Homily 15 — John 1, verse 18

“No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.” [a]

God does not want us to listen to the words and sentences of the Scriptures carelessly, but with close attention. That is why the blessed David set the title “for understanding” at the head of many of his psalms, and said, “Open my eyes, so that I may see wonderful things out of your law” (Psalm 32, Psalm 42, and others; Psalm 119, verse 18). And after him his son shows again that we ought to “search for wisdom as for silver,” and to “trade for her rather than for gold” (Proverbs 2, verse 4, and 3, verse 14, partly quoted). And when the Lord urges the Jews to “search the Scriptures” (John 5, verse 39), he spurs us on to the inquiry all the more; for he would not have spoken this way if it were possible to grasp them right away, at the first reading. No one would ever search for what is obvious and close at hand, but for what is wrapped in shadow and has to be found by much inquiry. And so, to rouse us to the search, he calls them “hidden treasure” (Proverbs 2, verse 4; Matthew 13, verse 44).

These words are said to us so that we will not come to the words of the Scriptures carelessly or in a haphazard way, but with great care. For if anyone listens to what is said in them without looking into the meaning, and takes everything just as it is spoken, according to the letter, he will imagine many unfitting things about God. He will grant that God is a man, that he is made of bronze (Revelation 1, verse 15), that he is angry, that he is furious, and many opinions still worse than these. But if he learns fully the sense that lies beneath, he will be set free from all this unfittingness. The very text now before us says that God has a bosom, which is a thing proper to bodies; yet no one is so insane as to imagine that he who has no body is a body. So, in order to interpret the whole passage properly, according to its spiritual meaning, let us search it through from its beginning.

“No one has ever seen God.” By what train of thought does the apostle come to say this? He has shown the surpassing greatness of Christ’s gifts, and the infinite difference between them and the gifts that came through Moses, and now he wants to add the reasonable cause of the difference. Moses, being a servant, was the minister of lesser things; but Christ, being Lord and King, and the King’s Son, brought us things far greater, since he is always with the Father and sees him continually. That is why he says, “No one has ever seen God.”

What, then, will we answer to Isaiah, that mightiest of voices, when he says, “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6, verse 1)? And to John himself, who testifies that Isaiah “said these things when he saw his glory” (John 12, verse 41)? What to Ezekiel? For he too saw him seated above the cherubim (Ezekiel 1 and 10). What to Daniel? For he too says, “The Ancient of Days sat” (Daniel 7, verse 9). What to Moses himself, who says, “Show me your glory, so that I may see you and so know you” (Exodus 33, verse 13, partly in the wording of the Greek Old Testament)? And Jacob took his name from this very thing, when he was called “Israel,” for Israel means “one who sees God.” Others too have seen him. How, then, does John say, “No one has ever seen God”?

He says it to make plain that all these were instances of God stooping down to meet them, not a sight of the essence itself, unveiled. For if they had seen the very nature, they would not have seen it under different forms, since that nature is simple, without form, without parts, without boundaries. It does not sit, or stand, or walk; these things all belong to bodies. But how he is, he alone knows. And he has made this plain through one of the prophets, saying, “I have multiplied visions, and I have used likenesses by the hands of the prophets” (Hosea 12, verse 10); that is, “I stooped down to meet you; I did not appear as I really am.” For since his Son was going to appear in real flesh, he prepared them from long before to see the substance of God, as far as it was possible for them to see it. But what God really is, not only have the prophets not seen, but not even angels or archangels.

If you ask them, you will not hear them answering anything about his essence; you will hear them sending up, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward people” (Luke 2, verse 14). If you want to learn something from the cherubim or the seraphim, you will hear the sacred hymn of his holiness, and that “heaven and earth are full of his glory” (Isaiah 6, verse 3). If you inquire of the powers above, you will find only that their one work is the praise of God. “Praise him,” says David, “all his hosts” (Psalm 148, verse 2). But only the Son sees him, and the Holy Spirit. How can any created nature even see the uncreated? If we are completely unable to see clearly any bodiless power whatever, even a created one, as has often been proved in the case of the angels, much less can we see the essence that is both bodiless and uncreated. That is why Paul says, “whom no one has seen or can see” (First Timothy 6, verse 16).

