How I Like to Think about God

 How I Like to Think about God

I sincerely hope that you had a negative reaction to the title of this post. It is, indeed, very important how we think about God. Who God is, and what are His characteristics, are of supreme importance. These things are of importance for the world. They are of importance for unbelievers. They are of important for Christians.

But how I like to think about God, that says more about me than it says about God. We need to know God in truth. We do not need to know how you would fashion G(g)od if you had your druthers. How we like to think about God reveals the kind of God-distortion that we would prefer over the God-in-truth who is as He has revealed Himself to be in Scripture and in history.

I like to think of myself as a smart person. It doesn’t make it so. I like to think of myself as reasonable. There are those who would disagree. It is not how we like to think of one thing or another. What matters is what is true. We hold that there is such a thing as true truth, and we believe in true truth, as revealed by God.

So how do we think about God? How has God shown Himself and spoken of Himself in Scripture? We could get a group of people together and perhaps have very different opinions. Why? Because we pick and choose our favorite stories or passages.

Some people are drawn to the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery. She is brought to Jesus by the Pharisees who say that, according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned. They have stones in hand, in case Jesus give them the go-ahead. But instead, he turns the tables and says, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Even these hardened religionistas were convicted. They dropped their stones and walked away. But perhaps there are others who say that she was in fact guilty and that she should indeed have been punished. They probably don’t say it out loud. But it’s not everybody’s favorite story.

Others might prefer the story of Jesus clearing the money-changers out of the temple. They might even wish that he had ramrodded around a lot more, causing a ruckus and exposing the leaders’ hypocritical (non)devotion.

You see, we humans have pre-set preferences for how we hope God will react in various situations. It often fits the formula, “mercy for me, not for thee.”

Perhaps the reigning summary of God’s character is given by God Himself. It is first given to Moses in response to Moses’ request that God reveal to Him His glory. God says something to the effect, “You can’t handle My glory,” but promises to show Moses a glimpse, the hinder parts of God’s glory, just the outskirts of His ways. We find the verses in Exodus 34:6-7, and it is dense in content and mystery:

6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” The same “definition” is given, in full or in part, in several different Scriptures:

Most people love the first part of this description of God and quote parts of it. Fewer people quote the end. God is indeed a God of mercy and also of justice. His justice will be brought to bear on the guilt of guilty humanity, even as His mercy is shown to all every day, and to believers in particular in bringing their guilt to bear, not on their own shoulders, but on the shoulders of Jesus.

But even this is not enough. It is just a bit of how we think about God, in conjunction with all the rest of Scripture as well. It is a lifelong pursuit, and God will not be molded according to our preferences, but we are to be re-made into His likeness.