Can I Know God: What is God Like?

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Chaplains Chair, the Passion Week and Resurrection this Sunday and now behind us. I trust you all had a blessed Holy Week and celebrated joyously and with reverence the redemptive story at the heart of the Christian faith. And so I'm back in this episode with the next two last installment of can I know God and we had four episodes now on how we can know God.

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Through general Revelation, special revelation, and knowing and understanding some basic philosophical and logical truths that help us to evaluate truth claims relevant to religious questions. And I invite you to go back and listen to those if you haven't.

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This fifth episode we're going to look at the question can I know God, what does God like? And that's the discussion of his nature and those characteristics of his nature that are uniquely his and make him God. And in the final installment in this series, can I know God, we're going to look at what does God share with me and we're going to be looking at those characteristics that God possesses that are also found in men.

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Those characteristics that he shares with us, though they may be found in a relative sense and are limited, in other words, God possesses those characteristics perfectly. But we don't because they're affected by sin. Yet he's giving them to us because he wants a relationship with us. But that's for next time. So.

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Moving on now, we've seen the all too common and well worn out image of God being this cosmic grandfather, this gentle old man, if you will. It is going white beard and glowing white robe sitting on a glorious marble throne and some far off heavenly abode. And that might make good Hollywood or good imagination that may make God.

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Fear is some tolerant, all loving, all accepting deity, but it certainly doesn't make good Bible, which is where we find the true picture of God.

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That, and, as I've said in previous podcasts, I don't waste much time here analyzing every possible counter argument and then trying to craft my episode to answer every possible objection someone may have, even the ridiculous ones. I'm going to present the truths outlined in the Holy Bible. What it actually says about the subjects I discuss.

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And I'll let the Holy Spirit do the rest and deal with your heart. Now, I do know this. If you listen with an open minded heart. Look up the Bible verses I share with you. God the Holy Spirit will reveal the truth of his word to you. And that's my authority, his word.

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OK, so let's get into this unfathomable study of the nature of God. What is God like? And if I was created in his image, how do I relate to him? I want to start with two verses for comparison. If we're going to study this, we have to be on a short foundation of truth. So the first one is this Genesis 126, it says and God said, let us make man.

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In our image, after our likeness. And here's the second one, Genesis chapter 5, verses one through 3. This is the book of the Generations of Adam in the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him, male and female, created he them and bless them and called their name Ada.

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In the day when they were created.

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And Adam lived 130 years and begat a son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth. Now we have a problem here, people. We have a conflict, and it's one that's crucial to understand Genesis 5 verses one and two agrees with Genesis 126. They'll read those two again.

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God said let us make man in our image after our likeness.

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And in Genesis 5, he says in the book of the Generations of Adam God created man in the likeness of God made he him, male and female created he them.

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Now Genesis 5 three does not agree with those two. Genesis 5 Three says this.

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It said Adam begat a son in his own likeness.

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And called his name Seth.

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Atoms. Likeness. Not God's likeness. Adam was created in the image of God. Adam's children are born after the likeness of Adam, not God.

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Now, why is this important?

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Well, because Adam and Eve are fallen creatures and are bearing corrupted fallen children born into the ******* of sin, the children of fallen sinners, and in fact the whole creation fell under this *******. And Paul explains this in Romans Chapter 8 and other places.

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God did not.

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Create Adam's children and descendants with his own hand. He allowed the natural creative process set in motion by him in Genesis 128 to continue, but now it's fallen and under the curse of Sin, and it says in Genesis 4.

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That Adam knew his wife and she conceived and Adam and Eve had corrupted the image of God with their sin, bringing creation under a curse, and thus every human being conceived after him takes on Adam's fallen likeness, not God's perfect, uncorrupted likeness. And that's a very important distinction when understanding the message of the Bible.

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And I'm asked this question all the time.

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How does the Bible story apply to my life? Well, it starts right there with Adam's fall.

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And the simple teaching I want to.

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I want to take from this today is that we are not created in God's image. We are born in the likeness of sinful Adam who was created in the image of God and our fallen nature becomes important to the discussion of how we understand what God is like and who God is. We need to understand our relationship with God is broken. We find that in Genesis.

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Chapter 3. We are estranged from God. We are enemies of God and we are condemned by God because of sin. It is something we can't fix.

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God is holy, we are not. We can never be holy of ourselves. We can't fix it now. That's how the truth shared in this podcast from the Bible apply to you. And after studying the question can I know God?

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It helps us realize that it is only God who can mend this relationship, not us. And to understand why that is, it's necessary to understand who God is and what he is given us so that we may know him and what he has done to repair that relationship with fallen man and why he did it. And it takes on further urgency when we get to our discussions.

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Of Jesus Christ, the second atom referred to in the Bible.

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But let's move on to that question. What is God like?

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Well, John 424, Jesus said God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

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Now this prevents all idolatry that God has not told us what he looks like. Jesus told us God is a spirit, a capital S, and it purposely makes God limitless. God can't be confined to a picture, a stature. Excuse me, a statue, an animal.

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A constellation, or anything else that we imagine, and I'm going to refer you to the second commandment on the question in Exodus 20 versus 4IN and the beginning of verse 5, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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You shall not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God.

