strict, judging sin and evil.

But God's love does not mean that he's okay with evil and injustice. And frankly, right, people understand this. We truly understand this deep down inside, Sean, maybe if you were sitting before a judge, and the judge was hearing a case where, you know, a person, an individual who had committed these these heinous acts, these heinous crimes, harming people, harming the innocent. And that judge looked at this person, and all the victims and their families are there watching. And that judge looked at this person and said, you know, my heart is just full of love. And I, I realize that what you've done is horrible.

I mean, it's clear that you've done this. But because I love, I'm just gonna let you go free. Now, would that be loving all the victims?

No, absolutely not. I mean, it would be it would be a travesty. And we understand that. And the fact of the matter is the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and the the Canaanites and the peoples that the Israelites were called to drive out from the land. They were evil people, sinful people sacrificing their own children, even the blood was the land was stained with the blood of the innocent. So when when God is calling his people to exercise judgment, if you will, to cleanse the land of Canaan, it was it was a judgment on evil on sin.

It was also a picture there long ago of the final judgment. So even in the New Testament, it's not like in the Old Testament, you have judgment in the New Testament, you don't. I mean, when we read the book of Revelation, it's very clear that when Jesus comes back, he's coming back to judge the world. Yes, God is love. But that doesn't mean that he just condones sin, that he's okay with injustice. It's his love that brings sinners to repentance, that gives us hope that even though we've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, when we turn to him, instead of experiencing the judgment that we deserve, the curse that we deserve, we can experience his grace because Jesus has taken that judgment upon himself. And so we need to what we need to recover is a biblical understanding of what love is, of the love of God, of the justice of God, of the goodness of God, and frankly, of the heinousness of sin.

And when we do, then I think these texts are are less surprising, at least it helps us to understand them. And so, Sean, appreciate your question. And may the Lord bless. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

We have time for one more quick call. Let's go to Leonard in Missouri. Leonard, what's your question for Adriel? Yeah, I got in the third chapter of the book of Proverbs, the first verse, it says, My son, forget not my law, but let thine heart keep my commandment. What's the distance between a law and a commandment?

Yeah, Leonard, great question, man. In the wisdom literature, and Proverbs is a part of the wisdom literature, which you oftentimes get is parallelism. And so you could see these things synonymously. In fact, in the book of Proverbs, there are so many synonyms for the law of God that are used, like teaching, like commandment, like precept, so on and so forth. And here in particular, I think what's being highlighted is the call to fear the Lord and walk in accordance with his word, which is wisdom. My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandment. So I wouldn't see any distinction there.

I think there's some parallelism being used. And those two things, the teaching, the commandment are the same thing. God bless. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the core. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.