The Question is God; the Answer is Jesus

Posted byChaplainmikePosted inRecommendations and Reviews

Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry. 

– Martin Luther

* * *

It’s been a very interesting day. I can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you something.

When a discussion starts about God, the Christian is not faced with the same choices as other people.

Most people can go wherever they want in the discussion. They can talk about “God as I understand him” or “my higher power” or “my church says that God….” and so on. Really, the choices are practically infinite.

The Christian, on the other hand, must immediately think about Jesus. Jesus from the pages of scripture. Jesus the light, the revealer, the image of the invisible. Jesus in his own words, in the Gospels and in the totality of scripture.

Jesus reveals God, and from there, the discussion can go on.

You can explore the Bible, or you can place Jesus into a moral issue or various cultural settings. You can apply what you know of Jesus to what you don’t know of God. You can pray, sing, preach. There are plenty of roads open NOW. But only after we come to Jesus.

It truly breaks my heart to hear, see or read anyone who is a Christian approaching the subject of God, God’s will, God’s guidance, God’s message—without going to Jesus and camping right there with no intention to move or be impressed with anything else.

There are dozens, hundreds of ways to avoid Jesus when talking about God. There are dozens, hundreds of ways to manipulate Jesus to a less than defining place.

Many of these are fun. Some have the approval of important and powerful people. Some are wrapped in scripture verses. Many are surrounded by books or endorsed by ministers.

But at bottom, Jesus isn’t defining the God conversation. So the conversation is on the wrong foot and making a wrong turn. It may not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.

You can dress your opinions about God up in whatever language you want. You can validate it with experiences, signs and wonders. You can claim miracles, voices and confirmations in the mystical realm.

When the smoke clears, you’ve explored your own imagination or otherwise missed Jesus.

If you are going to think about God, go to Jesus and start there, stay there and end there.

This simple rule is too simple for the religious, the worldly wise, the power seeking and the proud.

It is infuriating to those who want to manipulate for money or distract for some personal agenda.

Jesus will break our idols, complicate our assumptions, overturn our tables and put himself squarely in the center of every question. He is the way, the truth, the life. He is the answer. He is the one way we think about, know, love, worship and relate to God.

When you think about God, go to Jesus.

Now you know.

63 thoughts on “The Question is God; the Answer is Jesus”

  1. …this may be the best piece I have read this new year. Leave it to you Michael. Any time Jesus is lifted up there will always be those who object.

    “Many of these are fun. Some have the approval of important and powerful people. Some are wrapped in scripture verses. Many are surrounded by books or endorsed by ministers.

    But at bottom, Jesus isn’t defining the God conversation. So the conversation is on the wrong foot and making a wrong turn. It may not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.”

    Amen and amen.

    I’d only argue that it’s all worthless when it isn’t about Jesus. It is God who makes it about Jesus after all.

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  2. After spending 15 years in Messianic Judaism and seeing too many friends and family decide that Jesus is unneccessary in favor of legalism and/or traditional Judaism, I’ve gotta say this is probably the most important post I’ve read on iMonk. I’ve come to the conclusion that without Jesus we’re just playing dangerous, stupid games (there’s a graphic phrase I’d rather use, but I’ll be nice here hehe).

    Here’s the irony to me. Outside of a few circles (such as some folks in Judaism), you’ll rarely find anyone who doesn’t like/admire Jesus. He’s a great teacher, etc, etc. But once we insist in Jesus’ Godhood, or once we insist on actually following his lead, people get turned off.

    And that’s what I’m looking for… Jesus-shaped community. Jesus-shaped religion. Jesus-shaped life.

    Thanks, Michael

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  3. I agree with IMONK. The genuine Christian can only preach ‘Jesus and Him crucified’ to the lost (not doctrine, tradition, philosophies, popular programs, and so forth).
    I don’t believe he meant one would debate Jesus as the Messiah with a Jew who is not, at this point in time, spiritually capable of hearing the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom.’ God told Isaiah to tell them…you are given ‘eyes’ that can’t see…’ears’ that can’t ‘hear’…to this day.’ These will continue to argue that Elias has not yet come. It is not that this portion of Jews WILL NOT HEAR….it is that they CANNOT HEAR. According to Revelations…they will both ‘see’ and ‘hear’ (spiritual ‘knowing’) Elias (Elijah) as he and Moses (two Witnesses)) preach the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ to the remnant of God’s covenant people. At that time, they will choose Jesus as their Messiah and Redeemer….as did their fellow kinsmen who were left open to recognize Elias and Messiah at their First Coming.(Matthew 24:14 ‘this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; And then shall the end come.) The rulers of the nation of Israel ‘cannot’ accept Jesus until Elias comes the Second time just before Christ’s Second Coming.

