No man has seen God at any time

[Stewardofthemystery]

It is written in John 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

And Jesus said in John 14:6-7
King James Version
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.”

So if no man has seen God at any time, how do we reconcile what seems to be a contradiction? When you understand the identity of the Son of God being the very Word of God, then you will understand there is no contradiction.

It is the Word OF God that was made flesh in the man Jesus. And it is BY God’s Word and words that we get to know and see what God the Father is really like, His likes and dislikes. It is by God’s Word and words we get to see and know the will of God the Father.

In this way, by looking at the words and actions of Jesus Christ we get to see and know what The invisible God is really like.

We don’t see the outward image of God in Christ, but rather we see the inward image of God in Jesus Christ, as God was in Christ.

Colossians 1:15
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

When you understand this mystery then there is a harmony to the text without contradiction.

Peace and God bless

[Tcg]

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail.

Nope. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the creation story of Elohim. Genesis 2:4 - 22 is the creation story of Yahweh Elohim. The order is irrelevant. The editors consider both stories important, so they included both even though they are contradictory tales.


Tcg

Nothing you said there conflicts with what I said.

Glad to see you've accepted the reality that these biblical tales contradict. You didn't make it clear that that is what you believe. Earth shattering admission on your part.

ETA: Here's a video that'll help you better understand your new realization of the reality of the creation stories (plural) found in Genesis.



Tcg

[onewithhim]

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail.

Nope. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the creation story of Elohim. Genesis 2:4 - 22 is the creation story of Yahweh Elohim. The order is irrelevant. The editors consider both stories important, so they included both even though they are contradictory tales.


Tcg

Nothing you said there conflicts with what I said.

Glad to see you've accepted the reality that these biblical tales contradict. You didn't make it clear that that is what you believe. Earth shattering admission on your part.

ETA: Here's a video that'll help you better understand your new realization of the reality of the creation stories (plural) found in Genesis.



Tcg

There are not two creation stories. The first chapter is an overview. The 2nd chapter goes into detail.

[Capbook]

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail.

Nope. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the creation story of Elohim. Genesis 2:4 - 22 is the creation story of Yahweh Elohim. The order is irrelevant. The editors consider both stories important, so they included both even though they are contradictory tales.


Tcg

Nothing you said there conflicts with what I said.

Glad to see you've accepted the reality that these biblical tales contradict. You didn't make it clear that that is what you believe. Earth shattering admission on your part.

ETA: Here's a video that'll help you better understand your new realization of the reality of the creation stories (plural) found in Genesis.



Tcg

There are not two creation stories. The first chapter is an overview. The 2nd chapter goes into detail.

Are they conflicting to you?

[onewithhim]

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail.

Nope. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the creation story of Elohim. Genesis 2:4 - 22 is the creation story of Yahweh Elohim. The order is irrelevant. The editors consider both stories important, so they included both even though they are contradictory tales.


Tcg

Nothing you said there conflicts with what I said.

Glad to see you've accepted the reality that these biblical tales contradict. You didn't make it clear that that is what you believe. Earth shattering admission on your part.

ETA: Here's a video that'll help you better understand your new realization of the reality of the creation stories (plural) found in Genesis.



Tcg

There are not two creation stories. The first chapter is an overview. The 2nd chapter goes into detail.

Are they conflicting to you?

No. The first chapter is an overview. The next chapter fleshes out the narrative.

[Capbook]

[Replying to Capbook in post #77]

No, Jesus is saying to the Father that the Father is the true God. Jesus said "YOU are the one true God." Was Jesus talking to himself? I think it's clear that he was addressing the Father, Jehovah.

You did not answer my question colored blue,

Twice Jesus testified about God as the true God. Grammatical exegesis, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase "This is the true God?"

The Father.

I believe you missed to see the verse. Please find it below;

Now, twice Jesus testified about God as the true God. Grammatical exegesis, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase "This is the true God?"

1 John 5:20
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
KJV

I have explained this before but you don't consider my posts. The true God is the "him" and the "his" in the verse. Who are those pronouns referring to? "HIS Son Jesus Christ." Whoever "his" refers to is the true God and eternal life.

Yes, I did not argue that it's the Father referred to "him and his". But I'd like to point out base on grammatical construction, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase, "This is the true God" in the verse?

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail. The two chapters are out of order, but we understand them to be perfectly sensible. Jesus is not the true God. It is the Person who is referred to as "him" and "his."

We are not talking about Chapters, I confine my arguments on one verse only.
Base on grammatical construction, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase, "This is the true God" in the verse?

