One question I get a lot is that the New Testament says "no one has ever seen God (father)" but in my "two powers" discussion in TUR about  "Yahweh" & "angel of the Lord," the angel (whom I argue was Yahweh embodied) appears and speaks with people.  How are these two ideas to be reconciled? It's very obvious that the Bible says that no one could see the face of God and live (Exod 33:20; Deut. 5:24), but it's equally obvious that it reports that people did indeed see the God of Israel Gen 16:13; Exod 24:10, 11; Judg. 6:22; 13:22; Isa. 6:5). All these verses are from the Old Testament. Many Christians don’t think about this apparent contradiction because it seems to disappear after the incarnation—that God became a man, born of the Virgin Mary, in Jesus Christ. But the Old Testament doesn’t contradict the New Testament. Appearing as a man (sometimes in a physical body, as in Genesis 18, where Yahweh eats a meal) is not the same as incarnation, but is related to what happened in the case of Jesus. God did indeed appear as a man in the Old Testament, and that isn’t contradictory to what the Old Testament says about seeing the “face” of God. The key is understanding the Hebrew term “face” (panim) can refer to the Presence of God. The same Hebrew term (panim) may be translated “face” or “presence.” The Old Testament passages we’ve studied make it clear that the true presence of God—what God really is—cannot be witnessed. God’s panim has to be filtered, or mediated, in some way, both so that humans can process what (or who) they are experiencing, and also so they do not die. One of the ways the panim was filtered was human embodiment. God came as a man to people—a man they were allowed to see and speak to. Even when Moses asked to see God’s glory (Exod 33:18), God’s permission resulted in Moses seeing him embodied (Exod 34:5-9). But to reinforce the point that the panim was off limits, Moses could only see the back parts of the embodied Yahweh. The Old Testament writers make this point elsewhere. When people see the God of Israel, the writer omits saying they saw the “face” (Exod 24:9-11; Ezek 1:26 [cp. Ezek 10:18-19]) to convey the idea that no one could see the "direct presence" of God and live.

  2. Thanks Nathan.  Tried to listen. Dr Heiser is like fresh breath of air when he speaks but the other guy is just too long winded for me and I really think it could be shorter, I find it very frustrating.  I kept wishing Dr Heiser spoke more, but I guess he had to let his guest speak more. I gave up 3/4 of the way even after FFW some bits. Never mind.

  3. Sorry I was longwinded. I'll try to do better next time.

  4. Just ignore me my brother. I was probably impatient at the time :-)