II.

Keith Small: A Biblical View of God

To begin to understand the Bible’s view of God, we must understand the way in which the Bible was written. It is a collection of 66 individual books, written through more than 40 authors over about 2000 years. It is assembled in a roughly chronological order, and its view of God unfolds throughout this chronology as God chose to reveal Himself in actions, words, and even visits to specific people and places in history.

Also, there is a progressive revelation of God’s nature and character, as time passes, as He interacts with individuals and nations, and as significant events occur that bring facets of His being into sharp focus. Probably the most significant thing that can be observed about God in the Bible, is that He has a deep and constant concern, to not only reveal His will, but to also reveal Himself, and to do that in the context of relationships with people. I’d like to present an overview of how the Bible presents these things and the aspects of God’s nature and character that are emphasized.

A. Creation:

The Bible starts with the words,[1]

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let their be light,” and there was light…" (This is the first of eight declarative statements of creation, calling things into being through His word.)

From this we can learn that God is the creator of a beautiful and useful world. He is separate from creation, above it, so to speak. He is the ruler and sovereign over creation. Yet the Bible also has some enigmatic statements. The Spirit of God is mentioned - this is not an angel in the Bible, but is spoken of as God’s own personal spiritual being. In the Bible, no angel is ever called, “the Spirit of God”.

Also, God’s word or speech is mentioned, and later in the Bible that Word is treated as a person.[2] In the 7^th declarative statement of creation, God created mankind, with the words: "Let us make man in our image…" - one of only three times in the Bible that God speaks in the first person plural. While the God of the Bible can be distinguished as unique and separate from creation, from the outset there is an enigmatic allowance for His inner identity to somehow be plural.

B. The Garden and the Fall

Genesis 1:27 states that mankind was made uniquely in the image of God.  When you unpack this idea, it is saying that there is something about us that is like God in a way that no other creatures share. Intellect, aesthetics, emotion, will, morality, personality, and the ability to relate to each other and to God as individuals seem to be at the heart of this idea of our being made in God’s image. We were made to know God. In the Bible, the Garden is on this earth, and the Bible’s story of Adam and Eve before their fall is a picture of them as God’s deputies on the earth, ruling and enjoying intimacy with God. The account even describes God walking in the Garden with them and speaking directly to them. Their direct disobedience to God breaks the harmony of their relationship. They shamed God with their ingratitude and their selfishness. They earned a just punishment by disobeying Him, their Sovereign. They were punished, put out of the Garden, made subject to death and Satan’s temptations and oppression, and separated from God’s presence. This story sets out a basic principle that the rest of the Bible develops, that the primary effect of our sins is separation from God. One Old Testament prophet said it this way:[3]

            "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your sins have separated you from your God;

            your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear."

C. Abraham

Skipping forward we come to Abraham. God generously gave him children when he was childless and made him the father of nations. God gave Ishmael to him through Hagar,  and miraculously gave him Isaac through his wife, Sarah, whom God enabled to conceive in her old age.

Through Abraham we learn that God makes and keeps His promises to people. Through a covenant with Abraham and especially through His descendents through Isaac, and Jacob, God revealed aspects of His trustworthy, covenant-keeping character through His dealings with a nation-Israel.

D. Moses

Moving forward we come to Moses. The Law that He gave Moses has many explicit statements about what God is like. For instance, the Shema, the creed of the Jews from the Torah, says [4]:

 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God  with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Concerning God’s nature - Oneness here is an emphasis on identity; Oneness as uniqueness, the only Lord in contrast to others. If it has a numerical significance, it is one that can allow a unity with internal diversity, similar to the cryptic statements in Genesis, but made a bit more explicit because the Hebrew word for “one” here “echad” emphasizes unity of components as opposed to strict mathematical oneness. There was a perfectly good Hebrew word to express strict numerical oneness- “yachid” which God used in telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, “your only son.”[5] Yachid is never used of the oneness of God in the Hebrew Bible. Echad is used, and it is used in other places, like for man and wife that “The two shall become one flesh.”[6]  This is a unity that allows internal distinctions.

Then, the command to “Love the Lord” speaks boldly of the importance of our relationship with God. Love God! In this covenant context God had made promises of love to the Israelites. They were to return that love. Though submission was implied, love is what God emphasized. He wants a loving relationship with people.

Then there is the Law of Moses itself, and at the center of the law was a sacrificial system for maintaining personal and national fellowship with God. In the center book of the Torah given to Moses it says [7]:

"For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life."

