Will we Ever See the Full Glory of God?

In the Q&A video that I had discussed and commented on in my previous post, another question was raised that is worth discussing. At 44:02 minutes into the video a question was addressed to John MacArthur, framed by the host as follows:

“‘John, will we as Christians, saved by the blood of Jesus, and trusting in Jesus alone by faith for eternal life, ever see the full glory of God?’ I think we have been whetting people’s appetite for the glory of God, and this question comes along that line.”

To this John MacArthur gives the following reply:

“Well, we will see as much of the glory of God in heaven as our redeemed and glorified humanity could take without being incinerated. I am not sure—that is a very difficult question. Even the angels, RC was talking about last night, referring to them back in Isaiah six, with two of their wings cover their faces. Even those holy creatures recognize some need to cover themselves in the in the face of the full glory of God.”

That is a mistaken reading of Isaiah chapter 6. In that passage Jehovah makes use of the wings of the living creatures to cover himself, or his full glory, from the gaze of Isaiah. The winged creatures are not covering themselves. The reference is to the following passage:

Isaiah 6:

1 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

2 Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.

3 And one cried unto 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 moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 Then said I, 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 mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

In this passage “he” in verse 2 refers to Jehovah, not the winged creatures. There was more than one of those creatures. If the reference was to the creatures, it should have used the plural form “they,” not “he”. “He” refers to the nearest antecedent, which in this case is Jehovah.

There are several points to be noted in that passage. Firstly, Jehovah appears to Isaiah in human form. He is anthropomorphic. He appears as a man, seated on a throne, and dressed in regal attire. “His train filled the temple” means that the hem of his garment filled the temple. He was dressed in a robe as a king. Secondly Jehovah used the winged creatures, or their wings, to cover himself, so that his full glory would not be completely visible to Isaiah. The “smoke” in verse 4 served the same purpose, to obscure the visual appearance of Jehovah so that his full glory would not be apparent to Isaiah. This motif goes back to a much earlier time. It goes back to Exodus and Leviticus. The most sacred object that God commanded the Israelites to construct was the Ark of the Covenant, which was a large rectangular wooden box (covered in gold), which housed the most sacred objects that the Israelites possessed, which were the two “tables of stone” containing the Ten Commandments, plus a few other sacred artefacts. This Ark was placed in the most sacred chamber in the Tabernacle of the Congregation (and later in the Temple), called the Holy of Holies. The Ark had a cover or a lid on it which was called the Mercy Seat, which was also covered in gold. This Mercy Seat served more than one purpose. Apart from the obvious purpose of covering the ark, it also served as a seat, or footstool, on which Jehovah stood when he appeared once a year in the Tabernacle (and later in the Temple) before the High Priest. On this Mercy Seat was constructed the figures of two cherubims facing each other, with their wings stretched out “on high:”

Exodus 25:

20 And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
•  •  •

22 And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

Exodus 37:

9 And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy seatward were the faces of the cherubims.

(See also Numbers 7:89; 1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; 1 Chronicles 13:6; Psalms 80:1; 99:1; Isaiah 37:16). The purpose of these two cherubims, or their wings, was to cover the “feet” of Jehovah (or the lower part of his body or legs), as he stood on the Mercy Seat to converse with the High Priest once a year. If you do an image search on Google for “Ark of the Covenant,” or the “Mercy Seat,” you will see many artistic depictions of the Ark of the Covenant, with the two cherubims constructed on it facing each other—except that none of the artistic images are realistic. They depict the cherubims too small, and in a manner not intended by the text. That is because the artists don’t know what the real purpose of the cherubims were. They think that they were just for decoration. That of course isn’t correct. They had a practical purpose, which was to cover the feet (legs) of Jehovah as he stood on the Mercy Seat, as he appeared to the Priest once a year. Exodus 25:20; 37:9 say that the cherubims stretched out their wings on high and covered the Mercy Seat, which means that the wings were raised much higher than the artists normally depict them, and they visually masked or obscured (covered) the Mercy Seat.

The High Priest had to take another precaution as he entered the Holy of Holies once a year to commune with Jehovah on behalf of Israel. Apart from ritually purifying himself and so on, he had to enter in with an incense burner, putting a large quantity of incense on it. The purpose of the incense was to create a plume of thick smoke, again to obscure the visual appearance of Jehovah so that his full glory would not be apparent to the gaze of the High Priest:

Leviticus 16:

12 And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: 

13 And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:

All of these elaborate precautions were taken in order to obscure the visual appearance of Jehovah as the Priest appeared once a year in the most holy place to commune with Jehovah.

After the temple of Solomon had been built (which was larger and more spacious than the Tabernacle of the Congregation had been; and was also stationary, not portable); it appears that two much larger and separate cherubs were built whose wings covered the entire ark, not just the Mercy Seat; and would have been raised much higher to cover the whole appearance of Jehovah as he stood on the Mercy Seat to commune with the High Priest:

1 Kings 8:

6 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.
7 For the cherubims spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubims covered the ark and the staves thereof above.

