Why We Can't Look at God

Acts 17: 24 – 31 (NIV): The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.

This is Paul's speech to the philosophers in Athens. A tough bunch to convert. But his bottom line was that God proved that he is the true God when he raised Jesus from the dead. That is the bottom line of our faith. The next verses basically say some believed it and some didn't. Yep, just like today. We have more than enough evidence that Jesus rose again and we can build our faith on that evidence.

The secondary argument he presents is the fact that we are here. We had to get here somehow! God created us and placed it in our hearts to seek him. If we do, we will find him because he is not far off. Some people refuse to seek God. Why? Perhaps because God commands everyone to repent and many people don't want God to tell them what to do.

We might ask, “So why can't we look at God so we can believe in him?” I think this is a fair question, but there are good answers. In John 3:8, Jesus says there is a mystery to God. He is Spirit and, like the wind, we can see his effects, but we can't see him. In John 1:10-11, John tells us that God did come to earth as a man so we could see and touch him, but most people still rejected him! Exodus 33:20 says it would kill us to look at God in his full glory. That is a reminder of how awesome, holy and powerful he is. He's like the sun – way to bright to look at. Imagine how awesome he must be if he spoke the sun – and the whole universe into existence.

If God removed the mystery, he would also have to remove our free will. I'll let you ponder that, because I want to end with a thought based on 1 Peter 5: 5-6. God has veiled himself so that the proud will not find him, but has revealed himself so that the humble will.