- Is it possible for humans to be "friends" of God? (See John 15:15, GNB) Can we really understand all He wants us to know about Him? What are the most important things He wants us to know about Him? "I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father." (John 15:15, GNB) - [ For a full discussion of this question, see the book Servants or Friends by A. Graham Maxwell. (Look particularly at chapter 2)]
Why does it seem hard for us to imagine being God's friend? Is it because He is the King of the Universe and we don't think He could really be interested in us? Is it because we have grown up with the idea that God is watching everything we do, and He will punish us if we get out of line? Is it because many of us believe that God will burn sinners in hell fire for eternity and we have a hard time thinking of that as "friendly"? Why did Moses have to take off his shoes when approaching God? (Exodus 3:5) Why was it necessary to put a barrier around Mt. Sinai to keep people from being "zapped" by God? (Exodus 19:10-25) Is our picture of God so narrow that we cannot encompass the idea that the same "God" could thunder from Mt. Sinai and yet welcome children to sit in His lap?
It would be very presumptuous of us even to think that we could be God's friends if it weren't for the fact that God is the One who says He wants to call us friends! But friendship depends on communication and how are we to communicate with God? Do we expect some kind of Pentecostal experience? Does God need to speak to each of us individually through miracles or some kind of direct revelation, perhaps in "tongues" or some other way? How are we to communicate with a God we cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell? Is it to be some sort of extra-sensory experience? Or does God speak through His "Word", both through the Son and through the written word? How did Job and Enoch and Abraham get to know God really well before there was any written "word"? What kind of "experience" did they have with God?
Is this what you think of when you think of the "Gods" of the Bible? - Old Testament God v. New Testament God!
Genesis 2:17: "You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day." (GNB)
Matthew 18:21,22: " You must forgive your brother seventy times seven times".
Deuteronomy 20:16, 17 16 "But when you capture cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, kill everyone." ... "Completely destroy all the people: the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord ordered you to do." (GNB)
Matthew 5:43-45 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your friends, hate your enemies.' 44 But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For He makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil." (GNB)
Genesis 6-8: God drowned every creature who didn't get in the ark.
Matthew 10:29: Not even a sparrow falls without God's noting it.
Joshua 7: Achan and his whole family were stoned to death because he stole some items from the ruins at Jericho.
John 8:1-11: After a woman was caught in the "very act" of adultery, Jesus said, "I do not condemn you either, but do not sin again". (GNB)
Leviticus 10:1-7: God burns up Nadab and Abihu
Numbers 16:23-35: The ground swallows up Korah Dathan and Abiram .
John 5:1-18: After healing the man at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus said "stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." (GNB)
But what about these contrasts?
Psalms 23:4 "Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me. Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me."
Hosea 11:8: "How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you as I did Admah,
or treat you as I did Zeboiim? My heart will not let Me do it!
My love for you is too strong."
Psalms 136: "His love is eternal." (Elsewhere translated "loving kindness", "mercy", "steadfast love")
Compare Psalms 118; 1 Chronicles 16:34,41; Jeremiah 33:11
Revelation 14:9-11 9 " A third angel followed the first two, saying in a loud voice, "Whoever worships the beast and its image and receives the mark on their forehead or on their hand 10 will themselves drink God's wine, the wine of his fury, which he has poured at full strength into the cup of his anger! All who do this will be tormented in fire and sulphur before the holy angels and the Lamb. 11 The smoke of the fire that torments them goes up for ever and ever. There is no relief day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, for anyone who has the mark of its name." (GNB)
These are just a few of the examples that could be given. Parents act differently under different circumstances. Shouldn't we allow God that same privilege? If so, do the circumstances justify the apparent contrasts? Do parents speak out or act in desperate ways when the lives of their children are threatened? Shouldn't God act when the eternal lives of His children are threatened?
Is it fair for us to decide how we believe God should act and then measure Him against our view of how He should act, or should we determine our picture of God based on how He has acted in a variety of circumstances?