Does this special property, then, belong to the Father only, and not to the Son? Far from it. It belongs to the Son as well. And to show that it does, listen to Paul making this very point and saying that he “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1, verse 15). Now if he is the image of the Invisible, he must be invisible himself; otherwise he would not be an “image.” And do not be surprised that Paul says in another place, “God was revealed in the flesh” (First Timothy 3, verse 16); for the revealing took place by means of the flesh, not according to his essence. Besides, Paul shows that he is invisible not only to human beings but also to the powers above; for after saying, “was revealed in the flesh,” he adds, “was seen by angels.”

So it was only when he put on the flesh that he became visible even to angels. Before that time they did not see him in this way, because even to them his essence was invisible. [g]

Someone asks: “How, then, did Christ say, ‘Do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven’ (Matthew 18, verse 10)? Does God have a face, then, and is he enclosed by the heavens?” Who is so mad as to claim that? What, then, do the words mean? When he says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5, verse 8), he means the seeing of the mind that is possible for us, having God in our thoughts. In the same way, in the case of the angels, we must understand that because of their pure and sleepless nature they do nothing else but always picture God to themselves. And that is why Christ says that “no one knows the Father except the Son” (Matthew 11, verse 27).

What, then, are we all in ignorance? Far from it; but no one knows him as the Son knows him. Just as many have seen him in the kind of sight allowed to them, yet no one has seen his essence, so many of us know God, but what his substance is, no one knows except the one who was begotten of him. For by “knowledge” he means here an exact idea and a full grasp, such as the Father has of the Son: “As the Father knows me, so I know the Father” (John 10, verse 15).

See, then, how fully the evangelist speaks. Having said that “no one has ever seen God,” he does not go on to say, “the Son, who has seen him, has declared him,” but adds something beyond “seeing” with the words “who is in the bosom of the Father.” For “to dwell in the bosom” is far more than “to see.” The one who only “sees” does not have a knowledge of what he sees that is exact in every way; but the one who “dwells in the bosom” can be ignorant of nothing. So that when you hear that “no one knows the Father except the Son,” you will not claim that, although he knows the Father better than anyone, he still does not know how great he is, the evangelist says that he dwells in the bosom of the Father; and Christ himself declares that he knows the Father as fully as the Father knows the Son.

So ask the one who contradicts us: “Tell me, does the Father know the Son?” If he is not mad, he will certainly answer, “Yes.” Then ask again: “Does he see and know him with exact sight and knowledge? Does he know clearly what he is?” He will certainly admit this too. From this, next, gather how exactly the Son grasps the Father. For he says, “As the Father knows me, so I know the Father” (John 10, verse 15); and in another place, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God” (John 6, verse 46).

So, as I said, the evangelist mentions “the bosom” to show us all this by that one word: that the kinship and closeness of the essence is great, that the knowledge is in no way different, that the power is equal. For the Father would not have in his bosom one of another essence; nor, if he were one among many servants, would he have dared to live in the bosom of his Lord. This belongs only to a true Son, to one who has great confidence toward his Father and is in nothing inferior to him.

Would you learn his eternity too? Listen to what Moses says about the Father. When Moses asked what he was told to answer if the Jews should ask him who had sent him, he heard these words: “Say, I AM has sent me” (Exodus 3, verse 14). Now the expression “I AM” signifies being always, being without beginning, being truly and absolutely. And the expression “was in the beginning” declares this too, since it indicates being always. So John uses this word to show that the Son is in the bosom of the Father from everlasting to everlasting.

And so that you do not suppose, from the sameness of the name, that he is one of those who are made sons by grace, first of all the article is added, setting him apart from those who are sons by grace. But if this does not satisfy you, if you still look toward the earth, hear a name more absolute than this: “only Son.” If even after this you still look downward, John says, “I will not refuse to apply to God a word that belongs to human beings, I mean the word ‘bosom’; only suspect nothing degrading.” Do you see the Lord’s love for humankind, and his care? God applies to himself words unworthy of him, so that even through them you may see, and form some great and lofty thought of him; and do you linger below? For tell me, why is that coarse and bodily word “bosom” used here? Is it so that we may suppose God to be a body? Far from it! He by no means says that. Why, then, is it said? For if it establishes neither that the Son is genuine nor that God is not a body, the word serves no purpose and has been thrown in for nothing. Why, then, is it said? I will not stop asking you this question. Is it not perfectly plain that it is for no other reason than that through it we might understand that the only Son is genuine, and that he is eternal together with the Father?