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  4. Imonk,
    Don’t worry, any time you contend for Jesus alone you will get the but you have to be wrong. This is because if Jesus is as he says he is the summation of scripture, we are no longer looking at a blessed and glorious life in this world, but a cross, and not one of your own choosing. It means Christianity is probably more about suffering than overcoming. It means having to be forgiven, when we aren’t ready to be forgiven but still want to pull it off on our own. It means having to be forgiven when we aren’t ready to get rid of our sinful pride. It means denying self and decreasing as he increases.
    People tend not to want to hear that. They want to hear how God is going to use them to conquer the world, come back and set up the righteous kingdom he rejected for the cross the first time around.

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  5. Er, tried to quote Surfnetter’s last post. Didn’t work…sorry, still figuring out this format. Thanks for your patience with me.

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  6. Well, that’s not what I read from the original post. Honestly, your second paragraph (SN’s)does not in any way that I can see conflict with the spirit of what IM posted. I don’t see a suggestion that the name of Jesus be forced unnaturally into every conversation about God, but that God, for the Christian, is revealed fully in Him, in the Person of Jesus. Not that every spiritual conversation must speak His name, but that the lens thru which the person speaking sees God must be Jesus for the big picture to be anything approaching accurate. The hypothetical conversation with the OT scholar Jewish friend doesn’t have to be peppered with the Name, but in order for it to be intellectually and spiritually honest for the Christian, he must know that the entire OT points to God and therefore Jesus. The Jew would certainly agree that the OT is about the relationship of God to His people and the coming of the Messiah…why would a Christian have to deny their understanding of Jesus/Messiah/God being intertwined to converse?

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  7. “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. I have not begun to fathom the depths of Jesus Christ or his great love through which we can know him.

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  8. I’m not going to turn off comments and I don’t have time to moderate them, but can I say I think the points saying I’m wrong have all been made repeatedly? Since I’m not going to pull the post or debate the matter, I don’t see the point of beating a dead horse.

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  9. I’m referring to someone else’s earlier post when I use the repetition. The topic of this thread is, as I understand it, when talking about God we should be talking about Jesus or it’s worthless conversation.

    The revelation of Jesus Christ was not so much in the name “Jesus” as it was in the very person of Jesus of Nazareth. He revealed the Father in his very being. There is great benefit in calling on His name, meditating on His name, as long as who you are identifying is the One who by His very nature and character revealed the Father. But religious and political leaders have used and are using that Holy Name to justify all kinds of bad policies and behaviors, twisting His message by misapplying Scripture and incorporating nonsensical dogma.

    On the Mount of Transfiguration it was revealed that this Jesus was the One who was informing the the Law and the Prophets and not the other way around. Everything must be understood by what He did and said and His attitude behind His actions and words. There were times when He just came out and revealed Himself and other times when He ordered His followers “not to tell anyone” who He was or the miracles He had done. To make a blanket statement that every spiritual conversation must be forcefully turned to Jesus is not in keeping with the revelation of Jesus. It’s just not.

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  10. Surfnetter,

    Is it possible that you are hearing in the this talk of Jesus something that causes you to imagine a big haired guy on the tube repeatedly saying JAEEEESUSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as if the name is a magic incantation that somehow validates whatever it is he is trying to sell that day. If this is what we are doing when we speak of Jesus, I’ll gag along with you.

    I don’t find it necessary to say Jesus every 30 seconds when a conversation arises between myself and a non-believer. Eugene Peterson does an interesting take on this in his latest book “Tell It Slant”. He comments on the kinds of conversations Jesus has when he travels among those outside the “churchy” people between Jerusalem and Galilee. He points to the way Jesus seldom even uses the word God in his speech, but talks instead of farming and similar things that are familiar to everyone and part of everyday life. He reveals God to those he encounters in the most common elements of the creation. Of course, I think he has something of an advantage over most of us in that he is something of a genius in such things. But your point is illustrated in these passages of Jesus’ conversations in the book of Luke.

    But something huge occurs in the personal realm when Jesus becomes the living center through whom God is made present to us. God is not made more real by how many times we say the name of Jesus, but as in Paul’s Damascus experience, our own world, understanding, and views of God is changed in ways beyond comprehension after an encounter with the living Jesus.

    I spent a few days at the Little Portion Retreat Center this past fall. It is a Catholic-based monastic community begun by the musician John Michael Talbot near Eureka Springs Arkansas. I attended three or four masses while there. Each was led by a priest I assume to have been in his seventies. In each of the masses, he spoke in various ways of the personally present Jesus Christ. In the more formal Sunday Mass, he spoke sharply of his anger at his teachers who had never told him of this personal Jesus. Until whenever it was that he encountered a living Christ, he only knew of God as a distant and impersonal deity. His life was obviously deeply impacted by finding God in Christ. I was deeply moved by his testimony to a living God that is present and available to all in Jesus in Christ.