- How much evidence is there in Scripture for the idea that Jesus is fully God and existed with God throughout eternity? (John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1; Revelation 12:7-12) Is this really important? Why?
Biblical Evidence:
Isaiah 9:6 "A child is born to us! A Son is given to us! And He will be our ruler. He will be called, "Wonderful Counsellor", "Mighty God", "Eternal Father", "Prince of Peace"." (GNB)
Micah 5:2: "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting. (Literally, the days of eternity)" (New King James Version)
John 1:1-3: 1 "1 In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 From the very beginning the Word was with God. 3 Through Him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without Him." (GNB)
Colossians 1:16: "For through Him God created everything in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen things, including spiritual powers, lords, rulers, and authorities. God created the whole universe through Him and for Him." (GNB)
John 17:5, 24 5 "Father! Give Me glory in Your presence now, the same glory I had with You before the world was made.... 24 so that they may see My glory, the glory You gave Me; for you loved Me before the world was made." (GNB)
John 8:58: "I am telling you the truth," Jesus replied. "Before Abraham was born, 'I Am'." (GNB)
Exodus 3:14: "God said, "I am who I am. This is what you must say to them: 'The one who is called I AM has sent me to you.'" (GNB)
Matthew 1:23: "A virgin will become pregnant and have a Son, and He will be called Immanuel" (which means, 'God is with us')." (GNB)
John 20:28: "Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (GNB)
Hebrews 1:6: "But when God was about to send Hhis firstborn (pre-eminent) Son into the world, He said: 'All God's angels must worship Him.'" (GNB)
Psalms 97:7: "Everyone who worships idols is put to shame; all the gods bow down before the Lord." (GNB)
Romans 1:24,25: 24 24 "This is why God has given them up to the vileness of their hearts' lusts, to the shameful misuse of each other's bodies. 25
They have exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, by worshipping and serving created things, rather than the Creator praised be He for ever. Amen." (Jewish New Testament)
It is essential that we understand that Jesus was fully God. Many heresies have sprung up in Christian history challenging the idea that Jesus Christ could be fully God and fully man at the same time, but this is what the Bible teaches. It may be hard for us to understand how it actually happens, but if we believe that Jesus was the One who was sent to answer the questions about God in the great controversy, if Jesus was not fully God, then we don't have answers about God but about someone else! Jesus was the God of the Old Testament and He is just like His Father, there is no difference between the two of them. (See #1 above)
Jesus assures us that if we have seen, heard and believed in Him we have seen the Father:
John 10:30: "The Father and I are one." (GNB)
John 12:44, 45 44 " Jesus said in a loud voice, `Whoever believes in Me believes not only in Me but also in Him who sent Me. 45:44 Whoever sees Me sees also Him who sent Me." ' (GNB)
John 14:9: " Jesus answered, `For a long time I have been with you all; yet you do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. Why, then, do you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (GNB)
Conclusion: The great controversy is over the character and government of God. Since the beginning of human history Satan has been claiming that God is a liar. (See Genesis 3:1-4) In order to know whom we can trust, we must have experience with the two sides involved in this controversy. We have plenty of experience with Satan! But only through the life and death of Jesus, assuming that He is fully God, can we know, on any kind of a personal basis, anything about God. Without this we are
still guessing and we do not have answers to the most important
questions before the universe.
For more study: Look up Gnosticism, Docetism, and Cerinthianism. (See 1-3John TG #1), Can God Be Trusted, "Worshiping God Without Fear"
- How does the judgment of God work? What really happens? John seems to suggest that it is quite different than is often thought. (John 5:22; 3:17-21; 12:47,48)
It is often suggested that the judgment is a very frightful time when each of us has his name called up before God and as the Father focuses His scrutinizing eye on us and we feel like melting, the Son kindly pleads our case before the offended Father. (See 1 John 2:1) This scenario is, of course, primarily discussed by those who believe in the mortality of humankind because those who believe that we go directly to our "reward" at death don't usually discuss a separate time of "judgment". But what does the Bible actually say about the Judgment?
