John 14:8

‘Philip says to him, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be sufficient for us”.'

As yet they were not fully enlightened and could not grasp this. Philip, for example, had not yet had time to contemplate the wonder of Christ, and he therefore did not quite appreciate what Jesus meant by their having seen the Father in Him. Like some today he thought that Jesus was simply referring to a kind of general ‘seeing of the Father' by analogy. But he wanted something more. He wanted actually to see God. He wanted some wonderful revelation of God, some theophany, some manifestation of deity, like Abraham (Genesis 15:17), Moses (Exodus 3:2; Exodus 33:23), the elders (Exodus 24:9), the people of Israel (Exodus 24:17) and Isaiah of old (Isaiah 6:1). He wanted to truly ‘see the Father'. That, he knew, would confirm his and the disciples' faith. He has not yet realised that he had in fact seen greater things than those men of old, for he has walked with God and had watched Him reveal Himself daily.