Christian Essentials 1. What or Who is God?

What is God?, is question set in mythological time – that is, taking place before the dawn of historical time.

Genesis 1: the first story of creation from which we learn the following:

1. The Creator exists as the prime mover of creation, existing before the act of creation itself.
2. In the act of creation, the Creator brings order to the chaotic, swirling elements ordering them in the structures of creation.
3. The created order is built up layer upon layer.
4. The final layer of creation is human. All the elements of creation are expressions of the Creator’s desire to make something lovely. But humanity is different – how?
5. Like all artists each layer of the creation in some vital way is Creator’s self-expression.
6. However, humanity is the layer of creation that is most like God – able to behold the goodness of creation and to know the Creator of the beautiful ordering of creation – humans are given a quality that only God has up to this point – awareness and self-awareness.

In Gen 1 we learn that God as Creator is relational by nature. God uses the pronouns we and us and our, not I, me or mine -let us make humanity in our own image; male and female God created them.In humanity God’s intention is to make a layer of creation that directly reflects back to God the attributes of the divine – the divine as a relational community.

Genesis 2: a second story of creation from which we learn:

1. That creating humanity is God’s first and the last action of creation. Between the first human being – Adam and the last human being to be created – Eve, we find the other layers of creation established.
2. Genesis 2 also has a central theme of relationship; each layer of creation is made with the intention of providing Adam with company so that he won’t live in the garden all alone. We can deduce that relationality is a central attribute of the divine community of God.
3. God waits to see what Adam names each new element in creation – again there is an expression of a desire for intimacy to be an essential attribute in creation.
4. Finally, God sees that animals are not quite right as true companions for Adam. God realizes he needs a complementary blueprint of being human to provide a true companion for the human Adam.
5. God takes an element of Adam’s body and separates it out into a separate created being; a true companion who embodies complementarity – the same and yet different;  to Adam’s masculinity comes Eve’s femininity.
6. Chapter 2 ends with the hint about a special type of relationship – a relationship that expresses the notions of companionship based on both similarity and complementarity.

Where might God’s deep desire for human beings to experience relationship come from if not as an expression of God’s essential nature. Harking back to the ending of Gen:1  –let us make humanity in our own image; male and female God created them – Adam and Eve come to mirror the relational and communal character of God.

What can we deduce here?

1. God is communal – relational and not solitary.
2. The Divine is neither male nor female but expresses a complementarity of masculine and feminine principles.
3. We are made to reflect back to God and into the rest of the creation God.
4. To be fully human is in this sense to be most like God

God and gender – a side note.

God is energetic – in whose nature can be found the creative energies of the masculine and feminine – yin and yang – animus and anima. 

A further question: Is maleness only an expression of masculine energy? Is femaleness only and expression of femininity? If God is neither male nor female then biological gender is not an essential characteristic of God. But in human identity, despite the procreative function of biological gender, identity as it seems to be within God, is a reflection of a variety of energetic combination and recombination of animus and anima, masculine and feminine, rather than a simple biological binary of male and female.

Genesis 3: a third creation story from which we learn about the tensions and interplay between free will, awareness and self-awareness as essential divine elements reflected in human beings.

So far, we have been building up a picture of God through the idea of humanity being an image of God. An essential element of the Creator’s nature is that God is free. Therefore, God must also intend humanity to be more than lovely puppets to be played with and adored. God intends humans to be truly free to know our own mind through the exercise of choice.

In Gen 3 we see the tensions played out when the creation exercises the full rights given to it by the Creator It becomes messy. Did not God foresee this? It seems not.

No relationship can exist if one party is not free to choose. God seems to understand this from the very beginning but also seems strangely unprepared for what happens when humans do what humans are created to do – make choices as an expression of free will.

In the 3^rd creation story humanity comes of age, maybe a little sooner than God intended and sooner than Adam and Eve seemed able to cope with, like children prematurely thrust into the responsibilities of adulthood.

What is God? This is a back-to-front way of really asking, who are we or what does it mean to be human? The answer to this is that to be human is to be made in the image of God. To be fully human is to be most like God. We are made for relationship with one another and with God.

Who is God? God is Liberator

Who is God?, is a question set in epic time. – that is, unfolding within human historical time.

So far by exploring how our human identity as a reflection or image of God reveals some essential aspects to what God is – What is God, God is creator.

The question: who is God takes us into epic time recounted in Exodus 3. Here we find a different kind of question to explore namely who is God, that is who is God in human history?

In the story of the call of Moses we encounter God operating within human history, building a relationship with the man Moses. In Exod 3 we have a completely new question and a new answer. It’s no longer what is God, but who is God?

In revealing [himself] to Moses God identifies as:

The God of his ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
Furthermore, I am the one who has heard the cry of my people who are in Egypt and I have come down to deliver them.

Who is God?

God is the liberator who hears the cry of the oppressed and frees them from bondage. 

To be fully human is to be most like God.

Who is God? God is love

Revelation occurs when God breaks into history with a final and complete self-identification.

John’s Prologue speaks of God as Logos or Word. The Word is in the beginning with God and is God. The Word is identified with Jesus, who was with God at the beginning of creation and has now finally come into the world – full of grace and truth. 

In the human face of Jesus we find God’s final and fullest self-revelation – the ultimate answer to the question: who is God? The Creator moves from outside the creation to become one with the creation. The Creator becomes by choice, subject to the conditions of creation as an expression of profound love. We will take this up more fully in the next session Who is Jesus?

Questions to ponder.

1. What does it mean to me that I am made in the image of God and how might this realization change my view of God and or my view of myself?
2. Is it important to me to discover that God is relational and a community rather than solitary and individual? If so how does this change relating to God for me? How might this affect how I relate to other people?
3. Understanding that I have free will – freedom to respond or not to respond to God – how might this help me in the experience of life – day by day?
4. What implications flow for us from God as the one who hears, is concerned for, and who is the agent of liberation?