There were laws to maintain ritual purity and national identity. There was also a moral component to the law summarized in the 10 Commandments[8] - a strict moral standard that reflected the purity of God’s own moral character. The Law provided a basis on which the morally perfect and exalted God could dwell with a sinful people. Through the sacrificial system, the death of a substitute met the demand for God’s judgement.[9]

E. Visits by God

There were personal visits to Adam and Eve, Abraham, Jacob, Hagar, Moses, to name a few. Then after the law was given to Moses, and the priesthood and sacrifices were in use, God’s presence manifested itself in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple built by Solomon. These were personal manifestations of God in this world.

These demonstrate a facet of the God of the Bible that is different from the Greek and Roman conceptions of gods, as well as many of the other ancient near eastern religions. God was a living God who was not far off and distant. God has the ability to enter time and space personally and interact with people directly in various ways.

F. The Messiah

Most of the Old Testament prophets predicted facets of a mysterious person who would come and bring God’s plans to their ultimate completion. Their predictions centred around three roles - the ultimate prophet, the universal King, and the one high priest over the entire human race. They came to be summed up under the single title, Messiah.

Somehow, this Messiah would also be a divine figure. The Prophet Daniel was given this revelation: [10]

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations, and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed."

G. Jesus Christ

The Gospels and the rest of the New Testament assert that Jesus was this Messiah of the Old Testament predictions. Jesus claimed to be this figure numerous times, both explicitly and implicitly. The Jews understood completely that His miracles and teaching were claims to of His being the promised Messiah. But, they tended to fix on just one facet of His role - that of the King over all - and they wanted Him to rule and throw the Romans out of their land.  Jesus, though, deferred taking up the role of King, and focused on the roles of Prophet and Priest.

As sacrifices to cover the sins of the people were necessary in the Jewish religion to keep the people clean before God, so Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, at the cross taking on Himself the sins of all of mankind, acting as the sacrifice and then, after the resurrection, as the High Priest over mankind.

Also, he claimed to be God in Human flesh as the divine Messiah. This is the significance of the title He constantly used of Himself “Son of Man”, taken from that passage in Daniel I read earlier.[10] He also claimed deity by claiming for Himself the most holy personal name of God - Yahweh, the very name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush.[11] Jesus did this when he said to the Jewish leaders, “Before Abraham was, I Am” in Hebrew, Yahweh.[12] The leaders knew exactly what He was claiming and in their unbelief they picked up stones to stone him for blasphemy.

Jesus Himself said “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father.”[13]

Concerning God the Father, Jesus Christ revealed the conception of God as a loving Father. Jesus said,[14]

            "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

Jesus was asserting that God can be known personally. And this is the hope given to every Christian - that in this life they can know God through Jesus, and after death, they will live in God’s presence forever. Listen to words given to a prophet recorded in the last book of the Bible - Revelation:[15]

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne    saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away…I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are   its temple…. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life."

 H. The Lamb

That title, “Lamb”, brings us to our closing thoughts. One thread through the entire Bible is that it takes the shedding of the blood of a substitute for a person’s sin to be forgiven. Jesus, taking the title Lamb, is asserting that He is the sacrificed Lamb whose blood atones for sin. The first time the title was ascribed to him was by John the Baptist. When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John said as Jesus was walking toward him, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”[16]

In this picture of Jesus being the ultimate sacrificial lamb for the world’s sin, we have the Bible’s greatest picture of the character of God. He is a god whose moral standards cannot be compromised. He is pure, and He demands that anyone who has a relationship with Him is just as pure. God does not play favorites. He does not wink at sin, or look the other way. Our sin is a personal offence to Him - even just a wicked thought or look of lust.

Each of us, in all honesty, must recognize that we don’t measure up to this standard. All of us fail. One Old Testament prophet was given these words:[17]

            "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong."

But God, in love and grace, wants a relationship with His creatures. How can the chasm be bridged? The Bible says it was bridged by the cross - the atoning sacrifice of God’s Messiah Jesus. Jesus, as a perfect, sinless man, could bear our sins, because he had none of his own to bear. Since He was also God, he could bear the sins of the entire human race. He alone could do it. No other prophet or human in history could bear the world’s sin and shame and so effectively intercede for us. Jesus Himself said:[18]

 "For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Also, it was said at the beginning that just to know about God is not really the goal. The goal according to the Bible is to be restored to a relationship with him; in other words, to know Him personally. That is what is offered to each of us by Jesus in His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Your sins can be forgiven. Any shame you bear before God can be removed. Any dirtiness in your heart or life can be cleansed - all through Jesus. By dying on the cross and rising from the dead, He conquered sin, shame, death, and Satan himself. He offers that victory to you if you will only believe in Him as your Messiah, Saviour and Lord. I ask you to consider doing that tonight. If you do, the promise from the Bible is that you will enter a loving and pure relationship with God where your knowledge of Him will not only be academic, but personal and real.

Thank you very much for listening so carefully. May God bless you as you seek to understand Him better.