Understanding God - 1

Beloved of God,

We thank God for the opportunity to commence a new series, titled “Understanding God.” It is our humble contribution to our collective quest for the knowledge of God. To start with, we are focusing on introductory matters and exploring the difficulty we face as we seek to present God to men.

UNDERSTANDING GOD 1

The goal of this write-up is to encourage us unto a consideration of the Person and workings of God. Our responsibility is to sow the seeds that will set us on a course of discovery. And for those of us who invest our lives in seeking Him and pleasing Him, great will our reward be. We need to continually meditate on His words to us through Jeremiah: “Let not the wise man glory in His wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in His might; let not the rich man glory in His riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me…” (Jer. 9:23).

The man who seeks to introduce God to men must first overcome some obstacles. The first one is the challenge of knowledge. Since a man cannot give what he does not have, he needs a measure of the knowledge of God. Then, he discovers that he does not know everything and, therefore, cannot impart everything.
In fact, he discovers that he CANNOT know everything, for “the secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children…” (Deut. 29:29). He discovers that we must contend continually with these two realities (the secret things and the revealed things) until Christ comes. For now, it does not matter how much light we receive; some shadows (or dark patches) will remain in the background, giving us a less than perfect reflection of the images that God is showing us: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away…For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part: but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Cor. 13:9-12). The perfect day is still ahead of us(2 Pet. 1:19, Prov. 4:18).

The second obstacle is the challenge of communication. As we seek to describe the unseen, mysterious and infinite God, human language and words often prove inadequate. Paul, the apostle, confirms this. He relates his experience of being caught up to the third Heaven and how that he “heard UNSPEAKABLE words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4). He heard things he could not relate to other men, things that human words cannot describe. However, God delivered him from his predicament by forbidding him from relaying those words to other men. This difficulty accounts (in part) for the frequent use of comparisons in the Scriptures, as revealed in these examples: “the likeness of the glory of the LORD” (Eze. 1:28); “one like unto the Son of man” (Dan. 7:13, Rev. 1:13); “He that sat was to look upon like…” Rev. 4:3); “Whereunto shall we liken the Kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it”(Mk.4:30).

The solution to the problem of communication is for us to speak as the oracles of God, doing away with words produced by man’s wisdom and making use of words produced by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit (1 Pet.4:11, 1 Cor. 2:12-13, 1 Thes. 2:13). On this note, we move on to consider the specifics.