When I hear someone say, ‘I am a believer,’ I think that the person standing before me is someone who believes in God. But when I ask such people what their God is like and why they believe in Him, I often hear the answer, ‘My God is in my soul. I have my own faith.’ And when I try to learn in greater detail what this God of the soul is like, I encounter a wall of alienation.
If we look more deeply into our hearts and are honest with ourselves, I think that many people will find it very difficult to say anything personal about God or about their personal relationship with Him. But it should not be so. Yes, our Lord is great; He is shrouded in mystery, and only the knowledge revealed on the pages of the biblical narratives and in the revelations of His prophets is available to us about Him. But even this is enough for us to marvel at the greatness and power of the Ruler of the Universe. The entire world around us testifies to the wise creative power of its Creator.
Once, scientists invented a clock that had an error of three seconds in a million years. And when they were asked how they had managed to determine this error, they replied that they had done so by the stars and the movement of the planets. This means that there is a more precise mechanism against which we can safely check our earthly inventions.
And my faith in God must have a firm foundation, laid not upon human traditions or emotional experiences, but upon sure knowledge, so that I may always be able to give an account of my hope.
And this knowledge is based upon the Bible, while the one who studies God’s Word begins to believe that God exists and rewards those who seek Him with revelations about Himself. Our Lord reveals Himself to every person who decides to seek Him.
The Divinity of God the Father is disputed nowhere. Although there are people who try to convince themselves that God does not exist, we are surrounded by so much evidence of the Creator that even such atheists acknowledge the existence of forces beyond their understanding. And in difficult situations in life, these unbelievers begin to cry out, ‘God, if You exist, please help me!’ And He, in His mercy, answers.
Our Lord God the Father is the Creator of all things. He is the Source of all beginnings and the Giver of every good thing. Eternal, Independent, Omnipresent, the Most High Ruler of all, True and Almighty, He possesses all the power inherent in Divinity and has the fullness of authority. The Father has no beginning, and He Himself, Who alone has immortality, gives life to everything that exists.
God is Love. The Love of God the Father is manifested in the union of His mercy and justice. Once, in response to Moses’ request that He show Himself, He revealed His Character to us. We read in Exodus 34:6–7: ‘And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.’
No one has ever seen God the Father. For it is impossible for a sinful person to see His face and not die. Iniquity brought separation between man and God the Father, and so that sinful man would not perish from the Glory of the Holy One, the Most High concealed Himself until the moment of complete redemption, which will take place at the Second Coming of Christ. But so that sinful people would not remain alone and in darkness without the knowledge of God and His character, the Son of God stood as the Mediator between the Father and man. From the fall of Adam until our day, it is Christ Who has been the direct Representative of the Father. Through Jesus, His true character and true Love for man have been revealed to us.
Jesus Himself taught that he who had seen Him had seen the Father, and that He and the Father are one.
It is in the teachings of Christ that we clearly learn the details about the Godhead in Three Eternal Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And based upon the teaching of Jesus, the true character of God the Father is revealed to us: He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And in this sacrifice, the true depth of God’s Love for me becomes evident. For it was for my sake that He made the sacrifice; for my sake He lived and suffered. He sought me and found me; He dreamed of me and received me. How could I not rejoice in such a God?!
But the history of sin is not yet over; we are still living in this world, and the enemy is still at work. And because iniquity has multiplied, God’s grace has abounded all the more. But the end of all things is drawing near. A little while longer, and iniquity will be brought to an end; then God’s justice will be required. We shall see the righteous judgment upon those who rejected their salvation and chose the right to die. At that moment, a person’s choice will be accepted and fulfilled.
But in all His greatness, God the Father is a tender and loving Parent to every person who believes in Jesus and is born of the Holy Spirit. He lovingly receives everyone who believes in His Son and has a personal friendship with Jesus.
If someone desires to approach God the Father while bypassing Jesus Christ, then He does not accept or listen to such people. For a very high price was paid to save man from the power of sin; therefore, whoever rejects the Son thereby rejects the Father also. An exception may be those who still know nothing about the plan of salvation but hear the voice of the Spirit appealing to their conscience.
God is merciful, and in His Love He judges not according to the letter, but by weighing all a person’s motives and opportunities in accordance with the light that person has received.
Agape Love contains a deep knowledge of God the Father through Jesus, for it is the Father Who is the Source of true Love for every person. Without God as its foundation, love becomes one of the sciences of sentimentalism, in which feelings exist but there is no firm foundation or deep principle. But in God it is genuine: it intertwines with my thoughts and feelings, shaping my character into the likeness of the character of Christ and making me an entirely different person who lives not for himself, but for the Glory of God.
But this knowledge of Love does not come in one day; it must be learned daily, entrusting oneself into God’s hands every morning and thirsting for a deeper knowledge of the truth in Christ Jesus.
And it is in agape Love that I comprehend the character of God the Father. Through it, I learn that God is constant in His plans, faithful to His promises, firm in His hatred of sin, tender in His Love for the sinner, open to those who seek Him, and great; yet He is inaccessible to those who, while worshipping Him, disregard the Son and do not regard as sacred the blood shed for the redemption of sins.
Do you believe in such a God? Do you know Him personally? God desires to have this relationship and reveals Himself in it to everyone who wishes to communicate with Him through Jesus Christ.
God is Love, and the presence of Love in the heart testifies to the presence of the Creator there and also to such a person’s abiding in God.
Does it make you glad that we have such a Great and Wonderful Heavenly Father? The very name ‘Father’ speaks to us of God’s special closeness as Someone dear to us. And He truly is Father. ‘Abba, Father’ is an expression very close in meaning to ‘Heavenly Daddy.’
And faith in Him is a firm foundation for building any relationship or undertaking.
Questions for Reflection
Please read Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 4:35; Psalm 110:1, 4; John 3:16; 14:9; 1 Corinthians 15:28; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Timothy 1:17; 1 John 4:8; and Revelation 4:11 in the light of our lesson. How do you picture God the Father? How do you understand the expression, ‘God is Love’? In what do you see the difference between the Son and the Father? Has Jesus, through His life and example, revealed the character of God the Father to you? What does the expression ‘a believer’ mean to you? Why does faith without Love not save?