First the text:

... 'Whoever has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14: 8-9).

Then a comment from a liberal Christian:

... Jesus ... set down at the right hand of the throne of God... Nothing about him being god.

How does this sit with the Christians here? Are John (or whoever wrote John) and Paul (or whoever wrote Hebrews) both saying that Jesus is god, or are they saying that Jesus is an intermediary between G-d and man?

And a response:

Suppose the phone goes in your office and somebody holds it up and calls out to you "It's you wife for you!" Do you say "Nah! That's nothing like my wife, its got plastic and wires and such." You can say "Whoever hears the phone (and has a conversation with it) has talked with the person" yet it is a phone.

If you have seen Jesus you have seen the Father. Yep, I can understand that. Jesus can sit beside G-d (as can a telephone). Yep, I can understand that too. John and the author of Hebrews aren't contradicting each other. Yet G-d is one. Okay, if you hear somebody's voice in the next room you might say "That's David, I know him well" but does somebody beside you say "Nope, that is air molecules moving about with sound waves, not David himself!" That would be silly. We say a person's voice *is* the person. Is G-d's Word actually G-d? Yes! If it is reported speech that isn't so true. Did G-d create the heavens and the earth or did His Word? Silly, silly question. So we can say His living Word is a manifestation of Him. No conflict. And I didn't even need to use the word "theophany!"