Visions and Words

 April 23, 2022

“To the King eternal, immortal, invisible…King of kings and Lord of lords who alone HS immortality, dwelling in inapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.”   —1 Timothy 1:7, 6:16.

We sing “Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see Jesus.” Saints and charlatans alike have spoken of visions; even the prophet said, “Old men will dream dreams and young men shall see visions,” yet here Paul says, God is “invisible,” and “no man has seen or can see him.” These are strange words coming from a man whose conversion came as a result of a vision and who claimed to have been caught up into the third heaven. But both his conversion and his subsequent revelation had as their identifying mark, not what Paul saw, but what he heard. He heard Jesus saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And later, he heard things so wonderful he could not repeat them.

Ours is an auditory faith. The Word we hear always takes precedent over the things we see. We live in a visual world, worshipping an invisible God who disdains any visual representation of himself. He knows how easily we are led to bow to things we can see, and although the physical world around us, an our very bodies are an integral part of our salvation, they are that part needing redemption, not to be confuse with the Redeemer.

This auditory nature of our salvation is why preaching remains central to the Gospel. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God,” Paul explains in Romans 10:17. Our faith is not acted out on a stage; it is proclaimed anywhere someone is there to speak and someone to hear. I suspect the auditory nature of salvation may also be why prayer is so central to our faith. I and my family have been recipients of the prayers of many, for which we are deeply grateful, knowing that it is the means through which God fulfills his promises and accomplishes his purposes in this world. So we listen, knowing that what we see will only become important when Jesus returns and “every eye will behold him.” Until then, we listen and pray, coming “boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)