Unseen

I sometimes think that it would do us all great good if we faced that statement in 1 Peter 1:8 every morning of our lives … Peter says, in effect: ‘Whom having not seen ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with a joy that baffles description, beyond description and full of glory’

Joy Unspeakable, 184–85

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

If there be so much delight in God, when we see him only by faith, 1 Peter 1:8., what will the joy of vision be when we shall see him face to face?

Thomas Watson

O, woe is me,

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Ibid.

William Shakespeare

That is, concentrate your concern on the eternal, not the temporal. “Fix [your] eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”

Norman Geisler

Jesus offends men because he lays emphasis on the unseen life, because he speaks of motives rather than of actions.

Oswald Chambers

Psalm 82 has at its core the unseen realm and its interaction with the human world.

Michael S. Heiser

Faith rises or falls according to the measure in which we remember the things which are unseen.

J. J. M. Roberts

It gives me a deep comforting sense that “things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.”

Helen Keller

What is the life of saving faith, when once begun, but a continual leaning on an unseen Saviour’s word?

J. C. Ryle

The author’s point, then, is that while no one can claim to have seen God (apart from God’s one and only Son) believers who love one another demonstrate that the unseen God lives in them.

Colin G. Kruse

(2) True faith is action taken in response to the unseen God and his promises.

George Guthrie

Enoch is, indeed, a glorious example of how God approves faith, the faith that genuinely trusts the unseen, the unseen God, his unseen reward of grace, the faith that the readers must not throw away (10:35).

Richard C. H. Lenski

He became human that we might become divine; he revealed himself in a body that we might understand the unseen Father; he endured man’s insults that we might inherit immortality.

Athanasius of Alexandria

Here, O my Lord, I see thee face to face; / Here would I touch and handle things unseen, / Here grasp with firmer hand th’ eternal grace, / And all my weariness upon thee lean.

Horatius Bonar

Faith embraces the unseen as though it were visible and the future as though it were present.

David L. Allen

3812 We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the “real” world and the unseen world as the “unreal” world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite. Through faith, the unseen world increasingly takes shape as the real world and sets the course for how we live in the seen world.

Philip Yancey

The proof lies in an invisible, unseen but powerful energy that visits the human soul when the gospel is preached—the Holy Ghost!

A. W. Tozer

Faith sees the unseen! Believing is seeing.

R. Kent Hughes

The most significant act was placing the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, where it would remain, unseen except once each year by the high priest.

Larry Richards

The unseen God thus reveals Himself through the visible love of believers; the love that originated in God and was manifested in His Son is now demonstrated in His people.

John F. MacArthur

God’s unseen character is revealed through things that can be seen.

R. C. Sproul

When believers assemble to celebrate the ordinances, there are present messengers unseen by human eyes.… Heavenly angels … are present. These unseen visitants are present on every such occasion.

Ellen Gould White

Biblical faith is not a “leap in the dark.” It is based on fact and grounded in evidence. It is defined in Hebrews 11:1 as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith gives assurance and certainty about unseen realities.

John F. MacArthur

The second thing mentioned in connection with Noah’s faith is its sphere. His faith laid hold of things “not seen as yet,” that is, of things which pertained to the realm of the unseen.

Arthur Walkington Pink

The general scope of the statement is to indicate that the future and the unseen can be made real by faith.

R. Kent Hughes

Esther is the classic illustration of God’s providence as He, the unseen power, controls everything for His purpose.

John F. MacArthur

“When God wants to carry a point with his children,” Emerson said, “he plants his argument into the instincts.” Our deepest instinct is heaven. Heaven is the ache in our bones, the splinter in our heart.44

Mark Buchanan, Things Unseen

Mark Buchanan

Faith deals with things future (what we hope for) and things unseen (what we do not see).

David G. Peterson

Lot chose the things that are seen and found them corrupting. Abram looked and saw through the eyes of faith the things that are unseen, and he found great assurance and peace.

R. Kent Hughes

We are to train, discipline, and educate the mind so that we may think in a heavenly channel, that we may dwell on things unseen and eternal, which will be discerned by spiritual vision.

Ellen Gould White

The object of the Christian’s faith is unseen reality.

A. W. Tozer

Ezekiel presented the king of Tyre as an evil tyrant who was animated and motivated by a more sinister, unseen tyrant, Satan.

Lamar Eugene Cooper Sr.

For us as men and women of earth, these are the unseen realms, nevertheless every bit as “real” as those we see. Only with spiritual perception, however, can we be in touch with this realm.

Robert E. Picirilli

Faith, it now emerges, is not only the assurance of unseen realities, and the backbone of hope, as in verse 1; it is not only the belief that God exists and rewards those who seek him, as in verse 6; it is also the badge that marks people out as members already of God’s true people.

N. T. Wright