Why No One Can See God and Live

Dane C. Ortlund on Jonathan Edwards:

The reason no one can see God and live is not God’s wrath or justice, but because “God is arrayed with an infinite brightness” that “fills with excess of joy and delight,” so that “the joy and pleasure in beholding would be too strong for a frail nature.” According to Edwards, it isn’t God’s terribleness that would incinerate us. It is the joy that would erupt within us that we cannot handle.