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We don't know what God looks.

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Like.

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Don't conjure up something and worship it. God is not going to honor it or compete with it. We're not capable in our own sinful state to do God justice. And so Jesus tells us in this for us we must worship in spirit and in truth, worship God the way he says, not the way that we think.

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But God is a person and we get no help from Webster's dictionary here, except to note that to be a person one has to be a thinking, intelligent being and God is, you know, the great philosopher Rene Descartes said. I think therefore I am.

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That was the first principle of his philosophy. That's good. Let's use that. God has an intellect, mind and will. He's self-conscious, he thinks. Therefore he is in fact I'm going to use day Council in philosophy for the atheists who think God does not exist, and this will be our first proof that God is a person, he's self existent. It says in Exodus 314.

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God said to Moses, I am that I am.

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And he said, thou shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. Now God's explanation of himself is given in the eternal present tense. Am has no beginning or end. It eternally is, he said. I am not. I was or not. I came to be.

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Or not. I will be not. I can be, which all suggests a relationship to time.

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He says he was always, I am AM is a verb, an action word. God says he was always there.

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Now let's look at some other.

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Examples of God thinking.

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A self determination genesis 6/6.

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And it repented the Lord that he made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Next to this 3414 says, for thou shalt worship no other God. For the Lord whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. He does his own thinking. He sets his own standards, and they are holy. And how that applies to us today is simple. God is who.

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He is.

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God is not what we want him to be. Make him to be or imagine him to be. And as Jesus said, we need to worship him that way, not our way.

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Thy God Self associates Hebrews 1 verses one through 3 says God.

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Who at sundry times and and divers men, as spake in times past unto the fathers, by the prophets, he has in these last days spoken unto us by his son.

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Whom he appointed heir of all things by whom? Also, he made the worlds, who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself, purged us in and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high God decided in various times, to talk to the fathers by the prophets. And in these last days he spoken to.

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Us by his son Jesus. So God decides how he's going to communicate with whom and when.

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God is also unified.

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Me 6 verse four says here O Israel, the Lord our God is 1. Lord OK, yet he's three. He's a Trinity, which I'm going to get to in more depth in a future podcast. Genesis one one and two says in the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God.

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Moved upon the face of the water. Say you have God the father. God. The spirit working together.

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The third person of the trade, the son of God, is also involved there, but that's more in depth for something else. Genesis 126 A says God said let us make man in our.

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Image after our likeness.

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Isaiah 4816, come ye me unto me, hear ye this I have not spoken in secret from the.

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Beginning.

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From the time that it was there, am I and now the Lord God and his spirit have sent me.

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And here in a Trinitarian formula, Second Corinthians 1314. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Now I understand the Bible addresses this truth in many areas. It's a study all its own, and I'm just laying the foundation here. Some of the listeners may understand this deeply. Others may not understand it at all.

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And some may never have heard about it at all. So let's serve this what this serve as a review or an introduction, and I will at some point give this more elaborate discussion in the future podcast. So God is a person, someone who communicates with us, listens to us, has expectations of us.

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And loves us because we're the result of his creation. That's the personhood of God, that desires fellowship with his creation and seeks to repair the breach in that relationship caused by Adam's fall. And when you understand that, you'll see just how great God is.

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Now, in addition to being a person God, his attributes as qualities that are uniquely his and identify him as God.

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My God is the only one who possesses them, and we call those absolute incommunicable and constitutional attributes. They make God absolutely, God. They are his makeup. He does not share them.

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They're intrinsic to His Holiness and goodness. If I can use that word. However, God also has attributes that he does impart to man, and we're gonna get into those in a little bit in the next podcast. The 1st is his absolute incommunicable constitutional attributes that make God who he is, and he does not share with.

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Anyone.

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Well, first his simplicity.

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It's uncompounded, it's in complex, it's indivisible. As we said, in John 424, God's of spirit.

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God is unified. God has won, and as the side note on the Trinity, those are for the future. I'm not going to get into that here. We just touched on it a little bit a second ago.

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And the verse for that, again due to rounding 6 four hero is the Israel the Lord our God is 1 Lord that God is infinite.

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God is without a beginning and without an end, he is limitless. First Kings 827 says, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house that I have builded?

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Acts 1724 goes with that. It says God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwells not in temples made with hands.

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He's.

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Infinite. We cannot contain him.

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He it eternal, he's not constrained by time. He's free from the succession of time. He's outside of time.

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God cannot be confined to a building.

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And no believers should accept the argument that worship is for the church building either. You can find your God in church. No. You find your God everywhere. God is omnipresent. Our worship should be everywhere we find God, which has no limits, and there are no legitimate restrictions on where it is legal to find God, and God will hold accountable.

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The elected leaders who suggest such a foolish idea, really, that they can regulate where God's people can meet. God says in Genesis 2133 and Abraham planted a Grove in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God.

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Here everlasting is an adjective, a description.

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Lasting or enduring forever eternal, existing or continuing without end. Immortal Psalm 90, verse two, says before the mountains were brought forth or ever thou has formed the Earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting. Thou art God. The here everlasting is a noun. It's a thing, a measure of time, eternity, eternal duration past and.

