"No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love has been perfected in us."
Consider the phrase No one has ever seen God. Some question this statement, pointing out Biblical examples of those who claim to have seen God. Of course, Adam was the first to see him, then we have the case of Moses, who spoke with God face to face, when he was hiding in the crevice of a rock when God passed by. Also the prophet Isaiah said in 6: 1, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and sublime throne.
We also find that Ezekiel had visions of God, and that the Lord appeared to Daniel and others. However, we can also read that John said in his own gospel, in chapter 1, verse 18: No one ever saw God; the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made it known, that is, that He explained it, interpreted it before human beings. When God appeared before people in the Old Testament, they did not see God, because He is a Spirit and that is the way we worship Him. Those people saw what is known as a theophany.
That is, God manifested himself in some way before such people, but He did not reveal Himself in all its fullness. That is why John said in His epistle, even after the Lord Jesus had returned to heaven: No one has ever seen God. And in his Gospel, in 14: 9, we see that the Lord said to Philip: He who has seen me has seen the Father. But how did they see him? They saw him as covered with a veil, in a human body, to such an extent that the crowds did not recognize him. He grew up to be an adult there in Nazareth, hidden by the veil of his humanity, so they did not know that He was the Son of God. So no one saw God in all His fullness, and this statement includes the present times.
The important thing that John wanted to emphasize here was that no one had ever seen God, but God today can manifest Himself through believers, who love each other. Since the world in general is not seeing Jesus as He is presented in the Word of God, the only way for people to know God's love is through believers, who represent Him on earth. None of us knew God's love until God showed it to us on the cross when Christ died, and He makes it real for us through the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul said in Romans 5: 5, God's love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit that was given to us. And a little later, in verse 8 he wrote: 8But God shows his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ died for us. It is still true that there is no one to seek God. (Romans 3:11) Thus it was that God has come to look for men, and He came over 2,000 years ago, manifesting Himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. And all I know about God is what I know in the person of Christ. I don't know how God feels about certain things. I don't know what he thinks about some matters, but when I follow the Lord Jesus and listen to him, I can know what God is thinking, I can feel the heartbeat of God and I know how He feels at a funeral, because the Bible, in John 11:35 tells us that Jesus wept. I know what He feels about children, because he took them in His arms and blessed them. And I know these details because the Lord came and showed us what God is like.
Now, how will this evil world in which we live meet God? Unfortunately there are too many believers who are trying to please the world instead of preaching to the world. We are worried about what the world thinks of us, but the important thing is what the world of Jesus thinks. What do people think of those who fulfill the function of representing you? Someone has expressed it as follows: "At the age of 20, we don't care what the world thinks of us. At the age of 30, we care about what the world may be thinking of us. At age of 40 we discovered that he is not thinking of us at all. " And this approximates reality. We today must bear witness to the world. And how are we going to do it? Spreading the Word of God? Yes, this work is extremely important. But the world is hungry for love and doesn't really know what love is. People have varied ways of differentiating the kinds of human love and even many identify it with sex. But they don't know anything about the love of God. They do not know how magnificent and extraordinary God is, but He can manifest in us.
@GREGORIA01