The Face of God

As the covenant God, Yahweh is one who reveals himself to his people. This capacity of God to reveal himself is fundamental to the possibility of covenant. As Moses says, “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way Yahweh our God is near us...?” (Dt. 4:7).

God takes the initiative to reveal himself early in the patriarchal narratives. He is not known because men and women seek him; he is known because he graciously condescends to them. At the same time, the pure essence of God is not immediately accessible to humans, and the divine self-revelation is always to some degree veiled, for as God explains to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see my face and live” (Ex. 33:20). Hence, the descriptions of God’s self-revelation are invariably anthropomorphic, which is to say, God is described in human terms, even though he is beyond humanness. Hence, God “walks in the garden” (Ge. 3:8) and “lifts his hand” in oath (Ex. 6:8). Furthermore, he expresses a wide range of human emotions. He “snorts” in anger (Ex. 15:8), for instance. The standard Hebrew expression for anger, ‘aph (= snorting, anger) is derived from the Hebrew word for nose, and the English translation, “My anger will be aroused” (NIV), may quite literally be rendered, “My nose will become hot” (cf. Ex. 22:24; 32:10-11, 22). Similarly, God “regrets” actions (Ge. 6:6a), experiences “jealousy” (Ex. 20:5), feels “heart-pain” (Ge. 6:6b), appreciates “goodness” (Ge. 1:31) and “hates” (Dt. 16:22) and “abhors” detestable things (Lv. 20:23). Such anthropomorphisms should probably be understood as poetic metaphors, particularly in light of the fact that God, in his pure essence, was considered to be invisible and transcendent. They express the fact that God is personal as opposed to impersonal; he is a divine Someone, not merely a divine Something. By speaking of God anthropomorphically, the Torah describes God as coming to humans on their level. At the same time, it must be remembered that such metaphors are limited and carry with them the inherent danger that God might come to be understood as made in the image of humans with their vices and failures—which was pretty much the way the rest of the ancient Near East understood the deities. Anthropomorphisms of God in the Torah are carefully balanced by the affirmations of God’s invisibility, his hiddenness and mystery, and the prohibition of carving any likeness to him.

The primary recurring anthropomorphism in the Old Testament is the panim (= face) of Yahweh. The English translation of panim with respect to the face of Yahweh is usually “presence”, and the reader of the English Bible may not be aware that this is most often the word for the “face of God”. The entire personality of Yahweh, his love as well as his anger, is concentrated in his face. The displeasure of God is expressed when his face is against someone (Ge. 3:8; 4:14, 16; Lv. 10:2; 22:3). The approval of God is expressed when his face is turned toward someone (Ge. 27:7; Nu. 6:25; Dt. 12:7, 18; 14:23, 26; 15:20, etc.).

In a special sense, the panim represents the presence of God without reservation. At Sinai, Yahweh instructed Moses to depart with the people for Canaan, but he said that he himself would not accompany them because of their stubbornness (Ex. 33:1-6). Moses, however, pleaded with God so that God promised to send his panim, that is, his “face”, with the Israelites (Ex. 33:12-17). Later, Moses could say that God brought the entire company out of Egypt by his panim (Dt. 4:37; cf. Is. 63:9). Because God was so powerfully present in the Tent of Meeting, the sacred bread, which was to be displayed at all times, was quite literally the “bread of the face”, or more familiarly, the “bread of the presence” (Ex. 25:30; 39:36). Similarly, the table upon which the sacred bread was placed was called the “table of the face” (Nu.4:7).

In a Christian sense, this “face of God” reaches its climax in the face of Jesus:

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  (2 Co. 4:6)

While on the mountain of God Moses was prevented from seeing God’s face, and indeed, the invisibility of God is upheld by the writers in the New Testament as they speak of God living in “unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see” (1 Ti. 6:16). Still, the promise for the future is that in the end believers shall see him “face to face” (1 Co. 13:12). “They shall look upon his face,” John says (Rv. 22:4). Roman Catholics and the Orthodox call this theosis, though the broader term is the “beatific vision”. However one describes it, this ancient anthropomorphism of God—the face of God—takes on special meaning, for as Fanny Crosby’s old hymn puts it:

                                                And I shall see him, face to face,

                                              And tell the story saved by grace;

                                                And I shall see him, face to face,

                                              And tell the story saved by grace.

