Chapter 9
Who Is God?
“In the beginning God.” Who is God?
It is easy to state that God exists, but how does He exist? Does God have a
body, or a form with which his intellect is housed? The Bible says we are
created in the image of God, does that mean God has a body like us? Let’s see
if we can’t tackle one of the most complicated doctrines in all of
Christianity.
The
Bible says, “God is a Spirit…”[1] This word Spirit is the
Greek word pneuma, meaning air or breath. Neither air nor breath have a body.
This makes perfect sense according to what we studied when we talked about
dimensions. If God had a body, it would mean that God is held by a dimension
and if God is held by a dimension it must be concluded that something created
that dimension and thus God is not the originator of creation. Thus god must
not exist, for we would go on forever explaining a god higher and still higher
to create the gods that came before it.
Like I said in the chapter about the
4th dimension, God is dimensionless. God operates in many dimensions
but He himself is not created, and not held captive by creation. So what does
it mean then that God created man in His image? The word used for image in the
Hebrew means a phantom, or shadow. We are the shadow of the character of God.
God created us with the ability to experience emotion, to experience
relationships, and to love deeper than anything ever created. We have the gift
of man and woman, the ability usually reserved for God, the ability to create.
God bestowed us with these gifts because they are a revelation of His character
never before seen. In this aspect, we are created in the image of God. Not in
body and form, but in mind, character, and personality.
I
see God as the essence of things. God is formless. To see God would be like
trying to peer into a black hole. God does not “exist” in the way we see
existence. God was not created. We would not be able to see the form of God because
God does not have one. The universe is the representation of God, it is not
God, but it reveals truths about Him. If God were to pull back the curtain of
our created universe and give us a glimpse into His reality we would see
nothing because God has no created form accept that which he desires to relate
to us through. So if God does not have a body, who is Jesus, and why does He
have a body? That brings us to an important subject that is often taboo in
Christian circles, the nature of the trinity.
God, or Gods?
Who
is God, What is God, how does God exist? These are questions that have plagued
humanity from the time of creation till today. One thing I have learned
throughout my studies is that you can almost always take the popular view of
God and disregard it almost entirely. So who is God? We have already seen that
God cannot exist inside of this reality. Indeed God cannot exist inside any
reality at all, for to do so would be to be a created being himself, which if
we are to believe in God at all, we must believe that He is not created but is
himself the essence of creation. So what about this very controversial subject
of God being a part of a trinity? This is the idea of a triune God existing as
three separate individuals in one.
To
answer this question we need to examine the places in scripture where God is
revealed to humanity. Let go back to the very first time that God is ever
spoken of in the Bible. Genesis 1:1.
“In
the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the Earth was without
form, and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the waters.”[2]
So which God was this, Father, Son,
or Holy Spirit? The next couple verses give us a clue, it says in Genesis 1:2, “Let
US make man in OUR image.” Who is the “us” in this statement? Moses here first
refers to God in general as creating all of creation, he then refers to the
spirit, and then he refers to the plural form of God. What does this mean? Lets
go to John 1:1. Referring to Jesus, John says this:
“All
things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.”[3]
So John makes a claim here that
Jesus was the one who created all things. He is claiming that Jesus is God,
Jesus is the plural form of God, and He is the supreme deity, creator of heaven
and earth. Lets go back to the interaction of God with Moses. Specifically the
first time that Moses ever encountered God, at the burning bush.
“And
the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of
a bush…I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.”[4]
Notice that Moses refers to God as
the angel of the Lord. Is God also an angel? Why is this God so confusing? It
will all become very clear shortly. Look at what God tells Moses when Moses
questions his identity. Verse 14, “I AM THAT I AM” This statement is packed
with immense meaning. I AM is the word Hayah which means to exist, to always
be. In other words, God is claiming, I am the one that exists to exist. He
simply does. He is existence itself, He has always been, and without Him
nothing would be that is. Can you guess another time when this phrase was used
again? It is in the story of Jesus. The Jews were mocking Jesus because He
claimed that Abraham rejoiced to see His day and saw it. The Jew answered back,
“…Thou
art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them,
Verily, Verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM.”[5]
I
AM was the Greek word eimi, which means to exist, or to be. Jesus makes a claim
here, He is God. He is the everlasting existent one, and just as John claimed
at the beginning of His book, Jesus claims here, without Him, nothing was made,
that has been made. Jesus is the beginning of creation, the creator himself.
Jesus is God. What about Abraham seeing the day of Jesus? It says he rejoiced
to see His day, and saw it. We need to go back to the story of Abraham and see
what Abraham saw to understand what exactly Jesus meant by this. In Genesis
22:11 God has asked Abraham to kill his only son. As we will look at in future
chapters, God asked this of Abraham because Abraham thought that God was
actually capable of that. All the other gods around that time required child
sacrifice to be appeased, so Abraham just assumed that God was like that too.
So Abraham takes his only son up to the mountain of the Lord and prepares to
sacrifice his son on an alter. Just before he is able to perform the sacrifice,
however, the Bible says this:
“And
the angel of the LORD called unto him out of the heaven, and said, Abraham: and
he said, Here am I. And He said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do
thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast
not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.”[6]
This is what Jesus was referring to,
the day that Abraham saw, the day of Jesus. Here God is once more referred to
as the angel of the Lord, when that same angel claims he is God. This takes us
back to the question we had at the burning bush. Why is God referred to as an
angel? Lets take a look at a New Testament text that deals with God as an
angel.
“Yet
Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the
body of Moses…”[7]
This
verse is simply to distinguish Michael as the archangel in heaven. Now look at
who this archangel is. Revelation gives us a clue.
“And
there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and
the dragon fought and his angels.”[8]
Michael
was there at the beginning. He was there when Satan fell, and He was apparently
chief among the angels, leading the armies of the Lord. Not only was Michael
there at the beginning, but also according to Daniel, He will be there at the
end to. In Daniel chapter 12:1 it says that Michael will be the one to decide
when the time of the end has come. He is the one playing the active role in the
end of the world. The New Testament sheds light on this subject and nails down
the identity of Michael the archangel.
“…They
shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory.”[9]
Jesus
is referring to himself here. Revelation gives us even greater details into the
role of Jesus in the end of the world. We will not go into it that far in this
study, but it is enough to nail down that Michael the archangel is Jesus, who,
as we have learned is God.
If we begin to look into the subject
of all the times when God appears to humanity, we began to see something very
interesting. The pillar of cloud that led the Children of Israel through the
desert during the day, and the pillar of fire at night, that was Jesus, the
same one who spoke to Moses at the burning bush. The God who descended on the
mountain to speak with Moses in a voice like a trumpet, that was Jesus. Every
single time God interacts with humanity, it was Jesus. When Ezekiel portrays
his awesome vision of God he is describing Jesus. Lets look at his description
of God,
“…Upon
the likeness of a throne, was the likeness as the appearance of a man above
upon it. And I saw as the color of amber, as the appearance of fire round about
within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the
appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire,
and it had brightness round about it. As the appearance of a bow that is in the
cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness…”[10]
Now lets compare this with the
description of Jesus found in Revelation. John hears a voice like a trumpet, similar
to the voice heard by the children of Israel. And He turns to see the one who
is speaking with him and this is what He describes:
“I
saw…One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt
about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and His hair were white like wool,
as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto
fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many
waters.”[11]
This description is identical to the
description that Daniel gave in Daniel 10. In that vision Jesus explains to
Daniel that he was not able to come right away because he was resisted by the
prince of Persia. Just a few chapters before this Gabrielle told Daniel that
Michael was coming to him but had met with opposition from the prince of
Persia. This is yet another confirmation that yes indeed, Michael, God, Jesus,
the Angel of the Lord are all the same thing. They are describing God. So what
is my point? I promise I am about to make one. But before I draw my conclusions
let’s look at one more thing. Let’s look at John’s description of the thrown
room of God. John is taken into vision in Revelation 4, and He sees a thrown
room. He begins to describe almost the exact same image He saw in the first chapter,
complete with the description of Jesus and the seven golden lamp stands that
Jesus was standing between in the first chapter.
“…And
He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a
rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”[12]
John
then proceeds to tell us of this book that cannot be opened that is in the
right hand of the one seated on the throne. John recognizes that this book is
the revelation of God to humanity and without it being opened humanity would
not be able to be saved because this book reveals to the world the true
character of God. No one was worthy to open it, because no one was worthy to
reveal to the universe who God really was. But then one of the elders seated
before the throne of God says this:
“Weep
not; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed
to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof. And behold, and lo, in
the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain.”[13]
This lamb takes the book and begins
to open the seals. This is an allegory to what actually takes place. It was
shown John to reveal to him something of God. Both He who sat on the thrown and
the Lamb are a description of the same thing; they both represent Jesus. And now
we come to my point. Whenever God is seen by humanity, it is ALWAYS Jesus. The
father is never seen.
Jesus
says in, “I and my father are one”[14],
and again, “…He that hath seen me hath
seen the father…”[15]
You see Jesus is God. There is no such thing as
three separate individuals ruling together as one. There is God, plain and
simple. Why then does the Bible speak of God in so many different forms? Here
is what I believe to be the reason; God is seeking to reveal Himself, the non-created
and eternally existent one, to the finite created being. How does the
nonexistent relate to the existent? He reveals himself to them in a way they
can understand. He prepares himself a body so that we can understand who God is
in terms of His relation to humanity. From the beginning, God has chosen to
reveal to His creation Himself in their form. God is triune, but not in the
classical understanding of the trinity.
God is so multidimensional that He has to reveal
himself to Humanity in multiple ways. There are not just 3 by the way.
Everything created is a revelation of who God is to humanity and indeed to all
created beings. Every plant, every rock, every mountains, every planet, every
star, every galaxy, is a revelation of who God is. But to his sentient creations
God specifically reveals himself in a trinity to help us understand a little of
what He is like. For all eternity we will be exploring the dimensions of God,
discovering new aspects of the character of God that we never thought possible.
It isn’t this way for just humanity, I propose
that this is how God interacts with everything He has ever created. Remember
Michael the archangel? Why would God be revealed as an Angel? I believe it is for
this simple reason, God created angels, thus he revealed himself to them in a
way that they understood. That same Michael made himself in the image of
humanity to reveal to us, and the entire universe, who God really is. We will
never see the father, or the Spirit, “why?” you might ask. The answer is
simple, because Jesus is the father. Jesus is God made into the likeness of
sinful flesh, the three dimensional representation of the father, So that we
could understand who God is. The personable creator of the entire galaxy, all
billions and billions of light years of it, He desires us to know and
understand who He is. If this God exists, oh how exciting eternity will be.
I'd look forward to hearing you expand on this. Fascinating.
ReplyDeletePart 2 coming up! :)
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