This is Our God
Morgan Nel | ACSI Assistant Director
God is unfathomable. Have you ever sat down and thought about God, who He is, where He is, and what He is really like? If you have, you’re certainly not alone.
When reading from the Book of Job, I notice that even God asked these questions, “Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty? Such knowledge is higher than the heavens – and who are you? It is deeper than the underworld – what do you know?” (Job 11:7-8 NLT).
No one can probe the limits of God. No one can understand everything there is to know about God. People are created beings, and we have limitations. He defines our limits and knows everything about us – a humbling thought. We can have knowledge about God, but only to the extent that He has revealed himself to us.
“Some secret things belong to the Lord our God. He does not let us understand everything. But he has shown us many things clearly. Those things belong to us and to our descendants for all time. They are the words of his Law that we need to obey.” Deuteronomy 29:29.
To me this means that God is not hiding things FROM us, but rather hiding things FOR us to discover. Although God is unfathomable, people can know Him.
God is invisible. What does God look like? Who has seen Him? Can we people see God?
God is Spirit and therefore invisible to human eyes. In fact, the word teaches us that no man has seen God, and no man can see God. No one can describe God’s being or personality unless God himself reveals certain aspects of his being and personality to them.
Jesus Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. Jesus says, “I have been with all of you for a long time. But still, you do not seem to know me, Philip! Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. So why do you say, “Show the Father to us”?” John 14:9
Multitudes saw Jesus and what the authors recorded in the Bible helps us today to see and know Jesus Christ. In Him, we can see God’s love and mercy, God’s holiness and righteousness, God’s sovereign might and humility, God’s truth and wisdom. God’s glory is the summary of all God’s attributes and perfections, including his presence. Jesus Christ is the radiance of God’s glory, the exact representation of God’s being. See Hebrews 1:3.
To me this means that even though God is invisible, he reveals himself to us.
God is unapproachable, as explained in 1 Timothy 6:16, “He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honour and power to him forever! Amen.” No religion can help us approach the Living God.
Does this mean that we are doomed? The answer is “No”. God, although being unapproachable, chose to approach us first by clothing himself with our weak human nature and came to live amongst us. In Jesus Christ, the Living God approached us in history, but still approaches us today. Only in Jesus Christ is God approachable.
Through Jesus we can know Him, receive Him and relate to Him in a personal way.