Daniel 7:9,10,13. 9 "As I looked, thrones were placed and one that was ancient of days took His seat; His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. 10 A stream of fire issued and came forth from before Him; a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened... 13 I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him." (RSV)
Matthew 10:32,33. 22 "So every one who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father who is in heaven; 33 but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven." (RSV)
1 Peter 1:17. "And if you invoke as Father Him who judges each one impartially according to his deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile." (RSV)
1 John 2:1. "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;" (RSV)
Revelation 3:5. "He who conquers shall be clad thus in white garments, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life; I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels." (RSV)
John 5:22-29. 22 "Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent Him. 24 I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Hhim who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in himself. 27 And He has given Him authority to judge because He is the Son of Man. 28 "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice 29 and come out--those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." (NIV)
vs. 22 "Nor does the Father himself judge anyone. He has given
His Son the full right to judge, 23 so that all will honor the Son in the same way as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent Him. 24 "I am telling you the truth: whoever hears My words and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life. He will not be judged, but has already passed from death to life. 25 I am telling you the truth: the time is coming--the time has already come--when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear it will come to life. 26 Just as the Father is Himself the source of life, in the same way He has made his Son to be the source of life. 27 And He has given the Son the right to judge, because He is the Son of Man . 28 Do not be surprised at this; the time is coming when all the dead will hear His voice 29 and come out of their graves: those who have done good will rise and live, and those who have done evil will rise and be condemned." (GNB)
2 Corinthians 5:10. "For all of us must appear before Christ, to be judged by Him. We will each receive what we deserve, according to everything we have done, good or bad, in our bodily life." (GNB)
John 8:15-18. "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, My decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father who sent Me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for Myself; My other witness is the one who sent me--the Father." (NIV)
John 12:47,48. "As for the person who hearsMy words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day." (NIV)
vs. "If anyone hears my message and does not obey it, I will not judge him. I came, not to judge the world, but to save it. Whoever rejects Me and does not accept My message has one who will judge him. The words I have spoken will be his judge on the last day!" (GNB)
John 3:17-21. 17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 18 Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." (NIV)
vs. 17 " For God did not send His Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its Savior. 18 Those who believe in the Son are not judged; but those who do not believe have already been judged, because they have not believed in God's only Son. 19 This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. 20 All those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. 21 But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God." (GNB)
See also Zechariah 3; Ecclesiastes 12:14
Conclusion: Being a sinner is like having a fatal disease. God does not have to add anything to sin to make it deadly. All God has to do to sinners to "destroy" them is to let them go so they reap the natural consequences of their own destructive behavior. Before doing such a thing however, God studies the case of each one very carefully, just as a good doctor carefully investigates an illness before making a diagnosis. When God makes His diagnosis about each of us, He is only revealing what is true about us. If we continue to cling to sin, God finally has to let us go. If, however, God can see that we are responsive to the truth, and would be safe to live next door to for eternity then He is delighted to welcome us into His kingdom with open arms. There is no vengeance or condemnation involved even fo sinners, only weeping as God watches billions of His children perish of their incurable disease.
