How come we can't see the face of God, but many people looked Jesus in the eye?

That is an awesome question! And it’s kind of a complicated question too! Here is some bad math to help explain the answer. Did you know that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? What I am trying to show is that there is only one God but He appears in three different forms.

There is God, the Father; God, the Son; and God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Bible clearly shows that no one has ever seen God, the Father. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God, [the Father] but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.”

John 6:46 says, “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.”

In fact, even in the Old Testament, Moses could not look upon God. In Exodus 3:2, God appeared to Moses as a burning bush. In Exodus 19:9 and 24:5, God covers himself in a thick cloud and can only be heard.

But, the best example of God not showing His face (as God the Father) is from Exodus 33:20-23 where it says, “But, He said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’ Then the LORD said, ‘There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.’”

And do you want to know why that is? It is because we are sinful people and sin cannot be in the presence of the Father. Jesus was the only one who could look upon God because he was without sin. Bottom line, if we saw God in our sinful state, we would die because He is Holy, Righteous and Pure. He hid himself from Moses because He knew Moses would die if Moses saw Him.

One of the cool things is that the Bible says that the Glory of God was so pure and bright that, even from behind, it turned Moses’ skin and hair completely white. The Bible describes Moses’ face as completely radiant. In fact, Moses had to wear a veil when he was around people because of it.

So, that’s why we can’t see the face of God, the Father. No one has. BUT, a lot of people saw God, the Son. You see, Jesus is God but He is also a man. He came to us in human form to teach us and to set the example for us and to ultimately die for us. God can’t die but a man can. So Jesus was a man and had all the attribute of a human being, including being able to be seen by other people.

It’s a weird contradiction because you’d think you couldn’t look Jesus in the eye because He’s God and God doesn’t allow us to see Him…but, because He’s also man, Jesus let’s us see Him, feel Him and hear Him.