    I’m not Catholic, and have no idea how this relates to your own experiences within Catholicism, but I’d find no problems becoming Catholic if I could be with a community like this hidden one within the Ozark mountains of Arkansas.

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  11. Just ’cause I am a Christian, have a personal relationship with Christ, study the scriptures does not mean that I necessarily know God better than a non-Christian. I don’t know God more than Moses or Jeremiah or Samuel or the authors of the Psalms. Of course I know more about salvation history and the love of God in Christ – which are infinite aspects of God (which I don’t fully appreciate), but do I know God better than any of the OT prophets?

    Jesus is the Way and the Life and the Truth – no question here, but isn’t knowledge of God a grace, which God can give to whomever He wants?

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  12. Yes — the demons all know Jesus the Nazareon. But they also have many servants preaching Jesus and the Bible, leading many astray.

    Reread Matthew 12 — He’s dealing with the Pharisees and tells them about the dangers of post-conversion — “When the evil spirit goes out of a man ….”

    He explained to them what had happened to them all. They all as young men were moved to devotion by the Spirit, but, “the final state of the man is worst then the first.” They went around preaching the Christian God and didn’t even recognize Him when He was a man standing right in front of them.

    Today’s Pharisees no longer preach “MOSES, MOSES, MOSES …”

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  13. Amens to iMonk and Fr. Ernesto. The more one talks about God apart from Christ, the more we drift toward atheism. Liberals started the process by not talking about the trinity but merely the great spirit, etc. Modern-day pragmatists took it to the next step by not talking about God at all but merely godly principles. Perhaps faith-prosperity teachers took it to its logical end, by showing how we all can become gods, wielding ultimate cosmic power through positive faith confessions.

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  16. The demons know Jesus, they are not saved, and by preaching Jesus it has been the high point of my life to watch addicts of all kind have a victory. Jesus is all I have to share, and Jesus is all there is.
    There is no hope to understand God, our god the God of the bible without Jesus. The only power that exists to carry out the will of god id the Holy Spirit.
    Yes I think it would be counterproductive for you to go around preaching JESUS , JESUS JESUS, but for me it is the calling of my life and quite productive.

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  17. “…praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out”

    (hit submit by mistake)

    If I don’t do the above, me going around preaching “JESUS, JESUS, JESUS …” would be counterproductive, don’t you think?

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  18. Nobody alive has heard, seen, or touched “that which was here from the beginning.” Neither did the Early Church Fathers. But the Fathers lived at a time and in a place where much of the world had never heard of Jesus, there were no mass produced Bibles and very few people could read.

    I personally have never been in a place where I could find one person above the age of four years old who didn’t know who Jesus was. In this situation as long as I don’t keep it a secret that I am a practicing Roman Catholic I don’t think it would be necessary for me to ever speak the name Jesus in public as long as I am being a good example — as long as I do as the 12-Steps suggest, especially Step 11: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our concious contact with God as we understood Him,

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  19. How many alcoholics have any of you cured by preaching “JESUS, JESUS, JESUS, JESUS …” to them?

    I haven’t been drunk in decades but I’m glad I don’t have a bottle of Wild Turkey in the house just listening to you.

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  20. I love 12 steppers! My role is to introduce them to their higher power, in fact I urge them to get to know their higher power by His first name. It is JESUS.
    Fr.Ernesto is preaching the gospel! Preach on!

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  22. Some of the Early Church Fathers made a distinction that is helpful now. They bluntly said that we could not know God. They would use Scripture such as John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” And when St. Paul spoke about God being unknowable.

    But, they did say we could know his energies. Today, we would say that we can know his actions among us. So, as St. Paul also said in Romans 1, his invisible attributes are declared in the creation. So, one may not be able to know God, but all can know that God is omnipotent, and so on. In that sense, I think they would have slightly disagreed with Martin Luther. I think they would have said that Romans 1 allows for a “non-Christ” knowledge about God’s attributes.

    Those Fathers went farther, they even claimed that, even as Christians, we cannot know God directly. In fact, the Transfiguration was an event that was just like the Old Testament events, such as Isaiah “seeing” the Lord. In both cases, Isaiah, Peter, James, and John were almost undone by the very brief and limited experience that they had.

    But, we can have a “direct experience” of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the Early Church Fathers were so excited about the Incarnation. This is why St. John says in 1 John 1:1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched . . . .” We were saved through Christ’s death and resurrection. But, “knowing” God is possible because of his Incarnation.

    So, yes, iMonk is right. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

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  23. Stephen, you said, “When I read the gospels I get the impression that Jesus is doing a similar thing by pointing the way to GOD. Would you agree with this? I bring this up because my best friend see Jesus pointing people to the Father over and over again and so assumes that we should affix our eyes on the Father to be obedient to Jesus.”

