God is Personal
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Have your Bibles ready this morning because we will be looking at the Bible as whole this morning and not really camping in one location of the Bible.
What we are going to discussing in this series of messages is Does your God match with the God of Holy Scripture?
Confronting your God vs. the God of the Bible
Confronting your God vs. the God of the Bible
How is your version of God going to match up with what God Himself reveals about Himself?
But first lets lay a foundation of reason and thought before we just dive into this very massive topic about Who is God?
There is another question that quickly surfaces when talking about God even in the general since.
Has God made Himself known and if so, how does God make Himself known?
Has God made Himself known and if so, how does God make Himself known?
This is where the Doctrine of revelation is vital to the knowing who God really is, without trying to guess at it.
This doctrine is basic to a proper understanding of the following:
What we believe.
Why we believe.
Where we get our beliefs.
Why we believe these beliefs are true.
What is revelation exactly?
Revelation: the unveiling of absolute truth which had been previously hidden.
Revelation: the unveiling of absolute truth which had been previously hidden.
Understanding Theology, Volume One Introduction
Greek apokalypsis: ‘an uncovering, a laying bare, making naked’.
2. It presupposes that something is hidden and that this something has been disclosed (revealed, or unveiled).
(a) A gossip columnist may say, ‘I can now reveal that.…’
This series of messages has to do with with revelation of God Himself and the truth about Him.
Understanding Theology, Volume One Introduction
1. There are therefore assumptions in our study:
(a) That God has revealed himself.
(b) That God has revealed truth about himself.
2. God is, therefore, knowable and we can know things about him.
But some of you may be asking, Why is this study important?
It makes us face the most fundamental truth about our faith: “how do we know the Bible is true and we are not deceived?
It forces us to face some of the assumptions many of us have accepted uncritically - but which others have questions about.
It will help us to defend the faith when we are up against the secular, atheistic mind.
15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;
Many of us have to rely on someone stronger or more able than ourselves to answer even the most fundamental question. This is not an impressive testimony.
Well you say, I am not bothered with intellectual questions.
True, because our lives being lived out for Christ will be the greater witness, but when we run into the more cerebral person, it will bring glory to God when he or she sees we have had to think through our beliefs about who God truly is.
We should all be making the effort to become more stronger and more confident in our own faith when we have wrestled with some of the questions we have swept under the carpet for too long.
So lets start comparing your God with the God of the Bible and see if it matches at all.
Knowing about the God of the Bible.
God is… Personal
God is… Personal
This means He is knowable personally but that He is a person.
This means He is knowable personally but that He is a person.
All the members of the Trinity are persons (which I am sure we will be discussing in more detail the Trinity of God at a later time.)
God therefore is never “it” but ‘he’. We will come back to his personal masculine nature revealed in scripture here in just a moment.
But first, we often us the word “God” to define God. However the problem with that is, when you use that word, the question arises, which god are you talking about. The word “god” is a very generalized term. For example, the phrase “In God we Truth”
Since scripture reveals God in a personal since God Himself has given Himself a personal names and titles. We will not be going through all the names of God but will look at the two most commonly used in Scripture.
Elohim, which refers to His power and transcendence,
Elohim, which refers to His power and transcendence,
Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms Transcendence
transcendence. The attribute of God that refers to being wholly and distinctly separate from creation (although always actively involved in and with it as well).
The name Elohim implies that He is ‘way out there’, beyond our reach. (1 Kings 8:27)
27 “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You. How much less this temple which I have built!
The english word “God” in this text is the Hebrew word “Elohim”
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Yahweh, which refers to his personal being (‘I am that I am’) and immanence,
Yahweh, which refers to his personal being (‘I am that I am’) and immanence,
Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms Immanence
immanence. The idea that God is present in, close to and involved with creation.
Unlike pantheism, which teaches that God and the world are one or that God is the “soul” (animating principle) of the world, Christian theology teaches that God is constantly involved with creation without actually becoming exhausted by creation or ceasing to be divine in any way
immanence = close at hand (Exodus 3:14 ).
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
This aspect of God became clearer when he was revealed by Jesus as the Father (Matthew 6:9; 11:27 ). “Father” of course implies a closeness in relationship.
27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
The God of the Bible is seen as essentially masculine.
The God of the Bible is seen as essentially masculine.
All persons of the Trinity are referred to as ‘he’.
When God made Adam the latter was in God’s own ‘image’ (Genesis 1:26 ), hence Adam was masculine not feminine.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
We will come back to this verse here in just a moment but first.
Woman was made for man and from man (Genesis 2:22–23 ).
22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”
Any attempt to make God feminine is contrary to the plain revelation of Him in the Bible.
All the evidence contained in Scripture agrees that God revealed Himself to mankind in a male form. However, God is Spirit and by no means is He anything like us.
So God’s true nature needs to be understood. God is a Person, obviously, because God exhibits all the characteristics of personhood: God has a mind, a will, an intellect, and emotions. God communicates and He has relationships, and God’s personal actions are evidenced throughout Scripture.
As John 4:24 states, John 4:24
24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Since God is a spiritual being, He does not possess physical human characteristics.
However, sometimes figurative language used in Scripture assigns human characteristics to God in order to make it possible for us to understand God.
This assignment of human characteristics to describe God is called “anthropomorphism.”
This assignment of human characteristics to describe God is called “anthropomorphism.”
Anthropomorphism is simply a means for God (a spiritual being) to communicate truth about His nature to humanity, physical beings. Since humanity is physical, we are limited in our understanding of those things beyond the physical realm; therefore, anthropomorphism in Scripture helps us to understand who God is.
Some of the difficulty comes in examining the fact that humanity is created in God’s image.
Genesis 1:26-27 says,
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Both man and woman are created in the image of God (Elohim), in that they are greater than all the other creations as they, like God, have a mind, will, intellect, emotions, and moral capacity.
Animals do not possess a moral capacity and do not possess an immaterial component like humanity does. The image of God is the spiritual component that humanity alone possesses.
God (Elohim) created humanity to have a relationship with Him. Humanity is the only creation designed for that purpose.
That said, man and woman are only patterned after the image of God—they are not tiny “copies” of God.
The fact that there are men and women does not require God to have male and female features. Remember, being made in the image of God has nothing to do with physical characteristics.
Scripture contains all the revelation God gave to humanity about Himself. In looking at what Scripture tells us, there are several observations of evidence about the form in which God revealed Himself to humanity.
Scripture contains approximately 170 references to God as the “Father.” By necessity, one cannot be a father unless one is male. If God had chosen to be revealed to man in a female form, then the word “mother” would have occurred in these places, not “father.”
In the Old and New Testaments, masculine pronouns are used over and over again in reference to God.
As we have already seen in one vs. today, Jesus Christ referred to God as the Father. And Jesus did several times and in other cases used masculine pronouns in reference to God.
The New Testament Epistles (from Acts to Revelation) also contain nearly 900 verses where the word theos—a masculine noun in the Greek—is used in direct reference to God.
While God makes allowances in order to help us understand Him, it is important to not try to “force God into a box,” so to speak, by placing our opinions on Him that are not appropriate to His nature.
God is a personal God, who has made Himself known by divine revelation. Surrender this day to His revelation not mans explanation of who he may or may not be.