First of all Christ revealed to us the face of his Father. One day Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father. He declared to Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (Jn 14;9)On another occasion He said to Judas, "The word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me." (Jn 34:24) Likewise He indicated "I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me." (Jn 6:38) Christ's words and actions are simultaneously the words and actions of the Father hidden from human sight but seen with the eyes of intellect and will of faith. He leads us into Trinitarian face of God which may be expressed as follows:

 

For the Triad, being many is also unity: Not a unity of self-absorption, but of love. For the Three have one nature, one will, one power, one operation. As One they do not blend or become confused, But they cleave to each other, having their being in each other. That is perfect love, the original unity, the original harmony, the final mystery. To which no human thought has ever succeeded in rising. (Hieromonk Damascene, Christ the Eternal Tao, Valaam Books, 1999, pp. 63-64)

 

Christ being the unique Son of God even in his human nature had the face to face vision of God in his human soul from the first moment of conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Some may object that no human being can see God and live according to the Old Covenant. Is anything impossible with God? Somehow the light of glory in Christ's soul was kept from overflowing into his body except on Mt. Taber when Philip, James and John saw his face and body temporarily glowing like the sun.

The Beatific vision consists in the intuitive vision of God which at the same time allows the soul to participate in God's knowledge of events past, present and future proportionate to one's soul clarity of vision. Pope Pius XII tells us that Christ possesses such fullness of vision that in breadth and clarity it far exceeds the Beatific Vision of all the saints in heaven. (Pius XIII Encyclical, Mystici Corporis (1943). However, St. Thomas Aquinas points out that Christ in his human soul could not know possibilities in God since his soul was that of a creature. Such than is the face of God in the human Christ.

7. The Transcendent Face of God