The question that I'm attempting to answer is a common one. Most people are taught and believe that God is good up to a point. That He is good in certain areas, but in other areas He does things, bad things. He does these things to us for us to learn some sort of lesson. So, why is it important that we have the correct perspective on God, that we understand His true nature? It is important because the way we see God determines the way we relate to Him and the way we relate to God will determine the strength and openness of our relationship with Him. The kind of relationship you have with God determines directly how you see the world and where you fit into it. If we have an incorrect, warped view of Him and His intrinsic nature, things that happen to us and to those around us won't make sense, we will blame God for things that He isn't responsible for, thereby putting huge strain on our relationship with Him. Herein lies the problem: The very thing we believe to be true about God can cause us to want nothing to do with Him. There is something wrong with this picture.
Let's take a look at what the bible says about God's nature. We must look at scripture in context; context is a powerful weapon to the person making claims from it. We need to make sure our exegesis is spot on in our study of His word; this can help eliminate some elementary confusion. You must be prepared to draw conclusions from the Word and not from what someone tells you. As individuals, we are responsible for how we see God, no one else. Most people don't let the bible get in the way of what they believe; they let their own experiences determine what the bible must be saying. We can't afford to lower the truth contained in the word to the level of our experience, rather we should see and understand the truths contained in the bible, then believe that our experience of God lives up to that.
Firstly, to understand why God does what He does, we must take a look at the different covenants He has had with man over the ages. God relates to us based on covenant, a covenant is a promise that is made between two parties, in the Old Testament times these covenants were made between God and Israel and now, through Jesus, the new covenant is made between God the born-again believer, you and me.
His first covenant was with Adam in Genesis 2. Noah and his family, in Genesis 6, were the next to have a covenant with God. The bible says in Gen 6:8 “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” and later on in verse 18 God says, "But I will establish my covenant with you ..."As God’s plan for the redemption of the world started to unfold, He then made a covenant with Abraham, which is recorded in Genesis 17. The human race still continued to decay in the moral abyss and thus a covenant was made with Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 34. The final, everlasting covenant between God and man was through Jesus. Prophesied of over 500 times in the Old Testament and looked upon as the defining factor in the New Testament, this is where our focus will end up.
Let's take a look at two of the Old Testament covenants and see why they were made and how it affected God relating to us. We know that when God made the earth it was perfect, sinless (Gen 1 and 2) however, at the fall of man sin entered into the world. Did God know this was going to happen? Yes. Did He make provision for this eventuality? Yes. Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus was slain before the world was even created. God knew what was going to happen and He knew what needed to be done. I can just imagine Jesus saying, “Create them; I’ll pick up the tab” About 500 to 800 years after creation, God made a covenant with Abraham, this is the first indication that God wants to use a specific people group to bring forth the Messiah. God said this to Abraham in Genesis 17:7, "And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you ... for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you" God goes on to describe the covenant with Abraham, one where He will bless him and all his descendants, bringing them unparalleled prosperity and only have good intent towards them.
So what has God's promise with Abraham got to do with us? The whole reason God chose a person, Abraham, and a people, Israel, is so that He could bring forth a messiah, Jesus, the anointed one. Paul writes in the New Testament in Galatians 3:7-8 "Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed.'" and later on in the same chapter he says v29 "And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."
It becomes quite clear then, that as born-again believers, we are the seed of Abraham and therefore heirs to all the promises that God made to Abraham all those thousands of years ago. However, the confusion for the modern day believer comes in when, around 600 years later, God instituted the covenant with Moses (Mosaic covenant), this covenant included a series of laws that the Israelites had to follow. There were blessings and curses which followed as a result of keeping or breaking these laws. Keep in mind that God doesn’t like sin at all, He abhors it, but we are/were sinners, so how do we harmonize this?
Read on in the next post to follow shortly.
Pic Courtesy of runawayjuno.com
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