What Is He Really Like?
Wherever my questions begin, they ultimately either disappear, or are answered directly as I "grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ."
He Himself was God in the flesh. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."
Most people come to believe that Jesus Christ was God's revelation of Himself — was God in the flesh, because the Bible says so. This was a large factor in my own first frightened leap of faith over this otherwise uncrossable chasm where Jesus stretches Himself between us and the Father. Now after ten years, I know the Bible declares Him to be the Son of God, simply because it is true. Once we make the leap "over" with our eternal weight on Christ, we not only find ourselves at peace with God, we find all of life backing up our faith.
Jesus Christ was God Himself come to earth, or He was not. This is the one point where the leap of faith is required. Either we believe Him or we don't. There is no middle ground. But once, by faith, we make this leap, we find Him there and all else begins to fall into place. If
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you believe that God invaded human history in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, you are a Christian. After that initial leap of faith in His identity, all other necessary faith comes to you as a result of your continuing discovery of what Jesus is like.
If you know a person to be trustworthy after steady association with this person, faith in him is no problem. It is automatic. The more you discover about Jesus Christ, the more you will find your faith increasing.
Halfhearted, timid, defeated Christians are those who have not set themselves to discover God Himself. True Christian enthusiasm cannot be whipped up by loud preaching or loud singing. Noisy Christians are not necessarily dynamic Christians. They may even be basically timid or halfhearted. The Christians who attract us and remind us most of their Master are the quiet, sure, bold ones. And quiet, confident, holy-boldness is not achieved by noisy self-effort, or by thinking holy or bold thoughts. The peace and naturalness and calm of those contagious saints come as a simple result of their willingness to find out more and more of what God is like.
A clamorous "defender of the faith" is inevitably high-strung, nervous and unnatural. We feel an indefinable uneasiness around him, because the true weapons of the Gospel are not the harsh word and the clenched fist, but the exposed heart and the outstretched arms. We have never "fought the good fight" God's way until we have learned to love. And we cannot learn to love under all circumstances, until we have opened ourselves to learn of the One who Himself is love.
How do we learn of God? By learning of Jesus Christ. By paying interested attention to all He had to say about the Father, and to all that He did in the Father's Name. By exposing ourselves to the nature of God in Jesus Christ.
For all of His earthly life, Jesus was about His Father's
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business. What was this business? Why was He sent? The Son of God came to earth so that we can, at last, know the true nature of the Father's heart.
"Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us."
Philip voiced the heart-cry of every human being when he said this. There is no person who, if he is honest, would not admit to a longing deep inside him to know for certain what God is like.
In Jesus' answer to Philip is the answer to the heart-cry of every human life. "How long have I been with you without your recognizing Me, Philip! He who has looked on Me, has looked on the Father."
In His words and in His actions, Jesus declared Himself to be one with the Father. "I and the Father are one."
Peaceful Christians know this to be true.
They are peaceful at the center of their beings because they have seen that God cannot be figured out by the study of physics or biology; He cannot be discovered as He really is in a storm or a waterfall; He cannot be learned through a scholarship or a plan of salvation. He is in all of these, but there is more. He is a living Person, and when He broke into human history at the birth of Jesus, He involved Himself forever in the human struggle. Peaceful Christians are those who rest in the knowledge that God is discoverable to anyone. And as we discover His true character we rest.
Anyone can look at Jesus Christ. And anyone who looks at Him, looks at God Himself, or Jesus was wrong in His entire presentation of truth. A peaceful Christian sees no need to argue and defend the truth he believes. He sees only the need to witness to Jesus Christ, who declared Himself to be truth. "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Throughout the Gospel accounts we see Jesus Christ in a tireless attempt to reveal the Father's heart as it is. The
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whole of this greatest life said to us in effect: "Look at Me. I and the Father are One. This is what God is really like. Look at Me. You need have no more doubts about His intentions toward you. I have come so that anyone can know and know fully about the Father's heart."
It seems to me that everything Jesus did had one motive behind it: To explain the Father accurately to us. The whole dynamic of His Kingdom teaching lay in the glorious fact that the King is Father.
To be able to know God is the deepest longing of every human heart. To have unanswered questions about Him is the source of all human fear. God knew this. And so He came, and now anyone can know.
