The Bible is more than a book about morality, a chosen nation, miracle rescues, and a big fish that swallowed a rebellious prophet. It's a book of laws, wars, people, and places - each of which is meant to give us life-changing insights about God and about ourselves. It's a book that helps us to see that nothing is more important than learning to know God and His strength in the emotions, pains, and joys of life.
Martin R. De Haan II
CONTENTS
Problems With God
Our Problems in Context
The Need for Perspective
What Does the Bible Tell Us About God?
* God Is Personal, Not a Force
* God Is Knowable, Not Just a Mystery
* God Is Immeasurable, Not Just Knowable
* God Is Good, Not Just Powerful
What Does the Bible Tell Us About Christ?
* The Bible's Storyline
* The Land of the Bible
* The Times of the Bible
* Who Can See God in the Bible?
PROBLEMS WITH GOD
One way to understand the Bible is to see that from beginning to end, it is a book about people who have a problem with God. On the earliest pages of the Bible we read about people who are enough like God to reason with Him, and yet enough unlike Him that they don't think the way He does. Early in our history we begin to hear:
"God is holding out on us." First, the problem was over the fruit of a tree. Later, the people of the Bible had a problem with God's regulations about adultery, land use, and behavior in conflict.
"God isn't being fair." This objection even came from Job, a man said to be the most righteous on earth.
"God is going to ruin us." This was the argument of a frightened people shortly after their rescue from 400 years of slavery.
"God's provisions are boring." This is how the people of Israel began to feel after eating manna day after day and week after week. God had sent terrible plagues against the Pharaoh of Egypt to rescue His people. And He was personally leading them through a wilderness toward a land He had promised to give them. But they had a problem with His provision. They wanted to go back to Egypt for the leeks, onions, and garlic.
"God isn't going to help us." Over and over the Bible tells us of people who, in spite of God's past provisions, become convinced that there's no point in waiting on God.
"God ruins His own reputation by judging His people." God's servants have argued that God gives His enemies reason to laugh when He judges His own people. He gives pagans reason to believe that He is not able to take care of His chosen people.
"God asks the impossible." Even Moses argued that he couldn't do what God wanted him to do. Later, Jonah couldn't bring himself to help the Ninevites, a terrible and heartless enemy of his people, to avoid the well-deserved judgment of God. Later still, God asked all of His people to love their enemies and to do good to those who harmed them.
"God doesn't act as though He loves us. If He loved us, He wouldn't let us suffer. He wouldn't let our enemies rule over us. He would spare us the consequences of our own choices. He wouldn't let us wait in the dark for the light of His answer."
OUR PROBLEMS IN CONTEXT
The first two chapters of Genesis show that we owe our existence to the God who created our first parents in His own likeness. Chapters 3-11 tell us that envy, murder, drunkenness, incest, and disaster followed on the heels of their decision to disobey God by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In Genesis 12, God revealed Himself to a man named Abram and told him that He was going to make him the father of a nation that would bless all nations. This chosen nation, later to be known as Israel, would be the means by which God revealed Himself to the whole world. The rest of the Old Testament tells the story of Israel's glory and failure.
God gave this nation a miraculous birth out of the slave-yards of Egypt. He met all of her needs in a barren wilderness, gave her a promised land, and sent one prophet after another to warn her when she fell into sin. God gave Himself to Israel. He gave her laws, covenants, wisdom, military victory, prophets, kings, and the promise of a coming Messiah. Israel, however, habitually adopted the moral and spiritual practices of the nations around her. Eventually God let Assyria and Babylon defeat and occupy her.
After 70 years of Babylonian rule, there was a century of partial return and rebuilding in Jerusalem. But still, the Lord's people were cold to Him. After speaking once more through the prophet Malachi, God was silent for 400 long, dark, violent years.
Finally, a new day dawned. A miracle worker and teacher of righteousness came out of Galilee. Jesus of Nazareth had the marks of the promised Messiah. He healed the sick, raised the dead, gave hope to the poor, and confronted the hypocrisy of Israel's spiritual leaders. In His early thirties, however, Jesus began talking about the necessity of His own death. Before His followers could understand what was happening, He went up to Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Passover and ended up dying on an executioner's cross. His disciples scattered like frightened sheep.
The Bible reveals a God who patiently deals with people who repeatedly have a problem with Him.
Three days after Jesus' burial, witnesses began saying that Jesus was not dead but alive. Fearful men became filled with courage. Risking their own lives, they proclaimed a gospel of hope for all the world. They said that God had won a great victory through Jesus' death and resurrection. They said that Jesus died for our sins as a perfect sacrifice, putting an end to all the animal sacrifices that had preceded Him. They said that God would forgive and adopt into His own family all who would repent of their sin and put their trust in Jesus. They said that Jew and Gentile alike could now become part of a new community called the church.