See also Can God Be Trusted?, Chapter 11; Conversations about God, Tapes 9 and 13; Servants or Friends, Chap. 5
- When the disciples finally realized who Jesus was (Matthew 16:13-16; Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-20), why didn't they ask Him about all their questions from the Old Testament? Did they really believe that Jesus was just like His Father? (John 12:45; 14:8,9) Do we have answers to all our questions about the Old Testament? Did the disciples bring up the questions: Why did You drown all but eight in the flood? How about the
"eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth?" (Exodus 21:23-25; Leviticus 24:19-22; Deuteronomy 19:21; Matthew 5:38-42) Why did You say, "Kill the women and babies" after being victorious on the battlefield? (Deuteronomy 20:16) And why did You order the stoning of Achan? (Joshua 7) Why did you say that illegitimate children should be banished from the camp for ten generations? (Deuteronomy 23:2) We love the way You treated the woman taken in adultery, but why did You send she-bears to
tear those irreverent youths who mocked Elisha? (2 Kings :23-25) And kill Uzzah when he tried to keep the ark from falling? (2 Samuel 6:7) Why did You turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt? (Genesis 19:26) And why did You scare everybody at Mt. Sinai? (Exodus 19,20)
At the beginning of His ministry in Galilee, Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5-7) When He spent so much time comparing the usual understanding of the Old Testament with His "new commandments" wasn't He in fact inviting them to ask such questions? What did the disciples understand when He repeated again and again, "You have heard that it was said...But now I tell you..."? (See Matthew 5:21, 22; 27,28; 1,32, etc.) But unfortunately, they were so busy with their own agenda of trying to place Jesus on the throne as the king of Judah and determining what positions they themselves would have in that kingdom, that they apparently were not concerned about these statements. They were looking for a material kingdom and did not see the spiritual kingdom that Jesus was trying to set up. Why didn't Jesus simply take them aside and
explain to them that their ideas about the Messiah were wrong. Couldn't He, with Divine insight and power, have cleared up any misunderstandings that they had?
All through His life, Jesus continued to contrast His behavior with the common beliefs that the Jews held which they thought were based on the Old Testament. These included beliefs about the work of the Messiah, how to keep the Sabbath, the proper relationship between Jews and Gentiles etc. About six months before the crucifixion, He led His disciples on a long journey into the territory of Tyre and Sidon in order to correct their understand about their relationship to Gentiles, and at the same
time try to get them to focus more on His true mission. During that time He openly asked them, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" (Matthew 16:13; Mark 8:27; Luke 9:18) and Peter openly confessed that He believed that Jesus was the Messiah but then immediately they wanted to discuss the earthly kingdom they believed the Messiah was going to set up and Jesus had to rebuke Peter very strongly. (See Matthew 16:21-28) When He came down to the last day before the crucifixion, during the
last supper He finally got Phillip to ask about the "Father". ( John
14:9) Was Phillip asking about the "God" of the Old Testament? Did Phillip think that that "ferocious" God of the Old Testament was the Father? Shouldn't Jesus have just repeatedly told them the truth about His kingdom until they began to comprehend it? If Jesus was God, why couldn't He tell the disciples what He wanted to tell them? (John 16:12) Does this verse suggest that even "God" is somehow limited in what He can communicate to us? Does God have limitations on what He can "reveal" to us today?
On resurrection Sunday, suddenly things seemed to change. Walking with the two disciples to Emmaus, Jesus, while keeping His identity hidden, told them " what was said about himself in all the Scriptures, beginning with the books of Moses and the writings of all the prophets." (Luke 24:27, GNB) Later, in the upper room with the larger group of disciples He said to them, "These are the very things I told you about while I was still with you: everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the Psalms had to come true." (Luke 24:44, GNB) Did Jesus talk only about the Messianic prophecies? Don't you think that Jesus went further to discuss some of these questions that we are asking? Aren't these the questions that raise real issues about God? How could He tell them "everything written about Me" without discussing at
least some of these tougher questions? The disciples seemed to be really excited to hear what Jesus had to say! Did they ask any questions? What would you have asked Jesus on this occasion?
Conclusion: Christians often seem to suggest that God can do anything He wants to do. This discussion should raise significant questions in our minds about how God might choose to exercise His ability to do such a thing. Did God perhaps leave some of these really important questions for us to work on because He recognizes the benefits to be derived from our struggling with the answers? The Scriptures clearly suggest that the gentle Jesus of the New Testament was the God of the Old Testament. Maybe the disciples were not ready for that kind of revelation. What
about us? Is this perhaps one of the issues that will be discussed throughout eternity?
Do you think the Devil had any success in misrepresenting God in the Old Testament? Did God even seem to play into the Devil's hands at times? Is there any possible way that the gentle Jesus of the New Testament could have been the same Person who drowned the whole world in a flood, and slew all the first-born of Egypt and slaughtered 185,000 Assyrians? If we cannot believe such a thing could be true, is it because our picture of God is too small?
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