Focus: Behold Your God! (Pt.1)

Text: Isa.40:9

"Say unto the cities of Judah, BEHOLD YOUR GOD!"

One impossible thing in this life is seeing God, but is anything impossible for God? Knowing that God is capable of the incredible, I can boldly say that seeing God is the highest privilege in this life.

Jesus says, "NO MAN hath SEEN God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (Jh.1:18). Since no man has seen God at any time, that means that no human description of God is accurate, complete, or perfect. Also, by this assertion of Christ we can safely conclude that those who saw God in the Old Testament times actually saw forms, shapes, or similitudes of God, not God in His essential nature. They experienced the theophanic manifestations of God, that is, God appearing to certain individuals in angelic or human forms.

The writer of Hebrews describes Moses as one who saw the invisible. In Exodus 3, we read of Moses arriving at the mountain of God, and right there, the "ANGEL of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush." So Moses encountered God in the form of an angel. And when you read down to verse 4, you will see that "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush," and in verse 6, God says to him, "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The rest of that verse says, "And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." 

Seeing God leads a man to his death, and it is actually in dying to the flesh that we can truly live. Resurrection happens only where there is a grave.

God says of Moses, "With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the SIMILITUDE of the LORD shall he BEHOLD…" (Num.12:8).

Theophany is God choosing to manifest Himself in visible and tangible ways to man. It is God coming to an individual in a visible form, and He does that whenever, wherever, and however He chooses. John tells us that God is a spirit, not a physical being. Physical eyes cannot see Him. Physical hands cannot touch Him. Physical ears cannot hear Him. And physical nose cannot perceive Him. No scientist can take God to the laboratory as to be tested or proven. He is not discovered by means of empirical evidence. Whatever we know of God is what He has revealed about Himself. We know nothing about God beyond what He has revealed of Himself.

However and in whatever form God chooses to reveal Himself, the joy of it is that we can see and know for ourselves. He delights in making Himself known. Jesus Christ says, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (Jh.14:21). In Mt.11:27, Jesus Christ says, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." As Paul related the story of his religious life in the past, he added that there came a time "when it pleased God…to reveal his Son in me…" (Gal.1:13-16). He experienced "the transcendental Interferer," using C. S. Lewis' description of God. It happened on the road to Damascus, where the resurrected and ascended Jesus Christ intercepted his movement, and redirected his whole life and destiny.

Today it is our turn to behold our God, and our prayer should be: 'O God, bless us with the kind of eyes that will make it possible for us to behold You! Anoint our eyes to see You.'

The greatest good news is that in Christ God has truly, clearly, freely, fully and finally revealed Himself to us. Christ is the "brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…" (Heb.1:3). Christ is the incarnation of God - the visible expression of the invisible God. Jesus say to Philip, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (Jh.14:9). In Christ, God becomes audible, seeable and touchable.

Jesus says, "That they may BEHOLD my glory." Interestingly, the word 'behold' in the Greek is 'theoreo,' which gives us the word 'theory' in English. It is by encountering God and catching His revelation that our theory, theology, or knowledge of God is formed. You can't talk about a God that you have not seen or encountered. We can only propound or formulate a theory out of what we have experimented. Thomas encountered the resurrected Christ, and profoundly voiced out, "My Lord and my God" (Jh.20:28).

In this devotional, we are going to behold our God by pinpointing a few of His attributes or characteristics. J. I. Packer has rightly said, "Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you." 

What we believe about God affects what we believe about ourselves and everything else. So God is the starting, centering, and ending point of our belief system.

Nothing can be fixed if God is taken out of life's equation. Every time man miscalculates or reaches false conclusions, God is the missing link or formula.

God has sent me to say to you and God's people everywhere, "Behold your God" - "Behold your King" - "Behold the man."

We'll continue tomorrow.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter