Welcome to our discussion on this statement ‘Until we know God as he is, we’ll never become all that he created us to be.’ It is very important that from time to time we need to have our spiritual eyes examined so that they can refocus and gain a wider, clearer perspective on God as he has made himself known to us.
Scripture can be truth enlightening our souls, helping us realise God is so much bigger, so much more holy, so much more loving, so much wiser than we can fully grasp. We will look at three lenses of biblical revelation in the coming weeks. These three focal lenses will help get your spiritual vision re-clarified as we prepare to see God as he longs for us to see Him. The first of these lenses is that ‘God is not like us.’
One of the first things optometrists do when they want to examine your eyes is to challenge them with alternative lenses. They use a device that radically alters your vision by changing focal lengths. I am about to challenge your spiritual eyes with three lenses of biblical revelation. Each of these lenses represents a fact about God that we cannot avoid or ignore if we want to have a clear vision when it comes to God. This may or may not seem obvious to you, but the way they are clarified in Scripture makes them an essential part of a right understanding of God. The verses we are about to read might overwhelm you. Read them slowly and thoughtfully, asking God to open the eyes of your heart as well as your mind.
It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? God is not like us. When we honestly look at him, we won’t see a reflection of ourselves. The Bible tells us we are made in his image and there are similarities, but God is not like us. He is not a bigger or better version of human beings; we are simply intended to be a startling and amazing likeness of him. At our best, we only represent a hint of who he is.
The Scriptures state God’s otherness with overwhelming clarity. Let’s begin with What Isaiah the prophet said, “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal? Says the Holy one. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “May ways is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom” (Isaiah 40:25-28).
God is not like us, we get tired and weary; God does not. There are things we don’t understand; God never even has a question come to his mind. He is all-powerful, he is all-knowing, and he is all-wise. All the best in us is a faint impression of what he is. He’s not like us.
David is a man after God’s own heart, made this confession: “How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears” (2 Samuel 7:22). Another psalmist writes, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Until we’re ready to be still, we will not be ready to know God.
The apostle Paul, no stranger to humbling encounters with God, pushed the limits of language when he tried to compose an appropriate doxology for God. He had just penned some of the most profound insights on the free will of man, the sovereignty of God, and the complexity of life. Then he takes a deep breath and writes, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).
The answer to these rhetorical questions is obvious – no one. No one has known God’s mind; no one has been his counselor; and God owes no one. Notice the last phrase, “From him, God is the source of everything. “Through him” he is the instrumental cause of all that exists. And ultimately it’s “to him” for his glory. He is not like you or me. He’s not like any created being.
By Rev. Eric D. Maefonea (SWIM)
