What Is a Theophany? by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Scripture: John 4:24 Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--what-is-a-theophany Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ well let's talk about this term theophany it's a technical theological term that means a visible appearance or manifestation of God and it's used because there are various passages in the Old Testament where it's evident that God appeared to human beings in some kind of temporary visible form in some cases you might consider the glory Cloud to be a theophany or the thunder and lightning to be a theophany but we usually think of some more uh visible form uh but now a theophany is different from an Incarnation incarnation of being actually being manifest In the Flesh as a human being theophany is just a temporary appearance um and it may not even be tangible in other words there may be no substance to hold but I think of in Genesis you find some theophonies often the the Old Testament uses the angel of the Lord the angel of Yahweh is a theophany now sometimes when it says the angel of the lord it's obviously just an angel but at other times the angel seems to speak with authority and the people respond as if the angel has Divine Authority so that it becomes evident that the angel was God manifesting himself in some form and why would God do that God was trying throughout the Old Testament to find ways to make himself known to people to reveal his character his identity his presence and I do think he was foreshadowing that he would ultimately come in in human identity as Jesus Christ so the theophanese had an immediate purpose of communicating with people in a tangible way so they could know that God is a real human being he's not not a human being a real being not an abstract impersonal subject it's not a force not a generic force not pantheism God is everything but a personal spiritual being and so the first purpose for the theophonies is to reveal God as a personal being in a tangible way or or a visible way and then second I think to pre-shadow God's ultimate plan of the Incarnation for Jesus Christ the son of God to be born to prepare people for to to understand that so let me give you a couple examples the angel of the Lord are wrestle with Jacob but yet um the text says he uh he saw God he wrestled with God in the book of Hosea referring back to it talks about him encountering God so it seems like and maybe the awareness gradually dawned upon Jacob so there was an angelic appearance and in this case it was tangible he wrestled with the angel but then the realization came this is the very presence of God God chose to deal with him uh in this way and it was really a spiritual struggle we might look at it much like in our day intercessory prayer we're agonizing through a difficult decisionSign andin we're we're wrestling with God not as a tangible uh being but God's presence another example is when God appeared to Abraham just before he pronounced judgment upon Sodom and it says these three men came but then two of them were Angels who went towards Sodom but Yahweh God stayed with Abraham and Converse with him so here's another example of God revealing himself in a visible form like a man and actually talking to Abraham so you could so I've given you several examples and God appearing in human form God appearing in Angelic form God appearing through smoke Glory Cloud thunder lightning all these could be considered theophanes uh now Jesus Christ is the culmination of those of theophonies which is probably why we don't really have those same kind today um and when we do have a visual appearance it's usually a vision or a dream of Jesus Christ because Jesus becomes the Fulfillment of the theologies much as the ceremonial law in the Old Testament points to Jesus so we don't still follow the ceremony law so the theophonies the various encounters that people had with God in the Old Testament are ways of focusing people's faith on the coming of the Lord so when Jesus Christ was born although he was the Fulfillment or the culmination of the theophanes he was more than a theophany because he wasn't just the appearance of man he was an actual human Jesus Christ was born in the womb of a virgin which none of the theophonies went through that process he was an actual human being God uniting himself to human identity a full humanity and not just a shell not just a body but human identity uh whatever we think of as a human will Body Soul Spirit not separate from God but joined to God's spirit so compute complete human identity uh joined to the spirit of God so that's what we call Incarnation or human personification of God God being manifested in the flesh so to summarize John 4 24 says God is a spirit he's invisible we could never see God so in order to bridge the gap God gave theophonies and today God has come in flesh as the Lord Jesus Christ so in eternity when we go to heaven I think we're going to see one personal being Jesus Christ sitting on the Divine Throne we're going to know him as our heavenly father we're going to feel the presence of God which we know is today is the holy spirit but all the godhead will be focused on the visible human being Jesus Christ and what's so beautiful to me about the Incarnation has more than a theophany is that although God never changes uh God somehow was able to come in human flesh and identify with the human race and be something you've never been before in that sense he has permanently identified with us as humans so so throughout eternity God will be revealed to us in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and that's pretty amazing that God would care for us so much and love us so much that he would identify with human beings throughout eternity and that's what he's doing the Oneness view of Jesus Christ talks more about the Incarnation how could Jesus be both God and human at the same time how he could have deity in his Humanity in his Spirit how how could he truly be the Son of God and God manifests in the flesh