Personal Distinctions in the Godhead

Recently in a correspondence with a very sincere lady who is struggling between the non-Trinitarian versus Trinitarian views of Scripture, she asked me to comment on Jn. 1:1-3 and Jn. 17:5. These two passages are problematic for non-Trinitarian Pentecostals, and in her question she pointed out that in older English translations, the pronoun “he” is translated as “it” in Jn. 1:1-3. Such a translation, at least from the non-Trinitarian point-of-view, might suggest that the logos was not personal. Further, she suggested that in later English versions (KJV and after), the use of the word “he” instead of “it” was imposed on the text, implying that this was an inappropriate rendering. In the Jn. 17:5 passage, non-Trinitarian Pentecostals tend to take the words “glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (KJV) to mean something along the lines of “glorify thou me as thine own self…”, thus, once again, removing from the passage any personal distinction between the Father and the Son. Should you be interested in reading over my shoulder, so to speak, here is what I said to her.

...let me briefly address the passages you cited, beginning with the prologue to John's Gospel. You are correct: some of the early English translations of John's Gospel translated the Greek personal pronoun autou and the Greek demonstrative pronoun houtos as "it" in Jn. 1:2-3 (this was true in the Tyndale Version, the Great Bible and the Bishop's Bible), though John Wycliffe, who was earlier than all three, translated the pronoun as "him", not "it".  I doubt that the rendering "it" should be taken to mean that the logos was impersonal, however. Whether it is to be translated as "him"/"he" or "it" is merely a translator's choice. The personal pronouns can be translated either way, and both are grammatically correct. The deeper issue is one of grammatical agreement and contextual meaning. When one uses a word like logos, grammatical agreement might lead one to use the word "it" as a pronoun, since typically we don't think of a "word" as personal. However--and this is quite important--the larger context of the passage indicates that the logos WAS personal. The logos was the one through whom God created the world (Greek dia with the genitive case, which means "through the agency of"). The logos was the light that shined in the darkness but was not understood. The logos was the light that illumines every human person born in the world. This logos, in his incarnation, was "in" the world that he himself had made, but the world did not recognize him. The logos "became" flesh and tented among us, and here, the verb ginomai (= became) is especially important, for it cannot be swept aside as some sort of "dwelling" Christology (which is typical in non-Trinitarian thought) but must be taken as a true incarnation. By the time all three of these early versions cited above (Tyndale, Bishops, Great Bible) reach Jn. 1:10, without exception they all begin to use the pronouns "he" and "him", based on that same Greek pronoun autou. Hence, I don't think one should make too much of the translation "it" as though it favors a non-Trinitarian doctrine. It doesn't. Further, the charge that the idea of pre-existence was "imposed" on the text by later versions, such as the KJV and following, cannot be sustained. The actual Greek text, which twice says the logos was "with" God (Greek proposition pros with the accusative case), directly describes pre-existence and cannot mean anything else.

The language of Jn. 17:5 is described as "the glory that was before the world began". This, if you'll pardon me saying so, is an unfortunate way of phrasing it (and the way non-Trinitarian folks would like to phrase it as they attempt to escape what the passage plainly says). What the text plainly says in Greek is this: "Father...now glorify me with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world [came] to be." Twice the text uses the preposition para, once in a genitive construction as para seautou (= alongside yourself) and the other in a dative construction as para soi (= by the side of you). This passage is crystal clear in describing Jesus' pre-existence, and grammatically it cannot be taken any other way! The prepositional constructions "alongside yourself" and "by the side of you" are death knells to the modalistic teaching. Non-Trinitarians want to say something like "Father...glorify me as yourself (instead of alongside yourself)", but the preposition para simply cannot be taken in this way. Such an interpretation is not possible in the Greek NT.