Q. Will believers see God in eternity? We read, “God is spirit” (John 4:24); “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible…” In John 14:9, Jesus tells Philip, “whoever seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus is teaching about His deity and unity with the Father. But perhaps these words apply for eternity and all believers? That is, we will “see” God only in the person of Jesus?
Personally I would say that in eternity, believers will see God. In fact, they will experience amazing, loving fellowship with God, in the full expression of the Godhead in the three persons of the Trinity. That is, believers will not only see God the Son, they will see God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. (And perhaps at that point we will finally understand how the three are also actually one!)
I think the scriptures you have cited, and others like them, indicate that in this life on earth, no human being may or can see God. As God said to Moses, “no one may see me and live.” But I believe it’s different in eternity. The apostle John wrote in his first epistle, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
I acknowledge that many interpreters take this to be a reference to the return of Christ, in which case this would be saying no more than what you are asking about, that even in eternity we will see God only in Christ. But I think it’s important to realize that the verb translated “appeared” and “appears” is actually passive, so John is saying that what we will be “has not yet been made to appear” or “been revealed,” and that we will see God when he “is revealed.” The closest antecedent in the context of “he” and “him” is “God.” So I understand this to be a reference to believers seeing God in the fullness of the Godhead.
Meyer says about this statement in his commentary, “For man in his earthly body, God is certainly invisible; but it is different with the glorified man in his spiritual body; he will not merely know God (the believer has knowledge already here), but see God.” That is a fair statement of how I would also understand this myself.
Good Question 