How Jesus Removes the Veil and Brings the Father Into Focus

Many of us have carried two pictures of God at the same time without knowing it. One is the God of tender invitation, the One of whom John writes, “God is love!” and “Love never brings fear” (1 John 4:16, 18 TPT). The other feels more like Jekyll and Hyde, a volatile and hard-to-please deity who seems wildly unpredictable depending on which page of the Bible you’re on. The result is spiritual whiplash, and a quiet fear buried somewhere beneath our belief that God may not actually be as good as he promised.

That fear has a name. It’s the orphan spirit: the deep, aching suspicion that we’re on our own in the world, needing to protect ourselves, provide for our own welfare, and promote our own agenda. Many of us are living this way while calling it “faith.”

But here’s what I’ve come to know: the question beneath the question has always been the same. What is God really like?

Philip asked it out loud.

Near the end of his ministry, Jesus sat with his disciples after washing their feet. He leaned in to comfort them, and instead of comfort, the disciples were confused. Then, in John 14, Philip pressed deeper, asking Jesus to “place him on exhibit,” to put God on full display (see v. 8). If you’ve ever been to a science fair, you get the idea. Philip was saying, “No. Put him on display. Let us literally see and touch the Father and discover how he works.”

Philip’s request wasn’t just bold. It was an impossible inquiry met with a far more impossible answer.

“Philip, I’ve been with you all this time and you still don’t know who I am? How could you ask me to show you the Father, for anyone who has looked at me has seen the Father.”

John 14:9 TPT

Jesus said in effect, “Look in my eyes, Philip. If you’ve seen me, you’ve already seen the Father… and lived!”

Not a reflection. Not a personification. Not the closest compromise humanity could handle. No. “Anyone who has looked at me has seen the Father.” Period. The author of Hebrews celebrated it with even greater precision:

“The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendor, the exact expression of God’s true nature — his mirror image!”

Hebrews 1:3 TPT

The Old Testament offered us many shadowed, veiled glimpses of God’s glory. A burning bush. A cloud by day and fire by night. But now, Jesus has come to us as the full substance of the Father, in all his glory.

Today, it’s popular to post Instagram photos with the tag #nofilter. Jesus is the Father #nofilter. If you want to know exactly who God the Father is, he isn’t seen most clearly through the smoke of Sinai, but the smile of the Savior. Jesus is not merely similar to the Father. He is the exact expression of the Father’s very being, down to every last detail.

I especially love how The Passion Translation expresses Hebrews 1:2:

“But to us living in these last days, God now speaks to us openly in the language of a Son.”

Hebrews 1:2 TPT

Jesus is the language the Father is speaking.

The Word Who Unlocks the Word

Jesus isn’t just the key to understanding the Father. He’s also the key who unlocks the Bible. We can only understand the written Word rightly by seeing the living Word clearly. Scripture always points to Jesus.

On the road to Emmaus, two disciples were walking away from Jerusalem with broken hearts after the crucifixion. Everything they hoped for was in a tomb. And then a stranger fell into step beside them. The fullness of the Father drew near to his kids to re-teach them the story.

“And beginning with Moses and all the prophets he carefully unveiled to them the revelation of himself throughout the Scriptures.”

Luke 24:27 TPT

When Jesus mentioned the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, he was referring to the entire Old Testament. By including all three, he stated emphatically that the entire narrative was about him, the unveiled reflection of the Father. But if we don’t know what God’s story is about, we will make it about something else.

The veil is only removed when we see through the lens of Christ.

“We can all draw close to him with the veil removed from our faces. And with no veil we all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into his very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another.”

2 Corinthians 3:18 TPT

It is possible to love the Word of God, to highlight it, memorize it, and tweet about it, and yet still see through a veil. Jesus is the Word who unlocks the Word.

Like Father, Like Son

All of this leads us to one final life-altering truth: The Father approaches humanity exactly how Jesus did.

So, how does the Father approach lawbreakers and the broken? Jesus shows us.