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Future, which has no beginning or no end, and but God has described as everlasting and measured by this thing called time, and it can't give us.

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A measurement because it has no beginning or ending with which to measure it. The measuring tape can't find the starting point from which to start the measurement or the ending point where it can end it.

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And I know.

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It's hard to wrap your head around that one, I agree. But the Bible says God has always been and always will be, God's immutability. He's immutable, which means he's.

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Unchanging and unchangeable.

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James, 117, says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variables, neither shadow of turn.

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Thing.

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Malachi 36 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, which was quoted in James and coming down from the father of lights with whom is no variables north and neither shadow of turning Hebrews 13/8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever. Now listen to me folks, this is how this truth is applied to you today God.

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Does not change.

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With that, accept that. Don't challenge that God did not evolve with our thinking. Jesus Christ does not change what God calls sin, evil, abomination, unholy 4000 years ago is still sin, evil, abomination, and unholy. Today. These are the same sins.

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That Jesus died, for he does not accept things that sinful man has decided are no longer moral. God does not change his excuse me that are no longer immoral. God does not change his standards because we don't agree with his definition of sin and immorality.

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Now I know this is going to upset any progressive Christian listening, but it's the truth.

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Sexual immorality, idolatry, perversion, abortion, all the trendy political issues that are the moral issues of the day are still thin today.

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I don't care what your denomination teaches. I don't care what you pass the teachers. I don't care what the Pope says. I don't care what the president says. I don't care what you think.

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The Bible calls them sin. I will issue an aside, however.

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Don't treat people caught in this deception as the issue. Treat them as people deceived, they're they're issues and there are people. People aren't the issue. Soon as the issue that affects people, whatever their issue is so share the love and truth of God and love and grace and let God deal with the rest. But I digress.

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That God is omnipresent. God is everywhere, unbounded a universal presence.

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Psalm 139 seven, verse 8. Excuse me some 139 seven through 8. Whether shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from my presence? If I send up into heaven? Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there.

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Jeremiah 2324 says can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, sayeth the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth, sayeth the Lord?

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Proverbs 15 and three, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. God misses nothing. God is everywhere all the time, and sees all.

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We're going to add to that his sovereignty, he's sovereign supreme and power, the Lord of the universe.

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In first chronicles 29, one to 12 says Thine O Lord is the greatness and the power, and the Glory, victory and majesty, for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine. Thine is the Kingdom, O Lord, and Art Exalted his head above all both riches and honor come of thee. Thou reinvest overall.

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And in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all.

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The sum 115, verse three says, but our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatever he pleased. This is perhaps the most important truth we need to get. God is sovereign.

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God does things his way, not ours. It's not up to us to stand in judgment on how or why God decides to do things.

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He does not answer to us. He doesn't change his standards. He doesn't bow to political pressure to change the things in his power and authority. That man may not like.

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Now remember the result of Adam's fall. It led to our rebellion. But a man who wants a relationship with God or has a relationship with God wants to submit to God's authority. He may not understand why God does things. He may suffer things under God's plan.

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He may wish God had done it different. He may even question why God did or allow things especially.

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If they're painful.

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But he wants to ship them and appeals to God for understanding not to change the rules.

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Omniscience. God is omniscient. God knows all actual and possible things, and when challenging the revelation of God when questioning the will of God and when disputing the ways of God, it might be wise to remember that God knows things we don't, and that knowledge is eternal and it's not bound by time or any other obstacle. He sees and knows things that you don't.

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As a 46 tenses, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times to things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand it will do all my pleasure. I say a 40 verses 13 and 14 who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsel has taught him.

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With him took the counsel and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him and taught him knowledge and showed to him the way of understanding. And I'm gonna add to that. I'll, I'll invite you to read job chapters 40 and 41 where God challenged Job and his friends.

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Who thought they could stand in judgment on God's sovereignty the way God did things to prove that they knew what God knew and were qualified to stand in judgment on him.

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You know, Isaiah 40 says God says, well, who? Who have I spoken to? Who? Who did I talk to before? I decided to do things and who instructed that guy that I went to for advice. And it's rhetorical, he.

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Didn't do that.

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God doesn't ask us.

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Before he does things.

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Omnipotent. God is omnipotent. He's all powerful. He has unlimited power. Jeremiah 32, verse 17. Says our Lord God, behold thou hast made the heaven and earth by thy great power, and stretched out arm. And there is nothing too hard for thee.

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Sum 33 verses 8 minutes let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him, for he spake, and it was done, he commanded, and it stood fast.

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So we see in this podcast the attributes of God that belong to him alone, all glory and honor belongs to him, and it is that power, glory and honor that is behind God's redemptive plan for mankind and his desire to restore the broken relationship that was the result of Adam's fall.

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And in the next podcast, we're going to look at those attributes and characteristics that God has and shared with us that make it possible for us to know him. His plan of redemption, and more importantly, to make a decision about that plan about him and our lives.

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And until next time this is Chaplain Tim signing off, and I thank you for stopping by.