Which God?

If, as I have been maintaining, the real purpose of our existence, and the way to true human fulfilment is to be in harmonious relationship with God, some may wonder which God I am referring to. I have emphasised that God is our Creator who designed our human faculties, making our species originally in his likeness. This first principle comes from the first page of the Hebrew Bible, to which Christians refer as the Word of God. 

It follows therefore, as is recorded in the same Bible, that the Creator continued to communicate with mankind, particularly to Abraham to whom the Lord promised offspring through which the whole world would be blessed. Further on in the Scriptures we read of God’s prediction of a coming Messiah, a descendant of King David, and when Jesus began his ministry it was known that he was of the offspring of Abraham and of the tribe of David.

“God so loved the world that he sent his only Son”, said Jesus, referring to himself. He many times referred to God as his Father, specifically as “my Father” and “the Father who sent me” (John 10.29, 5.37). “The Father knows me and I know the Father”, he declared (John 10.15), and he even asserted, “I and the Father are one” (John 10.30).

Jesus’ miraculous life, his unblemished holiness, his profound wisdom, his authoritative declarations about God, his unsurpassed excellence in moral teaching, his love in giving himself as a sacrifice for others, and his powerful resurrection from the dead – all unite to corroborate that here, for one time in history, there appeared on earth a man who had truly come from God.

What are we to make, then, of the gods that religious thinkers have set forth in the innumerable religions of the world? They all testify to the foundational reality about our human species – that we feel deep down that we were made by God and that he must be there. All religions are peoples’ various attempts to get in touch with God, to guess what his nature must be, to propound ways of pleasing him – because it is in our very human nature to discern that there must be a God “behind” this glorious creation.

But how to discover him? God has given signs of his existence in two complementary ways: first in his works of creation, and secondly in his words of revelation. “The heavens declare the glory of God”, wrote the biblical poet (Psalm 19.1). The beauty of nature, the mathematical precision of the universe, and the human conscience disclose something of the greatness, power, and holiness of God. But human minds are darkened in such a way that we cannot correctly perceive – from nature alone – who God is and how we can truly know, love, and worship him.

God therefore revealed himself in clearer ways – by communication in words to those like Abraham and the biblical prophets, notably Moses who received the Ten Commandments from God and saw his glory (Exodus chapters 20, 33 and 34). All this prepared the most astounding and unique revelation of God in world history, when “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law” (Galatians 4.4-5). Having “spoken” in previous ages “through the prophets, God has ultimately “spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1.1-2). Jesus renders us the ultimate service of being the supreme revealer of his Father, “the one true God” who sent him (John 17.3), and also the unique redeemer of mankind.

Clive Every-Clayton