C'mon, FK, now God, Who is a spirit, has a "face?" Are the Reformers really this literalistic and anthropomorphic and, frankly, childish in their reading of the Bible?
You were the one making an issue of the word "face", not me. I simply reported what the verse said. I know God is a spirit being, so this verse needs to be interpreted. My point was that I thought you were making a mountain out of a mole hill for focusing on the word in a literalistic sense. That's why I said to you "So, I wouldn't get too hung up on the face to face thing."
Face to face means face to face, FK. This is not expressed as an allegory. This is where the incomplete revelation comes into play.
I get it. You dismiss the majority of the OT. Message received already. I believe you. :) We, however, see it as God's Holy word.
Apparitions are not necessarily real images. God could have caused the Apostles to "see" Moses and Elijah when none was there.
So God was into holograms? :) It surprises me that one of your Twelve Great Feasts is dedicated to this, yet it sounds like the theology of what actually happened is not settled.
Matt 11:25-26 : 25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father , Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
So, the wisest and most learned among us are the ones in the dark? God is "anti-intellectual" I suppose.
I'm surprised you would argue with this. When you think of the world's intellectuals over the centuries, how many of them do you suppose were Christians? Not many, IMO, and this makes perfect sense. (Of course Christian intellectuals got a lot more ink early on, comparatively, but that is obviously no longer true today.) I liken it to the Biblical idea that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter Heaven. Rich men tend to love their money, and so have no room for God. Likewise, intellectuals tend to love their own intellects, and so have no room for God. Most of them are already their own gods. This would appear to match what Jesus is saying.
No, you made the point of distinction of not seeing Him "face to face" as the OT says. I was saying "seeing God" period. If the OT verses are to be taken literally as you guys do, then seeing an apparition of God would apply. Jesus for one would have killed an awful lot of people who saw Him!
What is the FACE of God FK? What does that verse mean? Can we see God and not die? Or does it have to be God "as He is" in which case Jesus was not God as He is!
Can we see God and live? Yes or no? Does God have a face? Yes or no? If we can see God and not die then the Bible is incomplete when it says we can't. If God has no face and the bible speaks of God's face then the Bible is not fully revealing God.
The faces and eyes and hands of God are symbolic representations of invisible and ineffable God. These words cannot be taken, like most of the Bible, literally or read like a fairy tale (Reformed approach). We can take literally the Gospels because God walked on earth with His disciples, as opposed to appearing to them in their dreams and visions and what not. It was witnessed for three years.
So do we (Orthodox and Catholic Christians). But we also know that God's rveelation was gradual.