What is God Like?

What is God like? How would we even find out?

The obvious place to look is the Bible. But that is a bit problematic because people read the Old Testament and see a lot of war and killing and God’s wrath and judgement. Then they look at the New Testament and see Jesus’ compassion and self-sacrifice and they cannot quite reconcile the two. It is as if there are two different gods; or God changed dramatically between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

How else might we discover what God is like? We can look at His creation. God has revealed Himself in what He has made.

Psalm 19:1-4a

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

Romans 1:20

…since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

We can see God’s invisible qualities revealed in the things He has made. When we look at creation, what does it reveal about God?

·       The immensity of space, the billions of stars, the incredible beauty of the galaxies

o   The bigness and the majesty of God.

·       The vast variety of living things – animals and plants – some incredible in their beauty and in the way they function

o   The infinite creativity of God.

·       The incredible ways out bodies work – our hands, our brains…

o   The perfect design

·       And so much more

How else can we know what God is like?

Hebrews 1:1-4

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.

God has spoken… God has revealed Himself in many ways, but now He has spoke to us by His Son. Yes, God spoke through the prophets (and we have their words in the Bible); yes, God spoke through signs like fire and smoke; yes, God spoke through a donkey once, but now He has spoken through His Son.

Look at what this passage says: the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being. The radiance of God’s glory: Jesus shows forth the goodness of God. When we see Jesus, if our eyes are open, we glorify God because we see how good He is. Jesus is the exact representation of God’s being. Jesus is exactly like God. There is no difference between them. If we want to know what God is like, He is revealed most perfectly in Jesus. Jesus is the perfect revelation of God.

John 14:7-11

7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’

     8 Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’

9 Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Jesus talked about being in the Father and the Father being in Him. They were so much one that to see one was to see the other.

Colossians 1:15, 19-20

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

The Son is the image of the invisible God. God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Jesus. God is invisible but Jesus made God visible.

So, what is God like? Tell me what God is like simply from what we see in Jesus.

If Jesus is the exact representation of God, why do we have this problem of thinking that the God of the Old Testament is rather mean while the God of the New Testament is gentle and compassionate? Did God change in the year zero? Did he reinvent Himself?

The reality is that the Old and New Testaments are not as different as people think. Which Testament do these words come from?

Psalm 86:15

But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

That description of God is found in Exodus 34:6, Number 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Ps 86:15, Ps 103:8, Ps 145:8, Joel 2:13, and Nahum 1:3. The people of the Old Testament knew God to be compassionate… a God of grace and mercy… a God slow to be angry… overflowing with love and faithfulness. Some people think that the Old Testament God is always angry but the people of the Old Testament knew Him to be a God who is very patient; slow to anger. They knew Him as a God who waited and waited and gave opportunity after opportunity for people to turn away from their sin before He would judge them.

Do you remember that Jonah got very bad tempered because God saved the people of Nineveh? Jonah’s complaint was that God was too compassionate.

There is actually a huge amount about the love and mercy and forgiveness and goodness of God in the Old Testament.

Matthew 13:41-42

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Whose mouth did they come out of? Jesus’. The very Jesus that people think is “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”. Jesus talked about hell more, and more graphically, than anyone. Yes, the New Testament is full of the amazing love of God  - grace, mercy, patience – but there is also a lot of judgement.

Sometimes we want to decide what God should be like. We want a certain type of God so we declare that that is what God is like. Obviously, that is a little foolish. It is not dealing with reality. How can we know the real God? We see God revealed everywhere if we have our eyes open, but the principal way of knowing God is by looking at Jesus. He is the exact representation of God.

What we see in Jesus is compassion, mercy, forgiveness, love… Absolutely! But we also see Jesus standing up what is wrong and declaring that God will judge sin. And, of course, the book of Revelation describes the judgement at the end of the world.

All through the Old Testament and the New Testament we see mercy and judgement together. God will deal to those things that are wrong. There will be judgement. But, all of the time, God appeals to us to turn to Him for mercy. God does not want to judge.

Ezekiel 33:11

11 Say to them, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?”

In the Cross we see the judgement of God on sin. The wages of sin is death. God executed judgement. But in the Cross we also see the mercy of God. Justice requires that sin is punished but God voluntarily took that punishment on Himself. Jesus died so that we might not have to. That is the heart of God – the mercy of God. He gives us every opportunity to escape judgement.

In the Cross we see judgement… but we also see the incredible love of God.

In Jesus we see God perfectly revealed. If we want to know what God is like, then we can look to Jesus. The Father and the Son are not a good cop, bad cop routine. They are absolutely and completely in harmony. In these last days, God has revealed Himself in His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

1637