Dragged into the public square by religious leaders quoting chapter and verse, the woman caught in adultery (see John chapter 8) had far more than her shame to worry about. The Law said it. And so they asked Jesus, “What do you say?” But Jesus bent down and refused to answer. Instead, he began writing in the sand. Finally, he stood and told them the only one with the right to judge her would be one without sin. One by one, they left. But don’t miss this. One was present who was “without sin.” And he defied their understanding of the Law of Moses, doing precisely the opposite of what they expected in the Law. He did not condemn her. Instead, he invited her to leave her life of missing the mark behind her.

And the Father has always been exactly like Jesus.

In John 4, Jesus “had to” go through Samaria. This wasn’t technically true. For many years, the Israelites traveled around Samaria to avoid contact with the ones they considered “half-breeds” and children of rebellion. The respectable Jews avoided this road. Yet Jesus had to go through Samaria. He sat upon Jacob’s famous well at the hottest point of the day. A Samaritan woman came alone to draw water, at a time she knew she wouldn’t encounter anyone. But as she approached, Jesus was waiting for her. He knew she had been married five times and currently lived with a man who was not her husband. Yet Jesus hadn’t come to correct or condemn her. He came to sit with her and offer a way out of her soul’s drought. Elated, she left her social exile to tell everyone about the God who had seen her. Jesus chose a foreign woman from a despised lineage and a checkered past to become the first missionary to lead an entire town to his feet.

And the Father has always been exactly like Jesus.

In Matthew 9, Jesus drew sharp criticism for eating with cultural traitors and moral outcasts. The religious leaders wanted hell, but Jesus responded with a hospital. They wanted a trial, but Jesus chose a table.

And the Father has always been exactly like Jesus.

The Father You’ve Been Looking For

God chose to progressively reveal his nature to his children in the pages of the Old Testament, through veils and shadows. But in the fullness of time, God sent Jesus, who was the unveiling of who the Father has always been. The evidence points to a God who has never been guilty of the crimes our consciences have charged him with. He has always and only been good.

If you’ve spent years carrying a distorted image of God, here’s what I want you to know. Your heart is not broken because you’re weak. Your heart is crying out to be fathered. And the God who sat at the well at the hottest part of the day, who bent down and wrote in the dirt while a crowd prepared to throw stones, who opened Scripture to two grieving men on a dusty road before they had any reason to hope again, that God is still pursuing us with the same relentless passion.

“Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children.”

1 John 3:1 TPT

He calls you his beloved. He loves you and he likes you.

Jesus is the full, unchanging reflection of the Father. We must step out of the shadows of fear, legalism, and distorted theology to see clearly. The Father is no monster in a closet.

Dad has always and only looked just like Jesus.

This article is adapted from Reconstructing Dad: Discovering the God Who Looks Just Like Jesus by Chuck Ammons, a brand new release from CrossRiver Media. Order your copy today at crossrivermedia.com/product/reconstructing-dad.

What if the greatest misunderstanding in your life… is the way you see God?

For countless people, the word father carries the weight of absence, disappointment, fear, silence, rejection, or pain. And whether we realize it or not, those wounds often shape the way we view God Himself.

In Reconstructing Dad, Chuck Ammons offers a powerful and deeply healing invitation to rediscover the Father through the clearest revelation ever given—Jesus Christ.

Viewing Scripture through the “Emmaus Lens” of the resurrected Christ, this book pulls back the veil on distorted images of God and reveals the Father Jesus came to show us: compassionate, welcoming, trustworthy, and relentlessly good.

This is not another tired religious narrative built on fear, shame, violence, judgment, or impossible expectations. And it is not the hollow self-focused message culture keeps selling us either. Reconstructing Dad calls readers into something far deeper, richer, and more life-changing—the breathtaking reality of a Father who has never stopped pursuing His children.

• For every weary heart.
• For every wandering child.
• For every believer who has quietly wrestled with feeling like God is distant, displeased, or impossible to approach.

This book comes as a healing balm to the orphan spirit, dismantling false views of God and rebuilding faith on the person of Jesus.

Because if we misunderstand the Story, we will make it about something else.

But when we finally see Jesus clearly, we discover the Father has been far better than we ever imagined.

And He’s still standing at the edge of the road, arms wide open, ready to welcome us home.

Click here to learn more.