John 1 Devotional

The God We Can See

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.”John 1:18 (BSB)

John begins where Genesis begins, before anything was made. The Word was already there, with God and himself God, and everything that exists came into being through him (1:1-3). Then comes the sentence the whole Gospel rests on: this Word became a human being and lived among us (1:14). The God no one has ever seen is now made known by the only Son, himself God, who is close beside the Father (1:18).

The rest of the chapter shows what that looks like up close. John the Baptist points away from himself to Jesus as the Lamb of God, sent to remove the world's sin (1:29). Two disciples ask where Jesus is staying, and he invites them along, so they spend the day with him (1:38-39). Nathanael learns that Jesus saw him under the fig tree before Philip ever called him (1:48). The eternal Word does not keep his distance. He comes near, invites, and already knows the people he calls. You do not have to guess what God is like. You can look at Jesus.

To think about: What picture of God have you been carrying that needs to be corrected by looking at Jesus?