Right up front, John states that “no one” has seen this God.  Now, if no one has seen God at any time, past or present, how is it that some people can claim that Jesus is God or was the God of the Old Testament without somebody being intellectually and scripturally dishonest?  Either the Bible is wrong or those proposing that Jesus was the OT God are wrong.  My money is on the Bible. According to these passages, Jesus could not have been the OT God.

Men and women have seen Christ, have they not?  Yes, they have. But they have never seen God! This fact prevents Jesus from being the OT God, if we are to believe the Scriptures.  How could Jesus have been God at any time if God is not visible?!  In addition, the cited passage in Timothy declares that this God (whom no man has seen or can see) alone (all by himself) has immortality.  Some will say (1) that Jesus was a “manifestation” of God or (2) that he was the God of the Old Testament who willingly became “not-God” in the New Testament and then switched back to being God again after his resurrection—that he was essentially God “part-time.”  However, according to the Bible, no one has ever seen God!  Others say (3) that Jesus was a “God/Man”—that he was “fully God” and “fully man” at the same time (immortaland mortal)—with two distinct (or dual) natures, no less!  Half of Christ was visible while the other half was not?

The last two ideas would be laughable if the subject were not so serious.  To be a man and God at the same time or to have God cease being God for a time disregards God-given logic and disrupts a natural order.  God cannot just go out of existence and then come back again for the same reason you cannot do it!  For a being (any being) to cease existence means that the being becomes nonexistent. Something that is nonexistent is without life, essence, substance, reality, or activity in any form (Eccl.9:10).  So, nonexistence means the nonexistent thing has no will, no brain, among other non-things, and consequently no power to become anything.

Idea (1) above might have some merit.  Could God manifest himself to man at some time and still remain God?  What is a “manifestation”? The Greek word emphenizo is used in Jn.14:22 (G1718).  It carries the sense to exhibit (in person) or disclose (by words). To be made “manifest” then is for something to be made evident or clear to the eye or obvious to the understanding.

At one time or another we have no doubt seen a child who was the “spitting image” of his parent.  This would be a visual manifestation of the parent.  The parent’s physical characteristics have been manifested in the son.  The son is a reflection (an image) of the parent.

A manifestation could also be a vision or representation of God in some sense or understanding, although not necessarily by a bodily appearance or in material substance.  If Jesus were the material substance of God incarnate (i.e., God actually turned into a man or God putting on flesh), monotheists could say that Jesus was the one God on earth.  However, if this were true, then there would have been a time (some 33 years) during which no God existed in heaven because he had come down to earth—and then he died.  But this conclusion is unacceptable.  And, if Jesus, as that supposed God, “put off” his “glory” (whatever that is), but not his divinity, as some say, then when Jesus died, there would have been three days and three nights when no God existed, whatsoever, anywhere.  —Another unacceptable concept.  Further, Jesus did not resurrect himself.  And remember, God, an infinite, immortal non-dying, ever-living being, cannot die.  He cannot even commit suicide.

The core passage used by trinitarians and binitarians to support the idea of Jesus as a God transformed into human and made visible is Jn.1:1ff, where it is stated that the Greek “logos” (English: word) was God and was with God.  But it was this “logos” (not Jesus) that became incarnate or “took on flesh” as the “word” of God.  Why can religious people not understand this simple plain fact?  Jesus then, into whom the “word” apparently entered, represents the fullest reflection of God in the flesh and therefore he was the physical embodiment of the attributes of theinvisible God.  That is, God made manifest—God manifested himself in a form that demonstrated his attributes and characteristics. If you saw Jesus, you did see God!  Yes!  Not because Jesus was God, but because God was working mightily through Jesus.  (Continued...)