Strengthen your faith in God's word

In Genesis Jacob says that he seen God face to face. But in John, It says that no one has seen God?

This is a common "contradiction" that Jehovah's Witnesses love to use to "disprove" the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. The premise would be this:

Well if Jesus Christ was God then the following scripture disproves it!!

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

We need to remember that the God of the Bible is a trinity:

1 John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Also when we see John 1:18, we need to remember WHICH part of the Godhead the scripture is talking about.

When John 1:18 is being referenced, it stands to reason that Jesus is not being cited here but the Father:

Exodus 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

Yet when Jesus Christ came he said:

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

That's not to say that the Father was the thief but one could look upon Jesus Christ's face who is God in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16/Hebrews 1:8) and live without the threat of dying.

One more example of the proprietary attributes of each member of the trinity can be seen in the following:

Matthew 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

Hope the above explanation helps.

These are all the verses showing the pre-incarnation of Jesus Christ and “theophanies” of Jesus Christ from what I could find so far:

Gen. 3:8 "walking in the garden"; Gen. 14:18-20 (Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:1-21); Gen. 16:7,13; Gen. 18:1-3,16,22,33; Gen. 22:11-12,15-18; Gen. 31:11-13; Gen. 32:24-30; Ex. 3:2-6,13-14; Ex. 23:20-21; Ex. 24:9-11; Jud. 13:15-18,21-22 (Is. 9:6); 2 Kings 19:35-36; Job 42:5 (John 14:9); Dan. 3:23-25; Dan. 10:5-9 (Rev. 1:13-16)

In all these verses it shows a physical presence of God, an “angel of the Lord” that declares Himself to be God or a person declares the “angel of the Lord” to be God, a person(s) claiming to see God, shows attributes that belong only to God, or gives a detail hinting that this theophany or person is God. All of these appearances could only have been done by Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate state, It matters not if you agree or not in some of these verses.

What matters is that when God shows himself to anyone face to face, He shows His Son’s face, not the Father’s face. That is why in John 1:18, it says no one has “seen God at any time”. So we can be completely sure that when God manifested Himself in the Old Testament, it was through the Second Person of the Godhead, the Word of God. For, God the Son is eternally in “the bosom of the Father” and eternally procedes from the Father’s “bosom” as the “only begotten Son” (Greek monogenes). This makes Jesus Christ uniquely different from all the other sons of God (Angels and true believers in Jesus Christ). And so, as the living Word, God the Son reveals and speaks for God the Father ("he hath declared him").

Thus, anyone who has seen Jesus Christ our God face to face has seen the Father.

John 14:9 - "Jesus saith unto him, have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"
2 Cor. 4:4 - "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."
Col. 1:15 - "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:"

If there are those who still doubt that Jesus is God, then here it from His own lips:

Jesus Christ Himself says He is God: Matt. 28:18 (Matt. 11:27; John 16:15); John 8:24,28,58; John 10:30,33,36-38; John 13:19; John 18:5,6,8; Rev. 1:8,11,17; Rev. 2:8; Rev. 22:13 (Is. 41:4; Is. 44:6; Is. 48:12)

Jesus Christ Himself says He is Equal to God: John 5:17-30; John 10:30; John 12:44-45; John 14:7-9,11,20; John 15:23-24; John 16:15; John 17:5,10,21-24 (Is. 48:11)

And this is just a taste of God’s Mighty Word. There is so much more. Praise and Glory to our Triune God.