It would be the person referred to with "him" or "his." (And you can't confine your arguments to one verse only. We must look at the Scriptures as a whole.) Also, the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

1Jn 5:20 And G1161  we know G1492  that G3754  the G3588  Son G5207  of God G2316  is come, G2240  and G2532  hath given G1325  us G2254  an understanding, G1271  that G2443  we may know G1097  him that is true, G228  and G2532  we are G2070  in G1722  him that is true, G228  even in G1722  his G848  Son G5207  Jesus G2424  Christ. G5547  This G3778  is G2076  the G3588  true G228  God, G2316  and G2532  eternal G166  life. G2222 

1Jn 5:20 οιδαμεν G1492 V-RAI-1P  δε G1161 CONJ  οτι G3754 CONJ  ο G3588 T-NSM  υιος G5207 N-NSM  του G3588 T-GSM  θεου G2316 N-GSM  ηκει G2240 V-PAI-3S  και G2532 CONJ  δεδωκεν G1325 V-RAI-3S  ημιν G1473 P-1DP  διανοιαν G1271 N-ASF  ινα G2443 CONJ  γινωσκωμεν G1097 V-PAS-1P  τον G3588 T-ASM  αληθινον G228 A-ASM  και G2532 CONJ  εσμεν G1510 V-PAI-1P  εν G1722 PREP  τω G3588 T-DSM  αληθινω G228 A-DSM  εν G1722 PREP  τω G3588 T-DSM  υιω G5207 N-DSM  αυτου G846 P-GSM  ιησου G2424 N-DSM  χριστω G5547 N-DSM  ουτος G3778 D-NSM  εστιν G1510 V-PAI-3S  ο G3588 T-NSM  αληθινος G228 A-NSM  θεος G2316 N-NSM  και G2532 CONJ  η G3588 T-NSF  ζωη G2222 N-NSF  αιωνιος G166 A-NSF 

1Jn 5:20 οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ ἥκει καὶ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν διάνοιαν ἵνα γινώσκωμεν τὸν ἀληθινόν· καὶ ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

[onewithhim]

You did not answer my question colored blue,

Twice Jesus testified about God as the true God. Grammatical exegesis, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase "This is the true God?"

The Father.

I believe you missed to see the verse. Please find it below;

Now, twice Jesus testified about God as the true God. Grammatical exegesis, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase "This is the true God?"

1 John 5:20
20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
KJV

I have explained this before but you don't consider my posts. The true God is the "him" and the "his" in the verse. Who are those pronouns referring to? "HIS Son Jesus Christ." Whoever "his" refers to is the true God and eternal life.

Yes, I did not argue that it's the Father referred to "him and his". But I'd like to point out base on grammatical construction, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase, "This is the true God" in the verse?

The Bible doesn't always go in order. For example, Genesis 1 shows a general overview of the creation, and Genesis 2 goes into detail. The two chapters are out of order, but we understand them to be perfectly sensible. Jesus is not the true God. It is the Person who is referred to as "him" and "his."

We are not talking about Chapters, I confine my arguments on one verse only.
Base on grammatical construction, who is the nearest antecedent of the phrase, "This is the true God" in the verse?

It would be the person referred to with "him" or "his." (And you can't confine your arguments to one verse only. We must look at the Scriptures as a whole.) Also, the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

Im sorry, but you are wrong. Sentence structure is different for Greek compared to English.

"One of the most important steps from an interlinear to a literal phrase is changing word order from what is acceptable in Greek to what works in English. Greek grammar is much more flexible about word order than English, and it is not possible for English sentences to follow Greek word order. If you try to stick too closely to the original Greek in word order, you will produce sentences like nothing heard in any normal English composition." (Truth in Translation by Professor David BeDuhn, page 13.)

[Difflugia]

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

Im sorry, but you are wrong. Sentence structure is different for Greek compared to English.

Not necessarily and not necessarily in this verse. You seem to be saying that since word order is "different" for Greek, you can rearrange the words however you want. That's nonsense.

Word order is more malleable in Greek, but that's because Greek word endings often give us much more information than the same words would in English. In English, "the man walked the dog" and "the dog walked the man" require different word order because we otherwise can't tell the parts of speech assigned to "the man" and "the dog." In Greek, we can know that "the man" is the subject and "the dog" is the direct object, so it doesn't matter what order the words go in the sentence.

On the other hand, when the sentence is still ambiguous, Greek falls back to using word order to clarify meaning. The following sentence would show the same problem in both English and Greek. It also shows a similar problem to the one in the verse you're arguing over:

"My friend Cathy has a daughter, Sarah. She and I went to dinner last night."

With whom did I go to dinner? It's ambiguous. The guideline for writers is to try to make your sentences unambiguous. If the writer fails to do that, though, there are guidelines for reading ambiguous sentences. One of those involves how we treat pronoun antecedents. Without other contextual clues, we generally treat the most immediate antecedent as the correct one. Because Sarah is the most recent antecedent, we would typically assume that I went to dinner with Sarah.

