“[The Son] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” — Hebrews 1:3
The son is the light that radiates from God, but God With Us is as identical to the Father as the impression left by a footprint matches the foot or as the finger print matches the finger and its unique grooves. We can trust Jesus to represent the Father perfectly.
So often this world may seem chaotic and broken, spinning out of control. Yet scripture tells us that Christ, the word made flesh himself, is the one supporting the universe, holding it up with the power in his words, a tireless, ceaseless effort if ever there was one.
Yet the God who is with us via the Holy Spirit and the God who is holding the whole universe together on High is also outside of creation, both Father and Son, and seated beside Himself as his own “right hand man” and served as his own High Priest, making the sacrificial atonement and interceding with himself for his people.
Such wonders of the omnipresent one! What limited mind can fully fathom the infinite God? Any god small enough for us to fully understand within the limits of human reason is too small to be truly God at all. Today, scripture provides us the only valid, trustworthy window into the character and nature of God, but we still see through its glass darkly.
We often become focused on the problem we least are inclined to, my brothers and sisters. If you’re reading this and nodding, you may have more problems with an emotion-based, unreasoning, unthinking faith than with one that applies logic and reason to the scriptures in a way that defines an infinite God according to what is logical and rational in his finite creation, which inevitably will box him in and make your image of God too small to be truly the Lord.
However, you should prayerfully examine yourself if you feel threatened by this and want to object either with a direct attack or by pointing fingers back at the warm-fuzzy, feelings-only church goers who don’t know the Bible well enough to discern whether a popular sound byte is actually sound doctrine. That error doesn’t excuse the opposite error of being so puffed up with “knowledge,” we unwittingly fall into idolatry ourselves.
Those of us subject to that weakness typically feel a need to define logically anything and everything so that we fully understand it and it makes rational sense to us. This gives us a sense of security that is really rooted in a desire for control, hence why it can become dangerous when we turn loose on God our particular pet means of analysis. Trusting the Lord and leaning on our own understanding are ages-old sworn enemies.
Lord, am I serving the infinite God and trusting you even if I don’t always understand all your apparent paradoxes, from my finite vantage point, or have I made a smaller idol in your image and likeness, that I can fully comprehend and honestly think is “drawn to scale”? Give me grace to embrace the truly mysterious, courage to intelligently and scripturally seek the answers that can be known from our finite vantage point, and wisdom to discern which is which. Strengthen me to today to cast down any such idols I have erected. Remove the blinders and my need to control, and enable me to trust you when I hear your voice, even if I do not understand your Word. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
