The Explainer

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” — John 1:18

That verse caught me.

Specifically that word — made him known. I looked it up because I wanted to know what John actually meant by that. And the word he uses is exegeomai. Which is where we get exegesis. It means to unfold something. To lead what’s buried inside out into the light.

Jesus didn’t just show up and point at God. He exegeted him.

But then I hit this phrase — in closest relationship with the Father — and the Amplified version says it differently. It says Jesus is in the intimate presence of the Father. And I just sat with that for a minute because I think that’s actually the whole answer to why Jesus can explain God in a way nobody else can.

You can’t explain someone you don’t know deeply. You can summarize them. You can talk about them. But to really explain someone — to help people understand who they actually are — you have to have been with them. In the room. In the silence. In the moments nobody else saw.

That’s what Jesus has.

And then I started thinking about the first line of that verse. No one has ever seen God. Which — okay, I know the Old Testament seems to push back on that. Moses talked to God face to face like a friend. A group of elders went up a mountain, saw God, and sat down and ate a meal. Those things happened.

But I was reading some commentary and came across this idea that stopped me. What those people saw weren’t God’s full self — his essential nature, the totality of what he actually is. They were seeing God show up in forms people could survive. Real encounters. But partial ones. Even Moses, who got closer than anyone, only saw his back as he passed by. God told him — you cannot see my face and live.

So all those moments in the Old Testament — the burning bush, the cloud, the fire — those were God choosing what to reveal. Real. But like looking through a cracked door.

Jesus is the door swung open.

Not another appearance. Something categorically different. Because he wasn’t just God showing up in a new form. He was God’s Son who had always been there. Beside him. Since before anything existed.

Which is when I found the footnote.

The Amplified version had a little reference next to John 1:18. Just a small cross-reference. Proverbs 8:30. I almost kept going. But I clicked it.

Then I was beside him as a master craftsman. I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.

I just sat there. What does Proverbs have to do with Jesus explaining God?

Then it hit me.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians that Christ is the wisdom of God. So this is Jesus. And this passage is saying he was beside God at creation. Not watching from somewhere. Beside him. Daily his delight. This intimacy didn’t start in Bethlehem. It was there before nitrogen. Before pine needles. Before E-minor. (Hat tip to Francis Chan for the inspiration).

That’s why he can explain God. That’s the whole thing. He’s not reporting from a distance. He’s explaining someone he has known since before anything existed.

And then — this is just a bonus, honestly — the passage calls Wisdom a master craftsman. So Jesus was working alongside God at creation. And then he shows up on earth and his job, before his ministry starts, is a craftsman. He works wood. He builds things. He learns the grain of material he invented.

He made tables from trees he created.

I don’t know why that gets me every time. But it does.

So here’s where I landed. Nobody has ever seen God. Not fully. Not his whole self. That’s not a throwaway line — that’s the problem the whole incarnation is answering. And Jesus is the answer, not just because God decided to show up in him, but because he has always been there. Beside him. Delighting. Intimate. Since before the beginning.

If you want to know what God is like — study Jesus. Who he moved toward. How he talked. What he did when people were hurting. What made him stop.

That’s not a shortcut. That’s the closest anyone has ever gotten.

That’s the path.

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