The Bible shows that the church was not God's final answer for the world. Like Israel before her, the church began adopting the values and immorality of the world. God would have to continually correct His people to get their attention. The Bible ends promising the return of Christ and saying, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"
THE NEED FOR PERSPECTIVE
Even though Old and New Testaments combine to form one book, that one book is a library of 66 books written by some 40 human authors over a period of about 1,500 years. The 66 books have since been broken down into 1,189 chapters and 31,173 verse divisions. In one translation someone has computed 773,692 words and 3,566,480 letters.
It's easy to get lost in the details of Bible study. For that reason, we continually need to remind ourselves that the purpose of the Bible is not to make us experts in Mideast culture or in Christian doctrine (as important as both are). The purpose of the Bible is to enable us to know God, to know ourselves, and to equip us not only with a knowledge of the past but with the ability to live life today.
1. It's a book about God. From cover to cover, this book tells us about God. It reveals Him as:
Creator (Gen. 1:1) Self-sufficient (Ex. 3)
Sustainer (Col. 1:17) Spirit (John 4:24)
Holy (Ex. 15:11) Unchanging (Ps. 102:27)
Loving (1 John 4:8) Ever-present (Ps. 139)
Truth (John 14:6) All-knowing (Heb. 4:13)
One (Deut. 6:4) All-powerful (Job 42:2)
Eternal (Ps. 90:2) Just (Ps. 18:24-26).
Most important, the Bible shows us a God who came to us in the person of One who told us that to know Him was to know the Father; to love Him was to love the Father; to believe Him was to believe the Father; to trust Him was to trust the Father; and to receive Him was to receive the Father.
2. It's a book about us. In a very real sense, the Bible is a book about every one of us. As we get to know its characters, we keep coming face to face with ourselves. In their fear we see our fear, in their anger our anger, in their temptations our temptations, in their joys our joys. The people of the Bible may have ridden on donkeys and camels rather than in Toyotas and Buicks, but in every important way they can tell us a great deal about ourselves.
3. It's a book about today. It's a book that is still a bestseller, not because of its lofty literary style or breathtaking plot, but because its message from God meets the deepest needs of the human heart.
Although times may change, people do not. We are still facing the same basic problems, frustrations, and guilt as our ancestors did. We must still recognize the frailty of human life, the reality of sin, the problem of pain and injustice, the debates of origin and destiny, and the nagging questions of the meaning of life.
In the midst of a world that is constantly changing, what hasn't changed is our need for:
* Direction * Inspiration * Personal Identity
* A Sense of Belonging * Wise Counsel * Love
* A Sense of Destiny * Faith * Understanding
* Comfort * Life Principles * Standards
* Motivation * Encouragement
What the Bible shows us is that these needs are met for the men and women who learn to know and walk with their God. For that reason, we will turn our attention now to some of the most basic yet commonly ignored truths about God.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TELL US ABOUT GOD?
Many years ago, the prophet Daniel wrote, "The people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits" (Dan. 11:32). That principle is still true today. People who know God find Him to be sufficient for the needs of life.
As we look at knowing God from the perspective of the whole Bible, let's get right to the basics. Let's work only with some of the most fundamental aspects of the message of God's Word. Let's look at four truths that are foundational to the rest of what the Bible tells us about God and ourselves.
PERSPECTIVE 1: God Is Personal, Not a Force.
Throughout the Scriptures, God refers to Himself as "I," "Me," and "Us." He responds when He is addressed as "You." He possesses intellect, expresses emotions, and exercises will. He speaks, He sees, and He hears. He expresses grief, anger, jealousy, and compassion. Even though He makes it clear that He is Spirit (John 4:24), He makes it just as clear that He is not a Force. He has all the marks of personality.
The Bible makes it clear that this God we tend to have problems with is a Person, not just a useful or opposing Force. Moses is a case in point. God revealed both His power and His personality to Moses when He spoke to him out of a burning bush (Ex. 3-4). God told Moses He wanted him to lead Israel out of the slave-yards of Egypt. Moses, however, like most of the people of the Bible, had a problem with what God was asking him to do. He couldn't imagine that the powerful Pharaoh would give him a hearing. So God performed two miracles to demonstrate His power (4:1-9). But Moses said no again, this time using his poor speaking ability as an excuse. God answered immediately, promising that He Himself would be Moses' mouthpiece (4:11-12). Again Moses refused and asked God to send someone else. Finally God became angry, and in terse, sharp sentences He overcame Moses' objections (4:14-17). Moses finally got the message and consented to go - but only after a typically human struggle with a very personal God.
