To be near unto God - pagina 133

All interests center in God, in the living God, to see him, to behold him, and ardently to

reality.

rejoice in this life-giving look. When, therefore, Philip asked: Lord, show us the Father, he made the right beginning, and it sprang fiom his burning thirst after the living God.

But eyes.

alas,

God

can not be seen with our outward

The reason

for this

is

perfectly plain.

We

can only see things, whatever they are, when they present themselves as parts of the visible world and are sufficiently limited to fall within the range No one can see the world as a of our vision. whole, but only in fragments and parts; now this part, now that, as far as it falls within reach. But even if we could see the whole world, we would still be unable to see God, because the world is finite,

and God

is infinite.

The

greatest idea that

can be formed of the world falls away into nothingness compared with the infinite God. We can only see what falls within our range of vision and what has form and appearance. But God is Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. God can not be seen therefore outside of ourselves. To desire to do this is to bring him down to our level, to give him a form and to rob him of his spirituality. Here idolatry comes in. It began when people "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man" (Rom. 1:23). It did not spring from wickedness, but from piety. Not the worst, but the best people from among the nations built temples and placed an image of God in them. Then the priests showed them their

God

in

an image which they had made. 129

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