The Character of God

From our latest revelation about God – Jesus – we know that the first and second commandments are covenants of intimacy and not servitude – like a marriage covenant, and not a service contract.

God is not only true to His people, but also to His heart and character towards us (2 Timothy 2:13, Psalm 119:90). Always the same (Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Numbers 23:19, Psalm 102:25-27, Isaiah 40:8) God does not change with time or culture.

When serving in ministry, the question about other religions is a very real one that ties not only into doubt, but into many other emotions such as pain, anger, fear and pride as well. 

Not only by faith, relationship and covenant but also by logical reasoning and science God is the answer (resources available). 

However, when sitting down with a person questioning these things, many times we soon realize from their questions that the person does not truly struggle with the existence of God, but rather with an emotion that will be highlighted by their question.

• If God exists and is good why is there so much pain and evil in the world?
• If God is good, why does hell exist?
• Why doesn’t He intervene? Why didn’t He stop this?
• Why is the old Testament so cruel?

These are not evil questions, they are anguished appeals for righteousness and justice.

How ironic, and tragic, that the very character that informs our being, that which He cultivated in us to reflect Him, is the character rebelling against His existence.

God created us in His image, to be a representation of His just and righteous character to the world. Though after the fall, we find that solely in the grace of Jesus Christ on the cross, in the Garden it was not so. God called His representatives “very good”. Considering God’s standards, that’s a pretty big deal.

God created us to be just and righteous, forces of good autonomous and – as C.S. Lewis puts it – curious. These attributes are crucial and integral to asking those questions.

If I have no need for justice, my question would not be “If God exists and is good why is there so much pain and evil in the world?”, but rather,”If God exists and is good why am I in pain?”.

Many times we discover that the person is not asking the question of “Is He there?”, but rather “Who is there?”. In light of an answer which they do not find consistent with Who God claims to be, they conclude Him to be a liar. Concluding that the very claim of Christianity is a logical fallacy, they chalk it all off as such.

The second driver to these questions could also be selfish indignation. Going back to the Garden once again, we find another character here, one that will always compete for our allegiance. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn draws from Romans 7, the line dividing good and evil cuts through every human heart.

Insidiously finding its way in there by way of the original sin, it retains its place by way of the same, finely crafted lie. For when we find Eve in the Garden before the fall, we find her created in God’s image and – by His own words – a “good” representative of Him. For clarity, we find Eve not to be God but, certainly, like Him.

Now in the claim that the serpent makes, we find some well disguised, carefully crafted lies.

• Eve will become like God.
• Eve will know the difference between good and evil.
• God is holding out on Eve
• God is lying about His intentions

Knowing what we know today, we already know the last two to be falsehoods. Yet let’s take a closer look at the first two.

Eve is already like God, Genesis 1:

27 God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.

The satan is selling something to Eve that she already has, by reducing her to something less than what God calls her and discounts her identity (theft).

Jesus called the satan the father of lies, a murderer from the beginning. By erasing Eve’s identity and putting the wages of sin (death) on her, he is trying to kill her (murder).

Now he is certainly not very creative, because he can’t create anything.
He does this same till this day, his playbook has not changed.
As Jesus says the servant is not more than his master. The satan tried this with God’s identity first, then with Eve’s, and continues to do so with all that would follow (see the name changes of Daniels’s friends also – time 9:00mins of 39mins).

The second lie we find here is that she will know the difference between Good and Evil. This is such a great example, the original instance of the satan being the prince of lies.

Or, as Watermark.org would put it;

Sin promises what it can’t deliver (deception, lies, manipulation, bating), keeps you longer than you wanted to stay (imprisonment, coercion), and makes you pay more than you wanted to pay (theft, backbreaking Matthew 11:30).

The truly tragic reality here is that to this day we really don’t know the difference between right and wrong. Consider the prolife vs. prochoice arguments, corrective rape, self-mutilation in depression, errors of parenting, our perception of justice vs revenge, the list could go on.

Do we know right from wrong? Or has Eve traded everything for noting by believing God was not Who He said, He was holding out on her?