Perhaps the most complete picture of the Father which Jesus gave in His earthly teachings, is His magnificently constructed prodigal son story. And most glorious to me is the fact that Jesus knew no description of us alongside it. There is the errant prodigal in us all. There is a hard streak of the elder brother in us all. It is as though even Jesus would have had no way to express the Father as He is, without including us, as we are!
From the Berkeley Version I would like to quote the fifteenth chapter of Saint Luke, from verse 11 through verse 32. As you read it, check your own concept of the Father. Is He like this to you? And how much of the prodigal is there in you? How much of the elder brother?
"He further said, A certain man had two sons, the younger of whom said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me.' So he apportioned to them his means of living. After a few days the younger son collected all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered what he had in reckless living. When all had been squandered, a terrible famine visited that whole land and he began to lack; so he went and attached himself to a citizen of that coun-
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try, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. He aimed to get his stomach filled with locust pods which the hogs were eating; but no one gave him any. But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than they can eat and here I am starving! I will arise and go to my father and say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and I no longer deserved to be called your son; take me on as one of your hired hands!" '
"So he got up and went to his father; but when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and felt deeply moved (for him) and, running, fell on his neck and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I no longer deserve to be called your son!' But the father told his servants, 'Hurry! Fetch the choicest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; bring the fatted calf, too, and butcher it. Let us feast and be merry; for this my son was dead and he lives again; he was lost and has been found.' So they began to be merry.
"But his older son was in the field and, as he came near home, he heard music and dancing; so, calling one of the boys, he asked what it was all about. He told him, 'Your brother has come and your father has butchered the fatted calf, because he got him back in good health.' Stirred with anger, however, he would not even go in. His father came out to invite him; but he replied to his father, 'See here! I have worked for you all these years without ever neglecting an order of yours; but never yet did you give me so much as a kid, so that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours comes along after squandering your livelihood with prostitutes, you kill for him the fatted calf.' But he said to him, 'Child, you are always with me and all I have is yours. We just had to make merry and to be happy for this your brother was
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dead and he has come to life; he was lost and has been found.' "
"We just had to make merry and to be happy." Does the God you know have a capacity for merriment and rejoicing? According to Jesus Christ, this is part of the nature of the Father's heart. He is not laying down a standard for an earthly father to live up to in this little story. He is attempting once more to show us what our Heavenly Father is like. And according to Jesus, when one "lost" person comes home, truly repentant, the Father just has to rejoice and be happy. He can't help it. This is what He is like.
It is no wonder that this is a perfectly constructed story from a literary standpoint. It was composed by the One "by whom all things were made that were made." The Creator Himself became our Saviour, and He told this amazing story. As a writer, I find its pattern exciting to me. As a human being who desperately needs to know God's nature, its pattern also excites me. Because Jesus has with simple, clear strokes placed the characterization of God Himself between two characterizations of typical human nature, where it is most needed.
Actually there are three little stories here. One of the prodigal son, one of the father, and one of the elder brother.
The prodigal son story has a happy ending. In this story, Jesus deals first of all with the willful, self-centered, grasping extremities of human nature. The prodigal son wanted what was coming to him — now. He didn't want to wait. It may not show up socially in us as it did in him, but there is this grasping nature in us all. And clearly, in three simple, decisive steps Jesus (while telling the prodigal's story) shows us what true repentance means.
The father did not argue with him when he asked for his share of the inheritance. Neither does God argue with
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us. In all things, He respects our free wills. The father gave it to him and the boy "lived it up" in no time. Then, looking around him, he saw that his life was not working. He saw his need and admitted it. And this is the first step in true repentance. To see our need and admit it.
If the story had stopped here, however, it would simply have been an example of rather typical self-pity. Many people see that they need something. Many remember other people who "have more than they can eat" and then they realize that they are starving. When the awakening goes only this far, it sinks into self-pity and resentment against life for treating them so cruelly. The reason I know this boy was not just sorry for himself is that almost immediately, he made a decision. His repentance was real. First, he confessed his need, and then he made a decision to do something about it: "I will arise and go to my father."
This is the second step in repentance. We make a decision. But a decision is only a temporary relief unless we take the third step. The prodigal acted on his decision — "...he got up and went to his father."
This is the first of Jesus' three clearly drawn characterizations. Now, he shifts the scene quickly from the prodigal son to the father. "But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and felt deeply moved (for him) and, running, fell on his neck and kissed him."
Is this what God is like?
