Like father like son

https://odb.org/2026/08/05/like-father-like-children

John 14:5–11 (NIV): 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

“What makes you smile when you think about your son?” That was my question for Clarence—a younger man I was mentoring. The proud father proceeded to share some of his bright four-year-old’s accomplishments. One particular detail left me amused. Not only does the child have his father’s first and last names, but he already looks so much like his father that he can unlock his father’s smartphone using facial recognition! In John 14, Jesus made it clear how closely He resembled His Father. When an inquisitive Philip requested, “Lord, show us the Father” (v. 8), Jesus responded, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (v. 9). (Arthur Jackson, Our Daily Bread 5th August 2026)

When we look at a father and son or a mother and daughter, we cannot but see an uncanny resemblance. They are not the same as identical twins, but we could tell that they are father and son or mother and daughter. I recalled my friends saying that my elder son looked like me when I was young or there are aspects of my younger son that reninds them of me. Beyond looks, fathers and sons have other similar behavioural traits – perhaps in the way they speak or walk or their body language. That is why when Jesus said to Philip that you see the Father when you see me – we could naturally identify with that.

But the concept of “when you see Jesus, you see the Father” goes much deeper than just a son resembling his father. This is because in the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son are separate and yet one! Jesus was God the Spirit, incarnated in human flesh. He was Immanuel. In other words, when Jesus says that you see the Father when you see me, He was actually saying that He is the Father! Jesus was the form of God that man could see and not die because He was man as much as He was God. In the Old Testament, God had appeared before to a man when Jacob wrestled with an angel. In that encounter, the LORD took the form of an angel qland even then He implored Jacob to release Him before daybreak as seeing His face would have killed Jacob.

The lesson for us this morning I believe is that as much as the manner that Yahweh related to Israel is a beautiful picture of our spritual relationship with God in Christ, we should look at the pages of the Gospel as God having walked on earth in the form of a man. In pure human form, we can see that God is much more compassionate and loving. As Jehovah His heart was with the fatherless, the widows and the foreigner during Israel’s ancient past but as Jesus Christ our Lord, His heart was with the peasants, the poor, the sick and the crippled as seen in the Gospels. He was close to His disciples and to Mary, Martha and Lazarus. Those relationships are not relationships that God the Father in the Spirit could muster with man except with Adam and Eve before the Fall. Sin separated man from God and Jesus restored that relationship for us as believers of Christ after His death and resurrection.

Therefore my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, rest assured that He loves us and is compassionate and just. No matter what we are going through or had gone through in our colourful or miserable past, cling on to His Word as expressed by Paul in Romans 8:28 – And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.