"The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend."
- Exodus 33:11
Notice that this was an intense, personal exchange - an exchange between two thinking, feeling, acting beings. It demonstrates that God is not just a power. He is a Person:
* He has a personal presence (Gen. 3:8; Ex. 19:20; Matt. 3:17; John 12:28).
* He thinks with infinite intelligence (Is. 40:13-14).
* He feels with a measureless capacity for emotion (Gen. 6:6; Deut. 29:20; Ps. 111:4).
* He loves (Jer. 31:3; John 3:16; 1 John 4:8).
SEEING GOD
Because God is personal, we can be comforted by the following:
1. He is personally watching over us.
2. He is personally thinking about us.
3. He personally responds to what we say and think.
4. He has His own personal plans for us.
SEEING OURSELVES
1. What have you done recently to show that you have a personal relationship with God?
2. What choices have you made this week because you considered God's feelings?
3. How does knowing that God is more than an impersonal force cause you to respond to Him?
4. How are your thoughts about the future affected by your knowledge that God has planned that future?
5. What immediate steps can you take to get to know God better?
PERSPECTIVE 2: God Is Knowable, Not Just a Mystery.
It's true that the prophet Isaiah quotes God as saying, "'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord" (Is. 55:8). (That's one reason we have a problem with God.) But in Isaiah 55, the Lord's point was not that He is unknowable. The sense of what He said is that we cannot begin to know what He has not revealed to us about Himself and His point of view. Who are we, therefore, to argue with One who has a perspective infinitely greater than our own?
It is from that infinite knowledge that God has given us all we need to know about Him. Everything we need to know about God can be known through His self-revelation.
1. We can know God because we were created to know Him. According to the account of the creation of man, God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). The next verse says, "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him" (v.27).
One reason God made us in His image was so that we could know Him and respond to Him. He built elements into our personality that correspond to His personality. We have thoughts to respond to His thoughts, emotions to respond to His emotions, and a will with which to respond to His will.
In this, we are different from animals. As far as we know, they have no capacity to know God. They have no inborn sense of right and wrong. They do not have an innate thirst for God that can only be satisfied by a personal relationship with the Creator.
It's because of the godlike capacities our Creator has built into us, that the people of the Bible could know as much of God as they needed to know:
* Adam and Eve knew God well enough to talk with Him in the Garden (Gen. 3:8-11).
* Enoch walked with God (Gen. 5:24).
* David knew God so deeply that he was called a man after God's own heart (Acts 13:22).
The reason men and women of the Bible could respond to God and come to know Him was that He made them with the ability to do so.
2. We can know God because He made Himself known. His primary means of telling us about Himself today is through the Bible. Pick up a Bible. Leaf through it. Before you have read very far, you will see that this book claims to have come from God through inspired human authors:
* The first chapter of the Bible contains the words "and God said" 10 times (Gen. 1).
* Claims that their writings were the "word of the Lord" were made by Isaiah 20 times, Ezekiel 60 times, and Jeremiah 100 times.
* God told Jeremiah, "Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you" (30:2).
* Paul said that he spoke "not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches" (1 Cor. 2:13).
* The Thessalonian Christians welcomed Paul's teaching "not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God" (1 Thess. 2:13).
* John began the book of Revelation by referring to it as "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants" (1:1).
If God had not disclosed Himself to us in His written revelation, creation would be the primary evidence for knowledge of Him. We would be able to see evidence of His power, His wisdom, His care for detail, and His own personality as reflected in ourselves, and in a lesser way in the animal kingdom. But we would have no idea what His intentions were for us. We'd have no knowledge of where history was going. We'd have no assurance of God's desire to adopt us into His family and to care for us throughout eternity. Without God's self-revelation, the most important questions would remain unanswered.
SEEING GOD
Because God is knowable:
1. We can know what He loves.
2. We can know what He hates.
3. We can know what He wants us to be.
4. We can know what He wants us to avoid.
SEEING OURSELVES
1. What decisions have you made recently on the basis of your knowledge of God?
2. What evidence can you point to in your life to show that you are growing in your knowledge of Him?
3. What have you learned about God from observing nature?
4. Why are Bible reading and prayer so important to knowing God?
5. How has knowing God helped you through the difficult times of life?
PERSPECTIVE 3: God Is Immeasurable, Not Just Knowable.
