John 14:8-9 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you?

Perhaps Philip was thinking of the visible revelation of the Father to Moses as recorded in Exodus 33. Moses said to God, “Show me Your glory,” using the Hebrew word kabod meaning glory, heaviness, splendor and abundance. Moses wanted to see it all, but the Father knew that for Moses to see Him in all His glory would destroy Moses and so God said that He would show Moses His Tov, His goodness. Yet scripture does say the Father’s glory passed by, so how did God show Moses His goodness? God did so by supplying the means by which Moses could bear being in the presence of His glory; the Father placed Moses in a cleft in the rock, and covered Moses’ face with His hand until He passed by. It’s a dramatic scene in which Moses didn’t so much see the glory of the Father as he experienced the glory of the Father from the safety of the Rock. That Rock in which Moses experienced and knew the Father was a picture of Christ, in Whom we behold a much greater revelation of the Father than any from the Old Testament.

Philip and the disciples wanted a revelation like Moses’, but they did not understand that Jesus’ revelation of the Father through Himself was much greater than what Moses had on that mountain. You see, through Jesus, Philip was able to have a personal relationship with God in which not only did He speak with Jesus, but he ate, drank, and lived, talked, walked, and sat, stood and even wept with Him. The words that Jesus said and the works that Jesus did were the Father’s works and were the Father’s will. When the disciples heard Jesus they heard the Father. When they saw Jesus, they saw the Father. A personal relationship with Jesus is a personal relationship with the Father.

May you enjoy the goodness of the Father today.