Category: Article

What is God like? It is impossible to put into human words in a complete way. God is love. He is a Father. He is perfect. He is just. He is jealous. He is a strong tower. He is a husband. He is a judge. He is so much more.

All of those references to God are anthropomorphic, meaning that human language and illustrations are used to help us to have a picture of who God is or what he is like. We understand that God is love because we, in some way, have seen humans love. We know that God is just because we, as humans, have seen justice carried out. We understand that God is a strong protector because, when the Bible calls God a strong tower, we can picture a strong fortress and apply the attribute of strength and unassailability to God.

Now, ponder this from Wayne Grudem:

“For example, we have an idea of love from human experience. That helps us to understand what Scripture means when it says that God is love, but our understanding of the meaning of “love” when applied to God is not identical with our experience of love in human relationships. So we must learn from observing how God acts in all of Scripture and from the other attributes of God that are given in Scripture, as well as from our own real-life experiences of God’s love, if we are to refine our idea of God’s love in an appropriate way and avoid misunderstanding. Thus, anthropomorphic language about God is true when it occurs in Scripture, but it can be understood rightly only by continual reading of Scripture throughout our lives in order that we may understand this language in the context of all of Scripture” (Wayne Grudem, systematic Theology, 159).

You and I must read and reread scripture in concert with our life experiences to better be able to grasp from day to day what our God is like. When I was younger, I understood some of what it meant that God is a father because I grew up with a father. Now I understand more of what it means that God is a father because I now am a father. With the experiences of life, I grow in my understanding of God’s attributes of patience, love, mercy, justice, and so much more.

I’ll give one more example. Being a pastor has helped me to come to gain a deeper understanding of some of the people and events in the Bible. I think immediately of Moses. He was charged by God with guiding a group of people through a wilderness and with directing them to be faithful to God. And Moses knew the sorrow of watching people who had seen the truth of God turn away from him and refuse to follow him. In a small way, every pastor has the experience of seeing individuals and families who, though they have clearly seen the truth of God and experienced his presence, turn away from following him faithfully. Thus, the life experience of a pastor helps the pastor to better understand the Bible’s picture of God.

Make no mistake, my experiences and understandings of God’s attributes do not change the truth of his attributes. If I have a warped view of parenthood, I will have an unclear picture of the reality of who God is. I could easily misunderstand who God is if I apply a warped vision of reality to him, especially if I overemphasize a metaphor to the exclusion of the remainder of the biblical picture of God.

Christians, let this encourage you to not give up on studying and restudying the word of God. You will never fully understand all of who God is. So, with each passing day and each gained experience, you should be able to, by God’s Spirit, understand a bit more of who God is and what he is like.

“Even if I try to make the “lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15) or the “fiery furnace” (Matt. 13:42) a symbol, I am confronted with the terrifying thought that symbols are not overstatements but understatements of reality. Jesus did not choose these pictures to tell us that hell is easier than burning.”

John Piper, Brothers We Are Not Professionals, 114.

Take a look at the essay

Invitation to the Pain of Learning – Mortimer Adler

http://www.cambridgestudycenter.com/artilces/Adler1.htm

Reading God’s word on a regular basis is a blessing and a discipline that should be a part of every Christian’s life. Personally, I find it very encouraging to read intentionally, using a plan. For several years now I have made it a point to read through the Bible each year using one of a variety of Bible reading plans.

The reading plan that I will use this year is Discipleship Journal’s plan (the same as I used last year). If you would like a copy of this plan, you can download it at the link below. The major benefit of this plan is that is suggests readings from a variety of parts of the scripture and it allows for days of catching up if you somehow do not manage to get your reading done on a particular day. Each day you will read from 4 different parts of the scripture, and each month only has 25 readings listed.

I’d love to have you join me as I work through the word of God again this year.

http://www.navpress.com/uploadedFiles/15074%20BRP.dj.pdf

Visit Justin Taylor’s blog to see a variety of other reading plans or to download the bookmark version of the reading plan I will be using (the bookmark plan is provided by Bethlehem Baptist Church).

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/12/bible-reading-plans.html

Justin Taylor inspired me to post President Lincoln’s original proclamation declaring the Thanksgiving holiday. His words are worth reading. Here is a sample (though you should read the entire thing):

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/tgproclamation.html

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No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863

From Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters, 27-28.

Let’s say you and I run into each other at Starbucks, and you start
telling me how much you’ve enjoyed getting to know my son, Jordan.
I’m delighted.
You go on to describe him as a five-foot-two saxophonist who has an
avid interest in cooking Italian food and playing cricket.
I give you a funny look. “You must be thinking of someone else. Jordan
is a six-foot-tall drummer who loves to eat, not cook, Italian food. And
though he excels in many sports, cricket isn’t one of them.”
But you continue extolling a short, sax-playing, pasta-cooking cricket
player as you repeat several times, “He’s just a great guy!”
Such praise would be meaningless because it would be based on inadequate
and inaccurate information. Your “doctrine of Jordan” would be
wrong. And however strong your appreciation, I think you’d like him more
after discovering what he’s really like.
It’s like that with us and God. He calls us not only to love him but to
“love the truth” about him (2 Thessalonians 2:10). We worship the One
who says he is the truth and who tells us, “the truth will set you free” (John
14:6; John 8:32). God wants everyone “to come to the knowledge of the
truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). And he reveals his wrath against those who “suppress
the truth” (Romans 1:18). Jesus said he would send “the Spirit of
truth,” and he asked God to sanctify his disciples “in the truth,” which he
identified as God’s Word (John 16:13; 17:17).
The better (i.e., the more accurately) we know God through his Word,
the more genuine our worship will be. In fact, the moment we veer from
what is true about God, we’re engaging in idolatry.
Regardless of what we think or feel, there is no authentic worship of
God without a right knowledge of God.

I was recently reading through C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, and came across a concept that I find very important. Lewis recognized that he, in grieving over the passing of his wife, was in danger of wanting to use God as his means to be reunited with her more than wanting God for God. Lewis writes:

“Am I for instance sideling back to God because I know that if there is any road to H it runs through him? But then of course, I know perfectly well that he can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching him, not as a goal, but as a road, not as the end, but as a means, you’re not really approaching him at all. That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions on the further shore: not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an end of what we can get only as a byproduct of the true end.”

(Sorry I have no reference to give, as I was listening to an unabridged audio of the book. This comes quite near the end of the book.)

Lewis’ words are challenging. Do we want God as a means to get to heaven and to be reunited with our loved ones, or do we want heaven in order to be with God? God does not condemn our desire to see our loved ones who have preceded us in death; in fact, he calls us to find comfort in the fact that they will rise from the dead on the Day of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-ff). But I do think that God demands that he be our ultimate goal and not the method we use to get something we want that is not him.