The whole Bible clearly indicates that even though God is a Person, and even though He is knowable, He is distinct from and immeasurably higher than His creation. We were created. Everything we know was created. Everything we know is to some degree measurable. Not so with God. As impossible as it is for us to understand, He existed eternally, and is in no way dependent on anything or anyone else to sustain Him. He is completely free; that is, no one can change Him or make any demands on Him. He lives in the immeasurable span of eternity in complete self-sufficiency.
We have weaknesses and frailties. Everything we know has limits. We fall short; we miss the mark; we fail. We are imperfect and incomplete. Not God. He is beyond measure in His attributes and His ways. Although in some ways we are like God, in so many others there is absolutely no comparison.
"Is your God big enough? Is He big
enough for your life, your problems,
your needs, and your heartache? . . .
Our God is omnipotent. There can
be no limit, boundary, or edge to His
ability and His power."- Paris Reidhead
Moses, when he received the Law, saw the awesome majesty of God. Groping for words to describe the experience, he wrote, "The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain" (Ex. 24:17).
Isaiah, when he was called to be God's prophet, saw the Lord "high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple" (Is. 6:1). In the 40th chapter of his prophecy, he exclaimed:
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding? (Is. 40:12-14).
Again describing God's immeasurable superiority to men, he wrote:
"My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Is. 55:8-9).
SEEING GOD
On the basis of God's immeasurable grandeur, we can conclude that:
1. God doesn't need anyone or anything.
2. God is beyond our complete comprehension.
3. God deserves our worship and praise.
4. God has the right to demand our obedience.
5. God has unlimited power to help us.
SEEING OURSELVES
1. What have you done recently to show that you believe in a God who is greater than you?
2. What have you not done because you recognize God's incomparable greatness?
3. If God were to reveal Himself to you as He did to Moses and Isaiah, how would you respond?
4. If your ideas of God are inadequate, how can you enlarge them?
5. How do you react when you think about an infinite God who loves you?
PERSPECTIVE 4: God Is Good, Not Just Powerful.
In our world, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. But not with God. Our all-powerful God is full of goodness. His goodness is expressed in everything He does. Even His acts of judgment are part of His goodness. When He created our world, everything He made was good. The biblical record of His creation concludes with these words: "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good" (Gen. 1:31).
God's goodness is also evident in His kind acts toward all mankind. Consider the following verses:
The Lord is good to all (Ps. 145:9).
The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing (Ps. 145:15-16).
He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5:45).
He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17).
The goodness of God is most clearly seen in His dealings with man. In the beginning, He placed our first parents in a garden paradise filled with good things. He gave Adam meaningful work and blessed him with His own presence - walking and conversing with him in the Garden. Even so, Adam and Eve violated the one prohibition God had given them. They ate from the forbidden tree. From that point onward, our race has been marked by rebellion. We have treated one another with competitive selfishness and violence. Yet in all of our problems, God has remained a steady, personal, knowable, immeasurable mountain of goodness.
Although absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely, our all-powerful God is full of goodness.
Joseph learned about the goodness of God after being spoiled by an indulgent human father. He learned about the goodness of God after being hated by his jealous brothers, thrown into a pit, and then sold as a slave to Midianite traders. Joseph learned about the goodness of God in a foreign land where he was falsely accused by his master's wife of trying to rape her. After the embarrassment and indignities of prison, and then eventually after facing the very brothers who had sold him like an animal, Joseph could say, "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life" (Gen. 45:4-5). Then later he again said, "'Do not be afraid . . . . as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Now therefore,'" he said to his brothers, "'do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones.' And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them" (Gen. 50:19-21).
These brothers and their children were the beginnings - the fathers of the nation of Israel. In spite of their ruthless selfishness and jealousy, God showed Himself good. It is the goodness of God we sense in the tender words and understanding of Joseph. It is the goodness of God we see in a man who had learned that God is good in all the circumstances of life. He is good, and He is especially good for all who are willing to trust His goodness even when our "brothers" are betraying us and "selling us off" like a piece of property. God is good even in circumstances meant by others to be for evil.
SEEING GOD
Because God is good, we conclude that:
1. We can believe what He says to us.
2. We can have confidence in waiting for His rescue.
3. We can entrust our future to His care.
4. We can rely on His wisdom and guidance.
5. We can know that what He asks us to do is always the best for us.
SEEING OURSELVES
1. What are some examples of God's goodness to all people?
2. Is God ever against you? How do you know?
3. How is God's goodness expressed in His justice? In His mercy? In His love? In His anger?
4. How have you responded to God's goodness in the last week?
5. Have you personally experienced God's goodness as it is expressed in the salvation offered in Jesus Christ?
