Whatever other purposes might have been intended by those appearances, that is quite conspicuous. Nothing else could have impressed the percipient with the idea of an intelligent Being, because intelligence had never been presented to the mind of man apart from the idea of personality, either human or Divine. The whole Scriptures keep this fact before us with great precision. The moment we lose sight of the Divine unity on the one hand, and of the actual personality of that unity on the other, that moment we descend into theological confusion, and all clearness of thought upon those subjects vanishes from the mind.
Although, then, the Old Testament most clearly informs us that the Supreme Being has been seen by men, and that He has spoken to many, still a little reflection will show that these statements ought not to be understood as referring to physical seeing and natural hearing. It was not by physical sight that He was seen, nor by the natural ear that He was heard. Therefore those experiences must be understood as adaptations to the interior sight and perceptions of men, accommodations to their spiritual capabilities of seeing and hearing. And the scenes of those phenomena, however they might have appeared upon the plane of the natural world, must nevertheless have been presented im some sphere of that spiritual world which is immediately above; that is, within. We are expressly told that "God is a Spirit[1]; and that the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned.[2] The statement that God is a Spirit is not to be interpreted to mean that He is something aërial, or unsubstantial, but that He is a spiritual entity which cannot be thought of otherwise than as a Divine Person.
But it is written. " No man hath seen God at any time:[3]"
