Hello all,
We have been studying, dialoguing and sharing our ideas and thoughts about God and His character for the past month. It’s been great fun, and we’ve had some great interaction face to face and listening on TalkShoe as well. We haven’t been alone in our endeavor to learn about God’s character. Before us came great people, kings, governors, theologians, shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors, preachers, sailors, nomads, etc… people just like you and me, who have understood the wonderful picture of God, His love, acceptance, mercy, justice (not to be confused with execution of judgment), grace.
Our view of God is the most important thing we can ever have in order to become friends who trust Him. If God is a vengeful, selfish, unforgiving, severe, arbitrary person it is virtually impossible to become His friend. We can become His servants, but not His friends. Throughout history there have been many servants of God, but few friends. The bible calls Abraham God’s friend, “And so Abraham was called God’s friend.” James 2:23 TEV. Moses, David and a few others were also ranked among those who are God’s friends, but the overall majority of God’s people were not singled out as His friends. They feared, they trembled, they were scared of God. One time the people of Israel even begged God to stop talking because they were afraid just His voice would consume them,“Speak to us yourself (Moses) and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Exodus 20:19 NIV. Was there reason to be scared of Him if Moses wasn’t? Was it because Moses was a better behaving child? How about him killing the Egyptian? How about his stubbornness, unbelief, lack of faith? Clearly the reason was not because of who Moses was, but what Moses understood God to be.
If we look at the Old Testament with the idea that God is different than Jesus, we might very well come to the conclusion that we should fear, be scared, tremble before God, not desiring to get close to God lest we die. If our picture of God is based only on the executions of judgment pronounced on those who didn’t do what God said, we may very well have quite a distorted picture of Him.
We will, in one of our dialogue nights, take a look at the God of the Old Testament and try to paint a picture of the reasons, the motives behind those incredibly terrifying acts of God, but for now, we should understand that God was not fully revealed to humanity until a certain point in time, when the full revelation of His character was shown.
Jesus Christ came in human flesh, helpless as a little baby to be close to humanity in hopes we can understand the true picture of God. Christ said later in His life, “I made you known to them, and I will continue to do so, in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and so that I also may be in them.” John 17:26 GNT. Christ declared that He made God known to the world. When Phillip, one of his disciples asked Him to show them the Father, “Jesus answered, “For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:8 GNT
Now, a mere declaration of Jesus means absolutely nothing, unless it is backed up by evidence, demonstration of its accuracy. To that, for the people of Christ’s day, the author of Hebrews writes, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Hebrews 1:1-3 NIV
The demonstration of the exact representation of God in Christ came in the way Christ dealt with people, which seemed so different than the way God dealt with people in the past. Was it God’s problem or the people’s problem? We can’t teach calculus to a five year old that needs to learn how to sit down and behave at the dinner table, correct? So at the time God had to deal with them where they were. One time He even said about them, “The people of Israel are as stubborn as mules. How can I feed them like lambs in a meadow?” Hosea 4:16 GNT.
Christ is the full revelation of God and the ultimate demonstration of that came when He was given all power from above, and this time He did not use it to whip people into shape, to scare them into serving Him, or all these other assumptions we have when explaining the God of the Old Testament, “Jesus knew that the Father had given him complete power; he knew that he had come from God and was going to God. So he rose from the table, took off his outer garment, and tied a towel around his waist. Then he poured some water into a washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.” John 13:3-5 GNT
The all-powerful God of the Universe, who created all things decided that the fullness of His character was to be revealed in bodily form. He took the form of a mere human, through an embryo and grew within the imperfections of the human body, the dependency of an infant upon his parents, the struggle to fit in through childhood, the awkwardness of adolescence, living among the poorest of Israel, among the lowly, without any particularly special physical trait, to show us who God is.
This is absolutely mind-boggling. It is so incredible, so precious, so inspiring to understand what God did when He came down from heaven. He chose to become one of us, then in return, when He was given all power, He knelt down and SERVED all His disciples. He washed their feet, their dirty, filthy, scabby feet, hoping that they would understand the point that He is willing to wash their character, He is willing to wash our character of our misconceptions about the kind of person He was, about the kind of God He was.
Please do not ever miss the point that God is just like Jesus, He loves you with unconditional love, He’s just hoping that we understand that and turn from fearing Him, trembling to get close to Him and instead that we become His friends.
In itself, these phrases might seem like mere claims, and to that argument of the evidence to believe in God and scripture, there’s a wonderful presentation given by Dr. Greg Boyd, of Christus Victor Ministries given at the Good News Tour, held in March 2009, in Vancouver, Canada.
Enjoy your week,
Marcelo
PS: Talking about those throughout history and around us who have this same picture of God, please check out these folks, you will not regret learning more about God from them.
Herb Montgomery - Renewed Heart Ministries
Brad Cole - Godscharacter.com
Greg Boyd - Christus Victor Ministries
Ty Gibson - Light Bearer Ministries
