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
According to John 1:18, we learn that the truth is defined by God and only God.
"No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son." Ultimate reality, the truth behind all things is only known by God. The contrast between the Lord Jesus and Moses is furthered in this one verse. Moses only saw the back of God and could not know, to the full, intimacy with the God. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand, is the only one has seen God face to face and because of that He can offer us that intimacy with God. It is this intimacy which Jesus has with the Father that is the basis for the last phrase of v.18: "... is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."
Man is constantly pursuing truth. One would think that after thousands of years, man would have gotten to the core of reality. Ultimate truth can not be discovered except in a personal relationship with Jesus! "The one and only Son who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known." The verb translated "made Him known" brings with it the idea of exegeted. The Lord Jesus has explained or exegete the Father to us.
That's a key idea: God is Father. When we come to him through Jesus Christ we discover a loving Father. A Father provides, protects and guides our steps, this is what we learn when we come to Jesus. The point that is being made here is the Lord Jesus embodies the fullness of God’s presence and person.
The phrase “and is in closest relationship with the Father” is translated in other versions of the Bible as “in the bosom of the Father.” This is a term of endearment, and it illustrates intimacy with God. The Apostle John later wrote “there was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.”
In that day, the Jews wouldn’t sit at a table for the Passover dinner– they would recline on their left side, propping themselves up with their left hand and eating with their right. Imagine 13 guys lying in this way in a circle. To Jesus’ right was John, and if Jesus wanted to tell John something John could simply lean back and Jesus could whisper it into His ear.
For Jesus to be “in the bosom of the Father” means that Jesus has occupied this place of love, intimacy, and communion with God from all eternity. And it’s that unique place at the Father’s table that gives Jesus the knowledge of the Father which He shares with humanity.
God has perfectly revealed Himself through Jesus and only Jesus. He is the only way to a personal relationship with God and eternal life, the Father. There is no other way to know the true God and to be right with Him.
In order to know God better, we must dwell at the cross of the Lord Jesus. Jesus said to the Bible experts in John 5:39, “Here you are scouring through the Scriptures, hoping that you will find eternal life among a pile of scrolls. What you don’t seem to understand is that the Scriptures always point to Me.” We can be faithful to a Bible reading schedule, read complicated commentaries, or take Bible study classes, and still remain relatively shallow in our knowledge and experience of God. We must remember to meditate long and hard on what happened at that cross and seek to view life through the lens of the gospel.
Finally, in every passage of Scripture that we read, we must be careful to look for an encounter with the living Lord Jesus. The only one who will ever bring people to saving faith is the Lord Jesus. There is no better person than the Lord Jesus through whom we best discover our identity and our purpose in this world. Brent Curtis and John Eldredge said it well when they penned, "If we try to gain transcendence through indulgence, soon enough familiarity breeds contempt and we are driven to search for mystery elsewhere."
