WHICH GOD?

Jonathan Gallagher

My little boy and I were talking. I was trying to explain something about God to him (hard, isn't it?). Trying to give him the right picture of God, searching for the best words... Paul listened for a while as I struggled on. Then he turned to me as I mentioned God again and interrupted:

"Yes Daddy, but which God?"

Which God? Funny question. After all God is God. There's only one, right?

But then I thought some more. Though there is only one true God, the way he's described means there are a million "kinds" of God.

I smiled at Paul and went back to the beginning.

.....

God. A short word. Meaning what? How do you define God? 'The omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity...' and so on in the jargon beloved by philosophers? Maybe--for God is all of those things and more. But what you and I want to know--more than his all-powerful abilities, more than his perfect knowledge of all things, more than anything else--is "What kind of God is God?"

Bad Press

God has never had a good press. The hostile, the doubtful, the misguided--few have anything good to say about this divine person:

"We must be greater than God, for we have to undo his injustice." --Jules Renard.

"I've steered clear of God. He was an incredible sadist." --John Collier.

"God is but a word invented to explain the world." --Lamartine.

"I see little evidence in this world for the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down as a most stupid, cruel and villainous fellow. --H.L. Mencken.

Even those who do assent to God have character-assassinated him. Some descriptions of God given by those who profess to know him would make the most convinced believer into an atheist!

For the question is not so much "Do you believe in God?" but "What kind of God do you believe in?"

The Dung-beetle 'God'

Religion is an attempt to say "God is like this..." and the answers are so varied. Egyptians with their animal gods--jackals, cats, scorpions--even dung beetles. The Babylonians with Marduk, the dragon-headed god who killed the primordial goddess Tiamat, mankind springing from her blood. Greek gods on Olympia fighting and feuding, lusting and sinning.

God is like this... So many ideas, so many opinions. Even within Christianity--so many understandings of God and his real nature, from a mushy sentimental non-entity to a vindictive dictator, from a magic fairy-Godmother to a thunderbolt-weilding Godfather--and with all shades of opinion inbetween.

God on TV

So who is he, this God? Now there's a question. Just take a TV crew out on the streets of this green and pleasant land and record the answers in extreme close-up...

"God? Nobody reckons on him anymore, do they? Went out with the Ark, right? Yeah, maybe he drowned in the Flood, ha! And even if he did exist, I wouldn't want to know him. I mean, he doesn't seem bothered with what's happening down here. What a world--and you say God made it? Forget it!" Face turns away, camera follows the shrinking figure into the distance.

Cut to new face, fresh and bright. "Ooh, yes, got to have God, haven't you? Couldn't get through the day without God, I mean really. What's he like? Well, kind of, well, sort of, just God, isn't he? Doesn't make much sense to ask what he's like. Just got to have faith, don't you?" Fade out of puzzled expression.

Scene-setting shot: Marble Arch. Slow pan round to Hyde Park. Zoom in towards Speaker's Corner. Many figures on boxes, milk crates; shouting, waving arms. Multi-cut segments of different voices, all speaking about God:

"...better watch out. God is going to judge this world in wrath, vengeance poured out unmixed with mercy, meting out punishment in the eternal fires of torment..."

"...the curse of God is upon them. These perverts now suffer the excruciating plague of AIDS brought by divine justice..."

"...it doesn't matter how you live. God loves everyone, the good Book says, and in the end everyone will be saved. Just say his name and you will be eternally sealed for the kingdom however you live thereafter..."

"...but only those God the righteous has predestined will be saved. Those predestined to be lost will be consigned to everlasting hell, prepared for them from the beginning of time. What Almighty God has determined will be done without question..."

"...all these others are wrong. I know God, and he is Essence, the Opulence of Light. See inside yourself and experience God of the inner eye. God is yourself realized..."

So many voices.

The True God

So what of the true picture of God? Is this just another vain human perception? What kind of God should you believe in, and how do you know you're right?

Without any hesitation I can say I know God. Arrogant? No, just the result of evidence and experience. Nothing like swimming against the tide to sharpen ideas and focus beliefs. From the Bible and personal experience God really is like this:

Not the kind of God mentioned by any of the people above. Nor is he the kind of God described by his enemies--and even by some of his friends.

I know: A God who is intimately concerned with each of us, you and me. A God who does care about every one of his created children. A God who is all-powerful, yet a God who gives freedom to all of us. A God who only wants a relationship based on our choice of him as our ever-loving Father. A God who is totally deserving of our undivided trust.

A picture of a God who has been trying to win his case by persuasion and demonstration in the face of so many lies and deceptions from Satan, one of God's former friends.

For when we truly speak of God it's against that background of a battle in the universe over what God is really like. It's that "Which God?" question again! Satan says "God is like this." God says "No. I'm like this." Who is right?

While there may be many things to say that are important--the second coming of Jesus, what happens when you die, the Sabbath, the heavenly sanctuary, how prophecy is fulfilled--these are only truly important as they show us what kind of a God God truly is, what he is doing for us, and how we should relate to him. All this is part of that cosmic battle between God and Satan over the true nature of God.

God on the Cross

So at the centre of the true picture of God is the Cross. Not a magic symbol, nor just a historical event, not even the mystic machinery of salvation--but what the Cross means. What's needed is an understanding of how that awesome event fits into the whole controversy over God's character.

In the death of Jesus, the Son of God, we see the answers: to the kind of person God really is, what he will do to try to convince us, how he is able to heal us from the disease of sin, and what will inevitably happen to us if we go our own sinful way. The death of Jesus answers our most basic question about God, and not in bland statements about his love, holiness, goodness, purity, justice and so on--but with the most incredible demonstration. On the Cross Jesus shows us "God is like this".

Jesus' God-Description

Jesus said many things about God. In his very life he revealed the true character of God--he came to make the Father known so that we could see him properly (John 1:18; 12:45; 14:7). But in one particular story he used such a powerful image of God's true nature:

The parable of the ever-loving Father (Luke 15:11-32). A parable that includes all of us. All of us are strangers in foreign land, wasting our time and our money, destroying ourselves until we end up starving with the pigs. When and if we wake up to our situation and make our weary way back to our loving Father, what kind of God do we find?

A stingy, crabby old man who tells us how bad we've been? A thundering dictator who beats us into submission? An insipid, bored ruler who just couldn't care less?

No. A God who runs.

When Jesus told that story he blew the minds of his hearers. In that society older people were highly respected. They were treated with much deference. And they in turn acted with due propriety, with regard to their elevated status. No one, but no one, could believe that such an elder would ever run to meet someone, certainly not someone younger, even if it was his son. How unseemly!

It's as if Jesus is saying "God cares so much about you that he'll run to meet you, help you on your way home, kiss you and shower you with all his healing love. In all of this God doesn't care about his reputation or his fame. He doesn't care about the esteem in which he is held, or what others might think of his running. He only cares about you."

Though you must remember that God loves so much he will never force. You have to want it. You have to decide you'll change. You have follow God's way, or he'll have to let you go your own way, a way that leads to self-destruction.

But as you take those faltering steps back towards him, God comes running down heaven's highway to take you home.

What a vivid picture of a God who overwhelms you with his love, reaching out his hand to you, wanting only that you should be put right and be back with him again!

What a delight to know such a God, a God who welcomes you back, holds your head to his chest and weeps together with you for joy as his son comes home!

What a wonderful future together with such a God who wipes away every tear from your eyes, heals and remakes you so that you can live together forever with your Eternal Friend!

What a picture of God!