Seeing Jesus Face to Face

During the worship segment of a City Harvest Church service on 22 June 2013, we sang of seeing Jesus face to face according to the line in one of the song. The very thought of it caught me by surprise and stirred up my inner man.

For the longest time, as believers, we treasure the experience of being in the very presence of God during our personal Quiet Time and in a congregation of believers. But, I suspect that it’s not very often that we entertain the thought of seeing Jesus face to face, be it in the here and now or hereafter.

In Genesis 14:18 Abram saw Jesus when he had communion with Melchizedek king of Salem (Peace), who is the Old Testament appearance of Jesus Christ -- the Prince of Peace. Jacob struggled with God at a place he then called Peniel (Face of God) for he has seen God face to face there, and his life is preserved with God giving him his new name, Israel. (Genesis 32:30)

In the days of Jesus’s sojourning on earth, many people living in Israel had had the opportunity to see Jesus. Though they saw Him, the great majority did not see Jesus for who He is. As Jeremiah 5:21 puts it prophetically, they had eyes and see not as well as ears and hear not.

Before his proclamation of the coming Prince of Peace in Isaiah 9:6, the prophet saw the Lord and described his encounter in Isaiah 6:1-5 (NKJV):-

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one cried to another and said:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!” ⁴ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

⁵ So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The Lord of hosts.””

Not having seen Jesus would not make us less of a believer in Him. As Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Whether we have seen Jesus or not, we can still receive a revelation knowledge (Gr. epignosis: true, accurate, thorough, full knowledge of God) just as how Peter, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, perceived Jesus to be the Christ and Paul spoke of how the gospel which was preached by him is not according to man, but came through the revelation of Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:11-12).

If Jesus has a Facebook account without a picture of His face, we could still learn much about Him through his writings. And, that’s just like how we obtained much of what we know about Him through the Holy Bible and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

As John, the disciple who has a thorough grasp of how much God loves him and described himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, had seen Jesus again while he was exiled in the island of Patmos, it could well be that the Jesus he beheld would be one whom we are unfamiliar with, depending on our knowledge of who Jesus really is in the fullness of His glory. John said, “And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.” (Revelation 1:17a; NKJV)

Take heart, it’s fine to wanna see the face of God and live. Though Moses did not get to see His face in the Old Testament, he did see Jesus face to face on the Mount of Transfiguration in the New Testament. As Jesus said, he who has seen Him has seen the Father.

In anticipation, much as we desire to see Jesus face to face, I think God is anticipating the look on our faces, too, when we see Him face to face.

For now, the next time we sing Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus by Helen H. Lemmel, it would (I hope) bring greater depth and richness to our walk of faith.