The bible opens with a bold statement: “In the beginning God…” God is not introduced, explained or described, it is simply assumed that the audience to whom these words are written would know who this God is. It is usual when writing about a person that there would be some attempt to provide details of them, what do they look like, where do they live, where did they come from, who are they. None of this detail is provided. God is just announced.
There have been many attempts to describe God and to provide a form or shape to him that would make him recognizable but that has proved impossible. There are no symbols or pictures that can adequately describe him and our language, whichever it is, English, Mandarin, Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin or any of the other estimated 7117 languages that exist in the world are unable to make him fully known. The bible is an unfolding revelation of God. Its pages contain history, poetry, songs, rules about living written into the law and letters to individuals and communities. There are visions which provide glimpses of the majesty and power of God, metaphors that describe his care and compassion and stories that describe his plans and purpose for the world he created and the people who inhabit it. But there is no picture or illustration of what this God looks like.
Other ancient civilizations had their gods and usually they were portrayed as figures or characters, later history also produced gods and goddesses to whom temples and idols were built. Our God did not need nor want these inanimate and inadequate representations of himself. He is the God who was, and who is and who always will be, he cannot be contained in our imagination or our intelligence. Our God is neither bound by time nor space he is infinite, indescribable, invisible. He existed when there was nothing else and it is he who called all created life into being. Sometimes the question is asked ‘who created God?’ as if he needs to be limited to our understanding of how things work, the answer is no one and nothing created God, he is eternal. The beginning of creation is not the beginning of God, without God nothing that we understand or experience would exist. It all starts with him and he already is.
This God who stands outside of our world and experience, who called in to being life with a command, a spoken word, the God who upholds the universe and all it contains has chosen to create human life, man and woman in his image and invites them to share his creation with him. The bible is the record of God’s creative act and the plan he has to share his heavenly home with those that love and worship him. It is also a record of how those same men and women that he created rejected and tried to displace him and yet he continued to extend opportunities to return to him and honour him as the one true God.
Our God is a compassionate God, who loves and cares for his children. The God who reaches down from heaven to extend his hand to draw people to himself. A God of love, but also a God of justice, a God of mercy and a God of righteousness. A God we cannot adequately describe nor understand, who is holy and cannot abide sin, but a God who in infinite love excuses our failure and offers forgiveness and peace. Our God is greater than our understanding, he is infinite while we are finite; we are located in time and space, he stands outside both of those dimensions. He is bigger than our imagination and yet knows each of us by name intimately and personally. This God invites us into a personal, intimate relationship with him. One in which he will reveal himself without idols and figures, temples or pictures but through his own son who came and lived among us as Jesus, the Christ and now lives within us as the Holy Spirit. This God will make himself known to us if we invite him to, then he will be not just this God, but our God.
Richard W.Foster 