Imaging God

We sometimes speak of someone having a vivid imagination or the opposite, having no imagination at all! The word imagination and image are closely linked.

In Judaeo-Christian teaching the second of the Ten Commandments forbids making a representation of God in the form of an image (also called an idol). But why? Well, religious idols fall so far short of the reality that is God our creator ,they can only dishonour him. How would Shakespeare have reacted if his literary works were attributed to a five-year old schoolboy’s doodling!

In the Jewish Scriptures, God is emphatic that his own people must not form images of God, which was a thing the surrounding nations did for their gods. Such images are the product of the worshipper’s own imagination and therefore are simply human inventions.

All of this may sound totally irrelevant to how each of us conducts our daily lives and pursues our spiritual well-being. Yet, in conversations, I hear people say things like, ‘My God wouldn’t do such-and-such’ or ‘I can’t believe in a God as portrayed in some parts of the Bible; my God isn’t a God of wrath.’ I recall a lyric in a song that says, ‘I like to think of God as…’. Can you see what’s going on here? Such people are using their mental abilities to form their own imaginings of God. These human constructs inevitably fall far short of the power, magnificence and wonder of God that his unfathomable creation reveals to us.

There is, however, an image that does have God’s full approval. When the first Christian missionaries ventured into the non-Jewish (Gentile) countries of the Mediterranean, they announced Jesus as being the image of God. When they came across Jews living in these pagan lands, they said to them, Jesus ‘is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’.

You and I don’t have the capacity to imagine the unimaginable, so God has shown himself to us in a way that we can comprehend. He did this by taking on the form and nature of a man. No longer do we need to guess what God is like, nor, along with John Lennon, simply imagine.

Jesus is the very image of God and as he said to his first disciples, ‘he who has seen me has seen (God) the Father’.

President Trump and the Evangel

I confess to feeling uncomfortable, more accurately, disturbed when I hear about evangelical leaders in the USA positively promoting President Trump. The impression that I get from Donald Trump’s own mouth, as broadcast in the news media, is that he is an untrustworthy man and something of a loose cannon.

What is an evangelical?

This raises the point, ‘What is an evangelical anyway?’ The word evangelical is used a little loosely these days. Where Christian communities are found to be faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ, they will spread the Evangel i.e. ‘good news/tidings’ of Jesus Christ.

Why is this Good News?

This good news, at first glance, seems to be bad news! How so? If Jesus is promoted as the Saviour of people, and he is, it becomes obvious that God, who sent him, says we need saving from something. That ‘something’, putting it candidly, is God’s own displeasure and ultimately his judgement.

God is Creator of all things and therefore all things are his by right. Though this is reasonable, by nature we each find ourselves resisting God and wanting self rule. This is tantamount to rebellion against the highest authority.

Yet, God is patient and kind and, at great cost to himself, provides a way to bring us back from the brink. He sent Jesus who is the very image of God. When Jesus was crucified, it was for people like you and me. He willingly took upon himself the displeasure and ultimate judgement that befits those who in their hearts are standing against God, their creator and Lord. This is the Evangel - good news (also called the Gospel). Jesus has done all that’s necessary to put us in right standing with God and give us a new start – no longer rebels but reconciled children.

Now I’m going to do the work of an evangelist. Will you receive the glad tidings and take them into your heart or turn your back on what God, by sending Jesus, has done?

President Trump is in office just as long as it suits God’s overall purposes - purposes now hidden from us. Then the President’s power will evaporate. He too will give an account as to what he did with the Evangel. We must pray that those American evangelical leaders, who have his ear, are truly sharing the good news with him.

A new trajectory

Let’s go back 47 years to January 1979. The Labour government was under pressure - it was ‘the Winter of Discontent’. Meanwhile, leaders of France, Germany, Britain and the USA held a summit. The Shah of Persia (Iran) was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini took over, complicating Middle East tensions that are still felt today. It all sounds rather familiar.

January 1979 is firmly fixed in my own mind for a personal reason. That’s the month I became a Christian. Hearing and responding to the Good News of the Christian message is a once-in-a-lifetime event that sets you off on an entirely new trajectory.

The Christian message is a call for each of us to turn away from what we know to be bad and to believe - believing meaning to put into action our trust and faith. ‘Repent and believe’ is the Bible’s terminology.

How is this good news? When we make an about turn and expose our hearts to God, daring to trust that he has love for us with our best interests in his mind, we are then able to receive from him. Turning and trusting places us in a position to receive from God his forgiveness and the gift of his own Spirit to live within us.

Some people hesitate to take these initial steps of faith, fearing that they are not good enough or that they will not be able to stay the course. The good news is that how good or bad we may think we are is actually irrelevant. God knows that none of us is good enough to meet his standards and this is precisely why Jesus came as a saviour for people that are not good enough. Ultimately, he secured forgiveness for men and women when he was crucified and then resurrected: That’s the Easter story.

Thinking ‘I haven’t the strength to stay the course’ is a good thing, because we will more readily welcome God’s gift of his Spirit, which is given to those who will trust in Jesus. God’s Spirit is also referred to as the ‘Comforter’, meaning one who strengthens and encourages in just the same way as Jesus did with his first disciples.

We are always living in uncertain times. There is, however, nothing uncertain about the God we can meet in Jesus.