Who is God? How can we describe Him, His nature and His purpose?
In the OT days the Jews did not speak the name of God, hence they referred God as YHWH. This was done out of reverence to God so that no man would desecrate the name of God, since they would not be able to pronounce the name of God with these letters. His name was kept at a high esteem. He was considered Most Holy. This was his prime and key characteristic that is communicated all through the Bible. With the introduction of English language, for easy use, vowels were added to it for usage – YAHWEH, which means God.
During the OT days, whenever people were either blessed or
delivered from major issues in their life, they gave him a title. These were also
called as “names of God”, but they were simply dynamic dimensions of His
miraculous characteristics. Each name gave another aspect of His Power, His Grace,
His mercy to the people on earth. For
example, when Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac per God’s command to
him. In his obedience, just when he was
about to sacrifice Isaac, God provides a lamb to sacrifice instead of
sacrificing his son. God was testing his faithfulness and obedience to God. At
that very moment Abraham called God as Jehovah Jireh. The word Jehovah means God, or it is the transliterated
from Hebrew language from YAHWEH.
Jehovah Jireh means God is a provider, just like he provided the lamb
for his sacrifice and protected his son from death. This is how God explains himself in the
Bible. It is through parables and descriptive idioms.
In similar ways, across the life of many Jews in the OT we
can see God revealing His nature and characteristics. Man such names were
spoken about God, which in current day English could be translated as – God is merciful,
gracious, healer, redeemer, Victorious, Sovereign,
Omniscient, All-powerful, all sufficient, Lord, Master, Sanctifier, Righteous, the
mighty Creator, the Lord is my God and our God (personal connection with man), Lord
who molds me, God Most High, the Lord is my Shepherd, the Lord is my peace and
wholeness, The Lord is my health, The unchangeable and intimate God. These are all expressions of who God is.
When God revealed himself to Moses in the OT, he presented
himself with this name – I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God
of Jacob. The words I AM is very significant
in the Hebrew language usage, which describes, God in present term and tells
about him being from the beginning of time and will continue to exist forever
and never die.
Interestingly, this is the same words that Jesus uses in the
New Testament (NT) when he tells the Jews about his identity that “I AM the
way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.” This is pivotal to understand, since Jesus
equates himself to God by using the same word I AM. This is evident since the
Jews were ready to throw stones at Jesus because they understood that Jesus had
equated himself to God through that statement.
Now to truly understand God’s nature, we have to recognize
his Holiness. This is the key theme across the Bible. When God created man and woman, he created
them perfect, holy and good, but when they disobeyed God through their free
will, they committed sin and became evil in nature.
Sin is an archery term which means “missing the mark.” So,
when man disobeyed God they simply missed the mark of God’s pure holiness, by
choosing evil instead of good. This is why man is inherently bad but does good
works.
Now God’s standards of holiness tell us that the wages of
sin is death, which means every man who sins is destined to die. This is the
reason man is mortal and has to die, not for any other reason. To protect them
from their sins, God established the concept of sacrifice, where man could
sacrifice an innocent animal to die on his behalf and be cleansed from his sins.
However, this was not the solution God had in mind, God had
also promised to send a Messiah for the permanent solution, who will redeem man
from sin and death. God sent Jesus to this earth, who was God himself and took
on the form of a human, so that he could die on the cross for all mankind. Only
God could take on the sins of this earth, no animal sacrifice could cover all
the sins of this world. Only God could do so, which he could only do when he took
on human form. As God he cannot die, since the Bible says God is a Spirit,
hence he had to transform himself into man to take on the sins of this world,
so that he could die and then be resurrected on the 3rd day by which
he conquered sin and death.
When the prophesy was made about the Messiah he was called
Immanuel (which means God with us), again here too it was describing what God
was going to do when the Messiah comes, that is God will be with his people and
will be walking with his people. However,
when Mary gave birth to a son, he was named Jesus, per guidance from the angel
of God, which means “God saves.” See
again it was a title describing what God was trying to do, that is saving
mankind from eternal death.
As you see, God does not have a name, but his nature,
purpose, plan and his characteristic is displayed throughout the Bible. Each name
and/or title given to him described who God is and what God was doing on this earth
and in the heaven above.
Bible tells us God created man in his image, this is why man
is really a spirit, living in a body and having a soul (mind, feelings emotions). Man, once he dies, will be transformed to a
supernatural body. Either man will be with God or without God, which is why it
is critical for man to recognize the work that Jesus did on the cross. All man
has to do is accept the work of God and ask forgiveness of sins and he will be
saved. Man does not need to do good works to be saved, rather he does good
works because he is saved. This is the message of the Bible, the message of
God, otherwise man is destined to die from the moment he was born on this
earth.
God in his graciousness did all his work so that it would be easy for man to reconcile with God, otherwise man is in full enmity with God. This nature and correlation needs to be understood as we know the truth about God and man.
Comments
Post a Comment