“The atheist’s problem is not so much with the existence of God but with the character of God.”[1]
What is God like? That is the most important question, and try as we might, we cannot escape it. We naturally form images in our minds of what we think God is like. Some of these images are a mishmash of things we have been taught; most are images we have fashioned through life experiences. What is your image? Fill in the blank: God is like __________.
God is a like a dotting old grandfather who is kind to everyone and hands out candy.
God is like a sleeping giant who created a vast universe and then went on a never-ending sabbatical.
God is like a panicking juggler who has lost complete control of the world, who is racing around to put out fires but can’t run fast enough.
God is like a stern old puritan woman with her hair in a bun and a ruler in her hand.
God is like that old friend that you haven’t spoken to in a long time, but who is always there to listen.
What’s your image? What’s the right image? Our images of God are extremely important. They color how we view life, how we view ourselves, how we view others, how we view this universe and our destiny. The writer A.W. Tozer claimed that “What comes into our minds when we think of God is the most important thing about us.”[2] The reason for this is because we think of God as the “Ultimate” thing, and whatever is “Ultimate” in our lives becomes our image of God. This tends to make us imagine God the way we want him to be. As John Mark Comer says, “We usually end up with a God who looks an awful lot like us.”[3] Our image of God will also be colored by what we have experienced and how we have been treated. In fact, how we really view God may be buried way down, trapped under all our life experiences.
So, what is the right image? What is God like, and how in this world can we know what he is like?
HOW CAN WE KNOW WHAT WE CAN’T COMPREHEND?
If there is a Creator behind this massive, finely tuned, beautiful universe, then our little “created” minds wouldn’t be able to comprehend him, as if we were on his level. God really is INCONCEIVABLE. So how can we know what we can’t comprehend? God would have to somehow be the one who makes himself known, makes the first move. And because he is INCONCEIVABLE, he would have to somehow accommodate himself to us, make himself accessible. The INCONCEIVABLE, the Transcendent, would somehow have to become Imminent, would have to “encounter” humans in a way that reveals himself. If God would only do that.
He does. That is what the Jewish and Christian Bible is, real stories of God encountering men, women, and children. The Bible, and all who have come to meet and trust the God revealed in it, insists that “life is not a syllogism of theology, or a blueprint for morality, or a scheme of therapy, but an odd tale told by people who have stories of concrete transformation, of facing chaos and receiving new life, of laughing deeply at God’s joy, and God’s gift, and God’s victory, and daring to mock the chaos that has lost its power.”[4]According to these stories, from the very beginning God has been intensely interested in revealing himself to humans, accommodating himself to us, and desiring an intense, personal relationship with us.
This is not just something that happens every once in a great while to a few “special people.” According to the Bible, God reveals himself constantly, to everyone, to all nations, and in many and various ways: “The eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him;” “His purpose is that people will seek him, reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (2 Chron. 16:9, Acts 17:27). As Peter Kreeft writes, “The God of the philosophers is simply ‘Being,’ but the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob creeps up behind us and says, ‘Boo!’”[5]
SOMETHING UP THERE WHERE HUMANS ARE NOT?
For many, God is “something up there where people are not.” But that “something up there” kind of God is not the God of the Bible. This is so important for us to realize. The first few books of the Bible are filled with God drawing near to be actively involved with us. Genesis has this interesting statement that God “walked” in the garden of Eden in the “cool of the day,” seeking to encounter Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8). This same description of “walking” is used to describe a relationship God had with a man named Enoch, who “walked with God” but then “he was no more, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). I get the image of God and Enoch taking long walks together, sharing their hearts with each other.
When you read the first few books of the Bible, you can’t help but realize that this God wants to “be with” people. God, with unbelievable power and force, creates a vast universe, only to step back and watch it develop. But before long, here he is, interacting with his creatures, being “with” people. He is with them when they’re hungry, with them when they’re sad, with them when they die, with them when they do stupid things, with them even when they do bad things, with them when people mistreat them, with them through the good times and bad. What God desperately wants, the only real “command” he gives people, is to “Love Me and let Me love you!” (Deut. 6:5ff; Micah 6:8).
When you look at the stories in the first few books of the Bible, three dominant themes stand out:
- God is a “with us” kind of God. God is an extrovert! He passionately desires to be with people and finds a way to be with us.
- God is a promise maker. God promises blessings if people will let him encounter them.
- God is a promise keeper. God’s very nature is faithfulness, and he repeatedly proves that he can be trusted to keep his promises. The word the Old Testament uses for promise is berith, or covenant. When God makes a covenant, he keeps it, no matter what.
God loves to be with humans, he makes promises that are for our good, and he keeps these promises no matter what. These three themes are displayed in vivid color in the greatest story in the Old Testament, a story that is retold in the spring of every year by Jacob’s descendants. It is the story of God delivering Abraham’s and Jacob’s descendants from slavery in Egypt, journeying “with” them through the wilderness, and delivering them to a good land, not just for their own sake, but so that their relationship with this God might bless the entire world (which it has). It is the story where, for the first time, God tells us his name. In our next blog, we will find out God’s real name.
You can read more of what God is like in my book Meet God (Before You Die), available on Amazon and at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/meet-god-before-you-die.
[1] Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to Christian Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012), 110.
[2] A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (San Francisco: Harper, 1961), 1.
[3] John Mark Comer, God Has a Name (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 25.
[4] Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 111.
[5] Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 126.