Now, in 1 John 5:20, the problem is worse:

"And we know that the Son of God is come and has given us understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

"The Son of God" is a nominative clause, so should be read as a unit. Therefore, "him that is true" should refer, in both cases, to "the Son of God" by most normal rules. The first problem is that we then come to "his Son Jesus Christ." Here, "his" probably refers to "God the Father," despite the only antecedent being "the Son of God." It's sloppy and a bit ungrammatical, but context renders that more likely unless it's intentional wordplay (which I don't rule out). Now, the problem is that "his Son Jesus Christ" is also a nominative clause and should be treated as a unit. So now, "this" has only two named antecedents, "the Son of God" and "his Son Jesus Christ." "God the Father," however, has also probably been used as an unnamed antecedent at least once (or, more accurately, "his" doesn't have an antecedent).

The upshot is that from both grammatical and contextual bases, "this is the true God" probably refers to Jesus, but might refer to God the Father.

As a bit of an aside, if we start moving backwards to find other potential antecedents, the next ones we come to are "the evil one" and "he who was begotten of God."

[onewithhim]

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

Im sorry, but you are wrong. Sentence structure is different for Greek compared to English.

Not necessarily and not necessarily in this verse. You seem to be saying that since word order is "different" for Greek, you can rearrange the words however you want. That's nonsense.

I did not say that "you can rearrange the words however you want." There are specific rules in translating Greek to English.

[Capbook]

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

Im sorry, but you are wrong. Sentence structure is different for Greek compared to English.

Not necessarily and not necessarily in this verse. You seem to be saying that since word order is "different" for Greek, you can rearrange the words however you want. That's nonsense.

I did not say that "you can rearrange the words however you want." There are specific rules in translating Greek to English.

Is this original Greek of 1John 5:20 wrong to you?

1Jn 5:20 And G1161  we know G1492  that G3754  the G3588  Son G5207  of God G2316  is come, G2240  and G2532  hath given G1325  us G2254  an understanding, G1271  that G2443  we may know G1097  him that is true, G228  and G2532  we are G2070  in G1722  him that is true, G228  even in G1722  his G848  Son G5207  Jesus G2424  Christ. G5547  This G3778  is G2076  the G3588  true G228  God, G2316  and G2532  eternal G166  life. G2222 

1Jn 5:20 οιδαμεν G1492 V-RAI-1P  δε G1161 CONJ  οτι G3754 CONJ  ο G3588 T-NSM  υιος G5207 N-NSM  του G3588 T-GSM  θεου G2316 N-GSM  ηκει G2240 V-PAI-3S  και G2532 CONJ  δεδωκεν G1325 V-RAI-3S  ημιν G1473 P-1DP  διανοιαν G1271 N-ASF  ινα G2443 CONJ  γινωσκωμεν G1097 V-PAS-1P  τον G3588 T-ASM  αληθινον G228 A-ASM  και G2532 CONJ  εσμεν G1510 V-PAI-1P  εν G1722 PREP  τω G3588 T-DSM  αληθινω G228 A-DSM  εν G1722 PREP  τω G3588 T-DSM  υιω G5207 N-DSM  αυτου G846 P-GSM  ιησου G2424 N-DSM  χριστω G5547 N-DSM  ουτος G3778 D-NSM  εστιν G1510 V-PAI-3S  ο G3588 T-NSM  αληθινος G228 A-NSM  θεος G2316 N-NSM  και G2532 CONJ  η G3588 T-NSF  ζωη G2222 N-NSF  αιωνιος G166 A-NSF 

1Jn 5:20 οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ ἥκει καὶ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν διάνοιαν ἵνα γινώσκωμεν τὸν ἀληθινόν· καὶ ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς Θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.

[onewithhim]

I believe you missed to checked your assumption that the grammatical construction of Greek is different than that of English.
And you are wrong.

No, English sentence construction is following the Greek construction. See the nearest antecedent of the phrase "this is the true God" in the Greek still is Jesus Christ.

Im sorry, but you are wrong. Sentence structure is different for Greek compared to English.

Not necessarily and not necessarily in this verse. You seem to be saying that since word order is "different" for Greek, you can rearrange the words however you want. That's nonsense.

I did not say that "you can rearrange the words however you want." There are specific rules in translating Greek to English.

Is this original Greek of 1John 5:20 wrong to you?

1Jn 5:20 And G1161  we know G1492  that G3754  the G3588  Son G5207  of God G2316  is come, G2240  and G2532  hath given G1325  us G2254  an understanding, G1271  that G2443  we may know G1097  him that is true, G228  and G2532  we are G2070  in G1722  him that is true, G228  even in G1722  his G848  Son G5207  Jesus G2424  Christ. G5547  This G3778  is G2076  the G3588  true G228  God, G2316  and G2532  eternal G166  life. G2222 

No, it is not wrong. It shows that the true God is the Father---the "him" and the "his" of that passage. "We may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son, Jesus Christ." The Father is the true God.