How do we picture God? Do we think of
Him as an old man with a white beard sitting on a cloud in heaven? Or perhaps as an angry Judge, impossible
to please, who is waiting to pounce on our every mistake and determined to keep us from having any fun in this life!
Maybe we picture our Heavenly Father as a kind old gentleman, wringing His hands over the mess we have made of His
world, but powerless to do anything to help. Do we think of our Creator as distant and aloof?
As loving, but not all powerful; or the reverse - as all powerful, but not loving? The
Old Testament often gets a bad rap for its portrayal of a God who is stern and vengeful, but David gives us a very different
picture of God in Psalm 145:8-9:
“The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.”
The Old Testament is the story of how God revealed
Himself to Abraham and patiently worked with his offspring to teach them the difference between following the gods of the
nations and walking with the one, true living God who is both holy and just, as well as loving and kind. The
accounts of the Old Testament tell it like it is, the good, the bad and the ugly, as God slowly but surely taught Israel what
it means to be the people of God. David certainly understood who God is, as seen
in his praise of God in Psalm 145:13:
“Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made.”
If we fast forward to the New Testament,
we find that God’s kingdom is indeed still unfolding according to His purposes and plans, as He reveals Himself in the
person of His Son Jesus Christ. The New Testament is clear on who Christ is: “In
the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has
spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance
of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews
1:1-3)
If we want to know what God is like,
we need only to look at His Son Jesus, in whom we see love and compassion in action! Still, we can often
get the wrong image of Him here as well, picturing Jesus as so meek and mild that He seems like a wimp! Or,
at the other end of the spectrum, as a martyr for His cause. Nothing could be further from the truth!
A study of the life of Christ shows us the true image of our God: His love and mercy extended towards
sinners; His holiness contrasted with the self-righteousness of the Pharisees; His authority over the powers of evil; His
power over death itself. The New Testament closes with the promise of Christ’s return as the Saviour
of all who believe in Him and the Judge of all who do not.
Do
we have the right picture of God in our minds? We need to be careful that He is not a product of our own
imagination or worse still a comic book caricature fed to us by a society who has convinced itself that He does not exist!
Our view of God should be Biblical, based on the truth about God’s character as revealed in His Word.
Anything less amounts to idolatry. We can be sure of this, God is the same
in the Old Testament as He is in the New – “slow to anger and rich in love” – “For God so loved
the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16) Let’s live each day with eyes of faith to see God as He truly is, a holy and loving Father
with arms open wide to receive all who truly turn to Him seeking forgiveness for sin and grace to help in their hour of need.
