Can someone please explain these Bible passages?

Question

Genesis 32:30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and my life was preserved.”

Exodus 33:11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God.

Well? I'm waiting.

How can anyone possibly take these statements out of context? They are very straightforward.

Answer 1

more contradictions

Answer 2

You skipped verses from the first testament,
and then all the way to the second testament?

And I know this type of question- you are trying to perverse the bible and make it seem as if it's contradicting itself, but its not.

In the beginning, God was much closer with man than he was now. And by each coming century- our society grows more distant from God.

Genesis:
I believe that in the bible, certain figures did get to see the face of God, or if not the face of God, at least his presence.

Exodus:
God would take the form of another less extravagant thing. God did speak to moses through the burning bush. And at the very end of Moses's walk through the desert, he saw God passing, the back of God. His shadow.

John:
And yet no one has ever seen God. The true form of God. I believe that no living thing has ever seen the true form of God. And that true form, is the form we'll all see in heaven.

Answer 3

Logically speaking, there's two potential answers. Jacob and Moses didn't see God, or at least one of them did and John is wrong.

It is contended the man Jacob wrestled with was an angel and that he was speaking figuratively when he says he saw God face to face.

The Exodus verse refers to the way Moses would speak to the Lord as a person directly rather than through prophet and signs. Later on in Exodus 33:20 it says in reference to the Lord 'But my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives.' Considering neither Moses nor Jacob died, they didn't see his actual face literally.

Answer 4

For the first verse, you failed to mention:
Gen 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a MAN with him until the breaking of the day.

It is this personage that Jacob names "God." It is apparent that God is Spirit, and a Spirit does not have a body. This is what theologians call a theophany.

For your second verse, you should bear in mind again what God is: Spirit. When the scripture speaks of God having a face, if you take this to be literal, then He also has wings and feathers (see Psalm 91:1,2), nostrils that smoke and belch out coals of fire and has anger that burns like a fire. He is also described as being light, fire, and love. Clearly, there is more to God than you let on in these two verses, cherry picked from the Old Testament without the clear teaching elsewhere that God is a Spirit:
Num 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Jhn 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

These examples could be multiplied, but I trust this will suffice. What are we to make of the scriptures you quoted, then? Jacob saw a theophany, but He did NOT see God who is a Spirit. The theophany represented God in the flesh, but was not God Himself; the incident of God speaking to Moses face to face is meant to convey intimacy and authority; and Jesus was correct in that no one has ever seen God. He went on to say, though, that "He that has seen me has seen the Father; I and my Father are one." By this, He declares Himself to be God's image in flesh - the fulfillment of all the theophanies in the Old Testament.

Having seen a number of your posts, I begin to wonder if you are just assembling your questions from the Skeptics Annotated Bible. Are you a serious student of scripture or are you merely trying to sling mud and doubt?

Answer 5

Jacob wrested with an angel all night until the breaking of the day and his hip was out of place he had actually been with God and God changed his name

Moses saw the hinder parts of God on a mountain ledge and the brightness of him was too much for him to see and live that is why it was the hinder parts of God as he passed by

On the mount God wrote the commandments with the fire of his fingers and Moses was shielded from his countenance
God spoke to him on the Mount he heard the voice of God ,that does not say that he was not consumed by fire

So all is correct

Answer 6

Particularly interesting is the following verse;

(Joshua 5:13-14). He is the One whose voice Moses heard in the burning bush


(Exodus3 :4

:He is the preincarnated Christ. He appears in the vision in the form of a man because of his office as an intercessor and advocate.

Answer 7

They saw a form of the Logos of God, but not God in all His glory and reality. From the beginning the Logos was with God, and was God, and was in the form of God. Most High God, the Logos and the Holy Spirit are God, the One true God (Let Us make man in Our image). No one has seen God in all His reality. In fact the human body could not endure the sight, and would die. The light illuminated from God is beyond the human body's ability to endure.

Answer 8

No one has seen GOD the FATHER. GOD the SON has been active throughout the scriptures, Old and New Testament. HE, of course, has been seen. HE gave the 10 Commandments to Moses, HE was in the burning bush, HE spoke to Abraham and Sarah, HE spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus, etc.

GOD bless

Answer 9

The explanation is in the next chapter. He cut her up into parts and sent the twelve parts to the twelve tribes to summon them; when representatives of the tribes were assembled, he tells them the story, and they plan a war of vengeance against the perpetrators. It leads to a civil war between Israel and Benjamin. I do not believe there is any moral lesson here; it is simply a folk-history account of an incident that probably happened -- war between the tribes of Israel in the days before they had kings. Do you notice, by the way, that the incident of the men coming to the house and saying "Bring out the man you are guesting so we may have relations with him?" sounds exactly like the incident with Lot in the story of the angels sent to judge Sodom and Gommorah? And in that account, too, the host tells them: "Don't do such a vile thing. Look, I will offer you these two young women instead...." The repetition of the story suggests it is a legendary tale of depravity.

Answer 10

They were all written by different people. Perhaps John had not heard the stories of Moses and Jacob when he wrote his section of the bible.

Answer 11

Exodus, gave the correct answer. Christ (God the son) is present throughout the Old Testament because He is part of the trinity. Any time God referred to Himself in the plural form in the OT, He was giving evidence of His triune nature. When God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...", US and OUR is referring to this triune nature.

Also, you would need to read a little bit more of John than what you posted to have a fuller understanding of what he was saying.

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, 'This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, ***but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side [this is referring to Christ], HAS MADE HIM KNOWN."*** -John 1:14-18