“...He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and the Lord of lords; who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen” (1 Timothy 6:15b,16).
Consider and reflect. Here we have a description of our Creator. I would like us to focus on the idea of “inapproachable light.” The apostle John described God’s moral purity thus way: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). God’s presence is unapproachable by mortal man, partly because of the glories that surround His throne. The light would be unbearable to us in our present mortal state. When men have been granted the opportunity to be given a glimpse of this other-worldly light, the blaze of the glory shined as the sun and brighter yet. Peter, James and John stood in awe as they witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus. Fourteen hundred years before that, Moses’ face shined for days after having been with the LORD on the mountain. If one lacks the proper awe and reverence for God in this life, at the judgment seat of Christ their disdain will one day melt away in awe. Irreverence will be replaced with what should have been there all along. Let this respect for God and all things holy be in our hearts and lives now! Reverence now will bring forth reverence and joy then. “...and His face was like the sun, shining in its strength” (Revelation 1:16b).
Because God shelters us from gazing directly at His glory today, we have not seen Him. We are simply not equipped to see God currently. The closest we can come is to look at Jesus, the Son of God and learn of God’s character. “And He is the image of the invisible God...” (Colossians 1:15). It is not that Jesus looked like God in physical appearance, but rather He possesses the love and patience and holiness of the Father. He reveals the Father to us.
One day that will all change when He equips us with spiritual bodies and then we shall directly look upon the face of our Creator for the first time. God told Moses that “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20). The privilege of seeing God face to face will have to wait until the next age. For now, we must know God by faith in His Son, who has revealed the Father to us.
“To Him be honor and dominion!” Paul exclaimed. The best thing one can do is honor God as God throughout our days here. Then, at the proper time, the Redeemer will return to take us home to the Father. To be ready for that hour, with reverence, we keep the commandments of God (1 Timothy 6:11-14).
“By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:17-19).