The Doctrine of God

Scripture: Hebrews 11.1-6; John 14.6-9; Job 42.2

My earliest memory of believing in God is sitting in the pew of my church on a Sunday morning when I was say five or six. It was a comfortable place for me in that my mother sat next to me with her arm around me and my grandfather sat on the other side of me, giving me pink Canada mints. I remember the smell and taste of the mints, and the smell of those pews and the scent my mother. I remember the sounds of the organ and my pastor’s face, and I remember at times being interested and at times being bored. But above all, I remember times, maybe not often but there nonetheless, when I got the sense that all of us there, myself, my family, the other people in the pews, the pastor, we were all in that room, but we weren’t the only ones in that room. Someone else was there too. And I came to understand that Someone else was God.

The Bible never tries to prove that God exists. The Bible simply says, “If you would please God you must believe that He is.”

Think of it from God’s perspective. What if you had to prove to others that you exist? I remember an old M.A.S.H. episode where Radar O’Reilly has lost his dogtags and has to prove his identity to a superior who doesn’t know him. “I’m O’Reilly.”

“How do know?”

“Cause I’m me.”

And that is answer is just about the answer that God gives to Moses in the Exodus passage. Moses asks, “Who should I tell them you are? What name should I give them?”

“Tell them, “I am Who I am.” I’m God. I’m me. What else can be said. What else needs to be said. A few things for our purposes.

In that answer you can hear God speaking of Himself as a distinct Being, a Person. One writer has described God as the Personal-Infinite. Another way of putting this is God is Transcendant and God is Immanent. My boys have asked me how can God be up in heaven and here with us and in Williamsport with grandma and so on. . .a good question. To say God is transcendant is to say He is distinct from the creation and not bound by time – God is an eternal present – I AM. To say that God is immanent is to say that He is not some distant Primal Mover or Supreme Being but as Augustine said, “is nearer than hands and feet, “ or as Luther put it, “God is closer to everything than anything is to itself.”

God is holy love. Holiness is not just God’s morality but is his Being, He is distinct from the Creation in Character. Obviously it was possible for the created to sin and fall. For God that is impossible. “For my way are not your ways, nor my thoughts your thoughts,” says the Lord. He is “the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow.” (James 1.17). In other words, God is absolute goodness, and must be feared and revered by mortals. It’s like the church league softball player getting to meet Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez. They realize they are not only in a whole other league, but a whole other country. God’s holiness and God’s love are held “in tension” if you will, not in tension for God, but in tension in our experience and limited minds. How can someone be both absolutely pure and good and absolutely merciful, forgiving, accepting and loving? The only person we know like that in our experience is, well, God.

God is all powerful but uses His power in humble fashion. Here is another puzzler put to me by the mind of a five year –old theologian. “Can God hold up the world?” Yes. “Can God destroy himself?” No, God cannot do something absolutely illogical or contrary to His character. God is self-limiting theologians say. I say God is humble. You see this in the doctrine of the trinity, where Father points to Son and Son points to Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit points to Father and Son. A divine and humble community. Maybe the church should be like that.

God has made the creation and human beings in such a way that it is possible to believe, in fact, almost hard not to believe, but it is also possible to not believe in the creator of everything. God has given us the freedom of choice, to believe and to obey. He is has not overwhelmed the world with his power and might. To Moses he said, “If you get that good a look at me you will drop dead.” In this sense He is Deus Absconditus, the hidden God. And that brings me to the Big Question!

“If God is all good and God is all powerful and God is all knowing, how come when God knows people are suffering He doesn’t seem to do anything about it?”

There is a story of a community that experience massive flooding like we have seen recently in the Gulf. This community had just enough warning that a huge flood was coming that most of the residents got out in time. But there was a stubborn old man who refused to leave his home. As the flood waters advanced on his neighbored emergency personnel came by and warned him to get out immediately. The man refused and simply prayed, “God help me in my time of need.” Soon the water had engulfed his home so that he had to move to the second floor. A rescue boat came by and shouted up to the man, climb out and we will take you to safety but the man refused. He simply prayed again, “Lord, help me in my time of need.” Soon after the waters had risen past the the second floor until the man had to climb out on his roof to stay alive. While on the roof a rescue helicopter came by and threw down a later to offer a flight to safety. The old man shook his head and waved them off until they left. He kept praying, “God help me in my time of need.” Soon after the flood rose and swept that man off the roof and into eternity. The man stood before God and had the temerity to ask this question, “Lord, didn’t you hear me praying all that time? God answered. “I heard your prayers and I responded three different times: I sent you a warning. I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter. Welcome to paradise.”

Albert Einstein said, “God is subtle, but He is not cruel.” To believe in the goodness of God when life is cruel is a key distinction and a sign of faith. The classic story of Job is believed by most scholars to be the first part of the Bible written. That should tell us maybe God is aware of the problem of evil. After Job goes through all of this testing he comes to this statement of faith, “Lord, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be stopped.” And Job continued to place his life and trust in God.

To believe in God as God summons us is to place our trust in God and love Him as He loves us. To not only call out to God in crisis and ask, “Why this pain?” But to call out to God in joy and ask, “Why all this pleasure?” Faith is to hope and belief and receive the love of a Father for His children. In fact, Father is the image that the Bible and Jesus Himself uses most often for God. A father doesn’t need to prove his existence to his children, he merely needs to love them. The Bible is the Father’s love letter to his children A Scotsman was once asked the reason for his unbridled optimism and joy to which he responded, “Ahh, the Father, he love me. He loves me.”

Remind yourself of that today and this week. Ahh, the Father, He loves me. He loves me.!