“He has declared him,” says John. What has he declared? That “no one has ever seen God”? That “God is one”? But all the other prophets testify to this. Moses cries out continually, “The Lord your God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6, verse 4); and Isaiah, “Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me” (Isaiah 43, verse 10). What more, then, have we learned from “the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”? What from “the only Son”? [k]

In the first place, these very words were spoken through his working. In the second place, we have received a teaching that is far clearer, and have learned that “God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4, verse 24); and again, that it is impossible to see God; that “no one knows” him “except the Son” (Matthew 11, verse 27); that he is the Father of the true and only Son; and all the other things that are told us about him. But the word “has declared” shows the plainer and clearer teaching that he gave, not to the Jews only but to the whole world, and made firm. Not even all the Jews paid attention to the prophets; but the whole world yielded to the only Son of God and obeyed him. So “declaring” here shows the greater clearness of his teaching; and that is also why he is called “Word” and “Angel of Great Counsel.”

Since, then, we have been granted a fuller and more perfect teaching, God no longer speaking through the prophets but “in these last days having spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1, verses 1 and 2), let us show a way of life far higher than theirs, and fitting the honor given to us. It would be strange if he lowered himself so far as to choose to speak to us no longer through his servants but with his own mouth, and we showed nothing more than those of old. They had Moses for their teacher; we have Moses’ Lord. So let us display a heavenly wisdom worthy of this honor, and have nothing to do with the earth. It was for this that he brought his teaching from heaven above: to lift our thoughts there, so that we might imitate our Teacher as far as we are able.

But how can we become imitators of Christ? By doing everything for the common good, and not seeking only our own. “For even Christ,” says Paul, “did not please himself, but, as it is written, ‘The insults of those who insulted you fell on me’” (Romans 15, verse 3; Psalm 69, verse 9). So let no one seek his own. In truth, a man really seeks his own good when he looks to his neighbor’s. What is good for them is ours. We are one body, parts and limbs of one another. So let us not behave as though we had been torn apart.

Let no one say, “So-and-so is no friend of mine, no relative, no neighbor. I have nothing to do with him. How am I to approach him? How am I to speak to him?” Even if he is neither relative nor friend, he is still a human being. He shares the same nature with you, has the same Lord, is your fellow servant and your fellow traveler, for he was born into the same world. And if he also shares the same faith, look, he has become part of your own body. For what friendship could create such a union as the kinship of faith?

Our closeness to one another must not be merely the nearness that friends ought to show to friends, but the kind there is between limb and limb, because no one can possibly discover any closeness greater than this sort of friendship and fellowship. You cannot say, “Where does my closeness and connection with this limb come from?” (that would be ridiculous); and in the same way you cannot say it about your brother. “We are all baptized into one body” (First Corinthians 12, verse 13), says Paul. Why into one body? So that we may not be torn apart, but may keep the right proportions of that one body by our dealings and friendship with one another. So let us not despise one another, or we will be neglecting ourselves.

“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it” (Ephesians 5, verse 29). That is why God has given us only one dwelling, this earth. He has shared out all things equally. He has lit one sun for us all, spread one roof above us, the sky, and made one table, the earth, bear food for us. And he has given another table, far better than this one, yet that too is one (those who share our mysteries understand what I mean). He has given one kind of birth to all, the spiritual birth. We all have one homeland, the one in heaven; we all drink from the same cup. He has not given the rich man a more abundant and more honorable gift and the poor man a meaner and smaller one, but he has called all alike. He has given the things of the body with equal regard for all, and the things of the spirit in the same way.

Where, then, does the great inequality in our conditions of life come from? From the greed and arrogance of the wealthy. But let it not be so, brothers and sisters, let it not be so any longer. When matters of common concern and more pressing need bring us together, let us not be divided by earthly and trivial things: I mean by wealth and poverty, by bodily kinship, by hatred and friendship. For all these things are a shadow, or rather less solid than a shadow, to those who have the bond of love from above. So let us keep this bond unbroken, and none of those evil spirits who cause division in so perfect a union will be able to get in. May we all attain to this by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.