It seems too good to be true that after a life of utter destruction and waste God would be that glad to see one person turn to Him in true repentance. But those of us who have been "far off" know that it is too good not to be true.
When we make one small honest move toward God, we find Him running toward us with a warm greeting and a kiss!
When we make one small honest move toward God,
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while we are still "a great way off," we find God running toward us. If we see Him as He is, our repentant hearts are still more aroused toward Him, because we know He has been out looking for us. He has not been busy doing other things. The father of the prodigal had to be out on the front porch looking for him, otherwise he could not have run down the road to meet the boy coming home.
Of course, we, like the prodigal, can't help pouring out our hearts in repentance once we see Him coming toward us, but there is an interesting thing. According to Jesus' story, the father didn't say anything to the boy. He just threw his arms around him and kissed him! Any earthly father might have given the boy a good scolding at least. "Well, I could have told you! Look at you — and all my hard-earned money down the drain. To think that a son of mine would end up like this!"
Not the Heavenly Father. He threw his arms around the boy and kissed him and without a word to the prodigal, he began to give orders to his servants to prepare a big feast. "Hurry, fetch the choicest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; bring the fatted calf, too, and butcher it. Let us feast and be merry; for this my son was dead and he lives again; he was lost and has been found."
Is God really like this? Does the mere fact of our coming to Him, even in our disgusting condition, bring joy to His heart? According to Jesus Christ, yes. And according to anyone who has dragged his wasted life home to the Father, yes.
God knows that sin in His loved ones is a disease over which they have no control. He knows the inevitable end result of a human heart thrown recklessly at life. The prodigal's father was neither surprised nor shocked at his son's condition when he came home. He just "rejoiced over him with singing." The boy had come home. To the father, that was all that mattered. God's love is greater
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than our love of sin. No matter what we have done, we can all come home and we can all hear the Father say, "I love you more than you love your sin."
But what of the elder brothers among us? What of those who have not "squandered what they have in reckless living?" How much does the Father love those who stay with him and conduct themselves uprightly? This brings up an interesting point. As long as we feel we deserve God's love, we take it for granted. If we are not shocking ourselves by any particular excess, it is somehow difficult, often impossible, for us to realize the depth of His love.
I remember, as I write, some real anger in the faces of a few Christians who let me know shortly after my own conversion that they resented the fact that I felt God's love for me. They had known Him a long time, and like the elder brother, they were unable to share in my feast. They resented the ring on my hand and the robe around my shoulders. They somehow felt that God should have left me barefoot for awhile. After all, they had believed and served Him for years. They deserved their sandals and they felt slighted that the Father didn't give them books to write and talks to make about His love. They had been eating the whole Bread of Life for years and they resented that for one who had been "in a far country" as I had been, He apparently had killed the fatted calf. They were "stirred with anger and would not go in" to my feast.
These "elder brothers" are not attractive Christians. They are often condemned. But the Father sees them through His eyes of love, just as He sees the prodigals among us. He sees that neither the elder brother nor the prodigal son are ideal people. Both are in need of a constant downpouring of divine love.
It seemed so to the elder brother, but there is really no contrast in the way the father treated his sons. The
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contrast is only in the realm of the boys' repentance. One is truly penitent, one is not. One causes the father's heart to rejoice, one does not. But to both, he remains the entreating father. When the prodigal started home, the father "felt deeply moved (for him) and running, fell on his neck and kissed him." When the elder brother was "stirred with anger" and "would not go in," the father came out to invite him. To the prodigal he said, "Welcome home, my son." To the elder brother, "Child, you are always with me and all I have is yours."
To both he offered his heart of love and his home with all its supply.
He did not change his plans and cancel the dancing and the feasting, however, in order to pamper the surly elder brother. In all things God remains true to Himself. He merely explained that because the prodigal had returned, "We just had to make merry and be happy."
Is this what God is really like?
If Jesus came in order to show us once and for all what the Father is like, then it is true. During His life on earth, through His teaching and His healing and His miracles, He was motivated by one desire: to reveal the true character of God. This story of the prodigal son, the stories of the lost coin and the lost sheep are, in a sense, prologues to the Cross. As He walked the dusty roads of Palestine, Jesus said over and over, "This is what the Father's heart is like."
Then, on the Cross, He allowed humanity to tear open His heart, so that we can see for ourselves. God's own heart was exposed on Calvary. Because "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."
