Personal God
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“Exalt ye Jehovah our God,
And worship at His holy hill;
For Jehovah our God is holy.”
Psalm 100:1-4
;
99:9
, A.R.V.
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God Revealed in Christ
As a personal being, God has revealed Himself in His Son. Jesus,
the outshining of the Father’s glory, “and the express image of His
person” (
Hebrews 1:3
), was on earth found in fashion as a man. As
a personal Saviour He came to the world. As a personal Saviour He
ascended on high. As a personal Saviour He intercedes in the heavenly
courts. Before the throne of God in our behalf ministers “One like
unto the Son of man.”
Revelation 1:13
.
Christ, the Light of the world, veiled the dazzling splendor of His
divinity and came to live as a man among men, that they might, without
being consumed, become acquainted with their Creator. No man has
seen God at any time except as He is revealed through Christ.
“I and My Father are one,” Christ declared. “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.”
John 10:30
;
Matthew
11:27
.
Christ came to teach human beings what God desires them to know.
In the heavens above, in the earth, in the broad waters of the ocean, we
see the handiwork of God. All created things testify to His power, His
wisdom, His love. But not from the stars or the ocean or the cataract
can we learn of the personality of God as it is revealed in Christ.
God saw that a clearer revelation than nature was needed to portray
both His personality and His character. He sent His Son into the world
to reveal, so far as could be endured by human sight, the nature and
the attributes of the invisible God.
Had God desired to be represented as dwelling personally in the
things of nature,—in the flower, the tree, the spire of grass,—would
not Christ have spoken of this to His disciples when He was on the
earth? But never in the teaching of Christ is God thus spoken of. Christ
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and the apostles taught clearly the truth of the existence of a personal
God.