“If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” (John 14: 7-9 KJV).
The question being asked by Philip is “What is God like?” The simplest and most accurate answer to the question is that God is just like Jesus Christ. God was in Christ, and God was as Christ. Nothing Jesus said or did would have been said or done differently by the Father. The words and works of Jesus Christ were from the Father (John 14: 10, 11).
Jesus Christ is the last, complete, perfect revelation of God the Father. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1: 18). (Also Matthew 11: 27.) Jesus came to show us God—His being, love, mercy, grace, and saving intentions. When a son acts exactly like their father, we make the statement “Like father like son” even though we see there are some slight, almost unnoticeable differences in character. But no truer statement could be said of God the Father and God the Son. There is nothing about Jesus Christ that is unlike the Father. Not in any instance did Jesus omit doing or do anything that the Father would not have omitted doing or done. All the choices Jesus made the Father would have made as well. Jesus never said or did anything that the Father disagreed with (Mat. 3: 17).
Jesus Christ is said to be the visible “image of the invisible God” (2 Cor. 4: 4; Col. 1: 15) and the “express image” of the Father ((Heb. 1: 3). The words “image” and “express image” have their origin in the pressed-upon-wax seal that authenticated a dignitary’s letter or document. The wax received a perfect likeness of the actual seal. The representation of the seal in the wax was honored as the unseen actual seal. A.W. Tozer says, “The incarnate Jesus Christ gives visible shape and authenticity to deity. When the invisible God became visible, He was Jesus Christ. When the God who could not be touched or seen came to dwell among us, He was Jesus Christ.”
Words are the medium we use to express our secret, invisible thoughts and make them public. Our words, along with our actions, reveal what our inner invisible man is really like. John uses “Word” as a title for Jesus Christ to describe how Jesus Christ was the medium that brought the invisible God into public view. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1).
Though God revealed Himself through general revelation; in nature, in man, and in history, and through the special revelation of His written word, He was perfectly revealed through His Son Jesus Christ. The person of Jesus Christ is exactly like the person of the Father. Their character is the same. When we speak to our heavenly Father, we can say, “I know what You are like because I know what Jesus is like, and You are just like Jesus.”
So, “What is God like?” He is exactly like Jesus Christ of the Scriptures. Everything we see and cherish about Jesus Christ that gives us all the more reason to love and worship Him, we know is in God the Father, for what Jesus is so is the Father. And Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is just as much God as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