The imagery portrayed in Isaiah 6 is simply a live enactment of what is depicted in static form on the Mercy Seat and in the temple covering the Ark. The cherubs on the Mercy Seat and in the temple were sculpted out of gold by human hands, whereas the ones Isaiah saw were real living creatures in heaven who served that purpose. John MacArthur then continues his commentary as follows:

“I mean obviously that is a spiritual imagery, but no creature can ever see God and live, it says in Exodus.”

Firstly, that was not just a spiritual imagery. There are such living creatures in heaven. Secondly, while it is true that it says in Exodus 33:20, that “no man see me and live,” there are other passages of scripture that tell a different story. In Isaiah chapter 6, he sees Jehovah in anthropomorphic form, seated on a throne, and dressed in regal attire. Although his full appearance was masked by the wings of the cherubs and by the smoke, he still saw Jehovah in human form, sitting on a throne. “Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts,” he declares. In Exodus 24:10–11, seventy of the elders of Israel “saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. … they saw God, and did eat and drink”. Again it was a visual appearance, and it was anthropomorphic. We also have this account:

Numbers 12:

8 With him [Moses] will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

“Similitude” means the very shape, form, likeness, and visual appearance, as the following verses make clear:

Deuteronomy 4:

12 And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.

•  •  •

15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:

16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,

Daniel 10:

16 And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: …

See also Acts 7:55–56. When discussing scripture, it is always best to be honest, and tell all sides of the story; rather than just tell the bits that you like, or that suits your theology, and hide the rest. John MacArthur then continues his commentary as follows:

“So I guess I don’t know what unlimited glorified humanity would be like. I don’t know how far our capacities will go. But we will certainly see God’s glory in ways that are relatively infinite to what we experience at this point in life. We see the glory of God veiled. You know, you follow it along from the time of the Fall, and the glory of God appears as a cloud, or a pillar of fire, or it appears in the in the Holy of Holies at the building of the tabernacle, and again at the temple, and it is unveiled in the Transfiguration for a moment in blazing glory shines on the upon the apostles, and always it is limited. Moses is tucked in the rock in Exodus 33 and he says you can’t see my glory and live, but I’ll let my afterglow my back parts past before you. I think we will see a greater glory; certainly at the New Jerusalem the incredible display of light shining out of the middle of that city through transparent gold and all of the jewels is indicating to us a blaze of glory the likes of which is incomprehensible to us, but to what degree? When you say do we see the full glory of God as still being created, even if newly created, that there may be some limitation to that.”

While it is true that since the Fall, the appearance of God to man has often (to a greater or lesser degree) been veiled; but that was not the case before the Fall; and it has not always, and at all times been the case even after the Fall. As we have seen, Moses was permitted to enter into the presence of the Lord without a veil; and from the Book of Mormon we have the following interesting account:

Ether 3:

13 And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him and said, Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you.

And according to John the Revelator, in heaven we will see God as he is (1 John 3:2). That doesn’t leave much room for ambiguity. At 48:50 minutes into the video RC Sproul adds the following comment:

“I think the greatest promise we have is the promise of the beatific vision, the vision of God that even Jesus promises to the pure in heart, which we are not now, but we shall be. But one of the first doctrines we teach in the doctrine of God theology proper is the incomprehensibility of God—not that we can’t know anything about God, but that we cannot have a comprehensive knowledge of God, is again theology 101.”

That is Reformed theology 101, not Revealed theology 101! In Revealed theology 101, it is possible for man ultimately to comprehend God:

D&C 88:

49 The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not; nevertheless, the day shall come when you shall comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him.

RC Sproul then continues his commentary as follows:

“But often the question arises, what after we enter into glory and we are glorified, then will we get past the barriers of incomprehensibility. But we will still be finite; we will still be creatures; and Calvin I believe was right—I promised no more Latin, but that is in my lessons, not in this thing!—You know that axiom: finitum non copox infinitum; the finite cannot contain or grasp the infinite. And we are not going to be deified in heaven. We are going to be glorified creatures, but creatures we will remain, and therefore finite beings; and no finite being will ever have the capacity to comprehend the infinite glory of God. So the word he is picking up on I agree with. We won’t see the full glory in God; will see the unveiled glory of God; and so on to the greatest capacity that we as glorified creatures will have. But there will be still a transcendent dimension of God that will elude us. I think.”

Like I said, that is his “Reformed” theology 101! According to all the Church Fathers, as well as modern revelation, we will be deified, and we will also be able to comprehend God.

It is a pity that RC isn’t with us anymore, to enjoy reading my posts; but I bet he can still read them in heaven! I think that God has given him a special iPad in heaven where he can still read my posts, and learn great theology from a Latter-day Saint! 😇