WHO IS GOD?

This is not such an easy question to answer, but the answer is essential. It serves as the foundation of our lives – our hopes, dreams, decisions, ethics, commitments, and understanding of ourselves. He provides the lens through which we can understand all else. God is the Light who sheds light on all else, as C.S. Lewis had famously claimed:

·       I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/c_s_lewis_162523

How do we know that by this Light, we can see all else? Because, through this Lens, we can observe a coherent worldview, a completed puzzle, where all the pieces fit together, and where a coherent picture emerges. This worldview also serves as a roadmap that has enabled countless millions to navigate their lives profitably.

Of course, the knowledge of God isn’t so simplistic and doesn’t take shape immediately. How then do we know that we simply didn’t impose our own mental image of God upon the puzzle, pieced together by our desires and needs? How then can we be sure that we know the One in whom we have placed our hope?

There is another analogy that might be helpful. I like the books entitled, “Magic Eye.” They contain collections of computer-generated images. They look like a hodge-podge, but if you can allow your eyes to go out of focus, a coherent image, for example, of a horse or unicorn, begins to emerge. I ask myself, “Was it I who created this image of the confused computer mosaic?” No! How do I know this? Simple – in the back of the book the image is provided, and it precisely matches and confirms the image that had emerged for me.

Does this analogy tell us anything about our knowledge of God? I am confident that it does. How? I have found that the knowledge of God, which had emerged from my experience matches the picture that the Bible presents, even though it is incomplete. And without the missing parts in hand, the two pictures we derive do not perfectly fit together.

We are all faced with this problem. Moses had been crushed by the Israelite sin with the Golden Calf, which had resulted in God striking down thousands of His people. It had been the first time that God had used deadly force against His people, and this left Moses staggering for answers. He, therefore, asked His God to show him His glory, and God granted his request by revealing to Moses His character:

·       The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. (Exodus 34:6-8 (ESV)

Evidently, God’s Self-disclosure had satisfied Moses, since he bowed and worshipped, even though he hadn’t received a comprehensive revelation of God and His ways, and God had prepared him for the fact that His revelation wouldn’t explain everything. Moses had been shown His backside but not His face, which concealed the secret things of God (Deuteronomy 29:29).

Even now, we do not have all the pieces of the puzzle, even though we have been shown far more of the face of God than Moses. Although our puzzle is not complete, I think it is complete enough for us to proceed confidently with our lives.

I’m sure that Moses had also been left with many questions like, “God, since you are all-powerful, why could You not have taught us a less costly lesson?” However, it seems that he had been satisfied with God’s self-disclosure regarding His righteousness, faithfulness, and love. As a result of what Moses already did understand about his God, He was willing to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7; Romans 8:24-25).

In the midst of his ongoing suffering, Job had been struggling with the idea of walking by the faith he already had in God. Instead, he brought damning accusations against God. Job thought that he had enough understanding of God to do this. Therefore, God disciplined him with about 60 basic questions to show Job that, if he couldn’t answer any of these, He certainly lacked the necessary understanding to bring his indictments against God. Job got the point and humbly repented of his sin (Job 42:1-5).

This is a lesson that we too must master. Even though far more has been revealed to us than to Moses and Job, there is still so much that we don’t understand. This has become even more obvious to us through the revelations of science. Science cannot even answer the basic question like, “What is light, matter, space, and time?” While it can observe quantum events, science remains clueless about them and even about much more mundane things like gravitational causation or even the workings of any law of science.

Awareness of our lack of understanding should humble us, as it had for Job, but yet we can be confident about our Lord. In fact, we need to be confident:

·       Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:19-23)

How can we be confident about God and His Gospel, even though there remains so many things that we don’t fully understand? Ultimately, it is God who is able to give us this confidence and to enable us to stand in this assurance:

·       Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

If God is able to make any of us stand in confidence, we mustn’t despair that we are too sinful (Romans 5:20) or too weak (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) to live for Him. Instead, if God is for us, there is nothing that can disqualify us (Romans 8:31-32) from receiving His gift of assurance and confidence. However, we also have a role to play, as God had instructed Joshua:

·       “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:7-8)

In the next chapter, I'd like to take up the question about, "What specifically do we need to know about God from the Bible."