No God Like Our God

The wide variety of religions, cults and worldviews that exist around the globe display vastly divergent views of God. In America I would posit that most popular views of God are informed more by mythical imaginings than biblical revelation.

For example how many times have you heard someone refer to the “Big Man Upstairs”? With this view God is envisioned as an over-sized, bearded, lumberjack hanging out in heaven peering down from his lofty perch. Or, after a horrific car accident someone may cry out, “Why did God cause this to happen?” In this view God is a cold-hearted tyrant who arbitrarily determines all events, whether good or bad. Or, there is the God reflected in the secular person who blurts out a small prayer in a crowded Costco parking lot, “Please God give me an open slot near the entrance.” Here God is a magic genie granting small favors to creatures struggling with everyday life.

So, who is God, I mean really?

John tells us, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

He followed this with explanatory words from John the Baptist, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God … has made him known.” (John 1:18)

Through his embodied life on earth Jesus displayed the very glory of God. He came from God and He was God. The invisible God of the universe was fully and completely revealed—made known, explained, and exegeted—in the birth, life and death of Jesus.

So, to look at Jesus is to look at a perfect picture of God, and what an unusual God we have! There is no God like this God!

The pre-existent Son became human as he was birthed to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. They placed him in a dusty, feed trough among barnyard animals. As he grew into a man he was homeless and had no place to lay his head. He spent his days trekking about Israel, teaching and healing among the common people. Then he laid down his life on a cross, a horrendous instrument of torture and death. No human could imagine such an upside down God. Clearly this conception of God doesn’t originate with humanity. Where is the grandiosity, power and fame?

Paul perfectly explains the downward trajectory of Jesus’ short life on earth with these words, “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Philippians 2:6-8

Theologians agree that Jesus showed us exactly what God is like. He wasn’t a mere facet of divinity. Anyone who saw him saw the Father, as Jesus instructed (John 14:9).

And what we discover about God by looking at Jesus calls for a radical re-definition of God. He is a king, but his cross reveals that He is a lowly king. He is the slain Lamb, humble and cruciform. In His self-giving we encounter the premier expression of God’s nature—of God’s love and grace—seen most clearly at the Cross. His kenosis, self-giving love and radical servant-hood, reveal the very nature of God not just a passing phase. This is the clearest expression of the glory of God the Father (and Son and Holy Spirit) and God’s essential nature. There is no other God like this God!

This is the God we give our lives to, just as He gave His for us, this is the God we obey. In acknowledging Jesus as our King we embark on the same path that He trod, a lowly path of humility, compassion, dying to self in order to live for others, and for God.

This Advent let us take time to reflect on this incomprehensible mystery and seek to live as Jesus—through love and service—among a world that desperately needs to encounter Him, the one true God, unlike any other in this world.

~ Charles Revis, Advent 2020

(I am indebted to Bradley Jersak’s A More Christlike God for some of the thoughts and phrases in this article.)