    Does this not illustrate the co-equality of the Trinity? The Father points us to the Son; the Son illustrates His Father’s purpose of redemption and points to His Spirit who would live out His life through those who believe in Him; the Spirit illuminates the Son and empowers us to live in Him…Who points us again to His Father’s forgiveness and reconciliation…

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  24. Stephen,

    There were some words left from my first response to your question that were fairly important, so here it is again with added corrections. Everyone else, feel free to jump past this repeat.

    Paul Young has taken a lot of heat for “The Shack”. In my view, he does quite a fine job illustrating the uniqueness of the three persons of the godhead. Regarding the Holy Spirit, He (she in the story) can be seen with any degree of clarity only from out of the corner of the eye. He is ghostlike and intangible, though a fully real presence.
    I remember a book J.I. Packer wrote years back on the Spirit. He wrote that the Spirit is a light who shines on Jesus so as to reveal Him in all His glory. He (Spirit) is not about Himself, but only Jesus. He comes to us for the purpose of revealing the Son. For Packer, an overemphasis on the Holy Spirit is a distortion to the means by which God has chosen to reveal Himself.
    I think it would be a mistake to say that everything we know about Jesus is revealed to us in the Holy Spirit. Since the day that Jesus became a real person to me in a personal way, the Spirit also became a vital and living presence I naturally speak of. He is the person of God who most often speaks in and to me, but He speaks not of Himself; but only Christ. I cannot see the Spirit, so there is no way I can see Christ in Him. He is very real and active in my life. He has a solidity of presence, though I cannot see Him so as to see Christ. But He enables me to see Christ as the Person through whom Father, Son, and Spirit are most fully revealed.
    Trying to put these things in words makes me realize why it took the church so long to do so.

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  25. “Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry.”- Martin Luther

    The statement alone…outside of context (no disrespect for Luther intended) …is a ‘sweeping generalization’ and indicates the Old Testament, since it was before the Word made flesh…..never happened.
    >>>>>>> “You can dress your opinions about God up in whatever language you want. You can validate it with experiences, signs and wonders. You can claim miracles, voices and confirmations in the mystical realm. When the smoke clears, you’ve explored your own imagination or otherwise missed Jesus.”

    As a child, a vision from GOD showing me the realities of the ‘generations of death, was experienced when I was in the first grade. I always ‘knew’ GOD was real and good. GOD created into our hearts..the knowledge of Himself…so that ‘we are without excuse.’ I didn’t encounter the person of Jesus until He manifested Himself to me in a visible form at the age of nine and showed me that only He could do battle for me… in the spiritual warfare with ‘wickness in high places.’ God is my Father. The bloody skins He covered Adam and Eve with in the garden…pointed to Jesus…lamb slain before the foundation of the world. I ‘know’ the death Jesus died. He ‘sweated as it were drops of blood’ because He was going to be completly removed from the Father, Light, Love, and Life. He was going to the place Lucifer and his angels dwell…the dry place…where there are no components that sustain life in any form….where there is only dark, evil…..DEATH. I hurt when I hear the term ‘crucifixion’ to describe the death of the soul of the perfect Son of God. Jesus didn’t SCREAM when the nails were driven in, as depicted in the Passion of Christ. He went silently…never open His mouth..until the Father separated Himself from the sinful, pitiful, damned soul hanging on that middle cross. When the Father left Him, Jesus SCREAMED ‘My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?” Blood had to be shed to release Jesus’s soul to the hell of spiritual DEATH. What graven image can we make to represent the death of the soul of the perfect Son of God….in our place. A cross just doesn’t do it for me. If you’ve known desolation, depression, lostness, vileness, isolation, and so forth…you’ve still never known…on your worst day…what Jesus ‘knew’.

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  26. Stephen,

    Of course it was Jesus that said “There is no way to the Father but through the Son.”, so I’d be hard pressed to say Jesus does not point to God the Father. Father, Son, and Spirit are all similar in their selflessness toward one another. But whereas the Spirit shines light on the Son, He never says the way to the Son is through the Spirit. Jesus, in contrast, points to Himself as the way to the Father. Elsewhere He says that to see the Son is to see the Father. There is distinction between them, how they relate to one another, in how they come to us, and in how we come to God.

    In my own journey in search of God, I came to feel some of the protestant traditions had a tendency to focus on only one of the persons of the Trinity to the detriment of the fullness of God as Father, Son, and Spirit. Baptists do the approachable friend we have in Jesus; Reformed the awesome, majestic, unapproachable, and wholly other Father; and Pentecostals the present, vital, electrically charged Spirit. Each tradition brings forth a true face of God, but for me, lose something of His fullness. He is Father, Son, and Spirit. Each are fully God. One God they are together.

    See how simple this all is? Why in the world people get confused about these things is beyond me. (I’m making a stupid joke in case no one notices.)

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  27. The fact is that most of what passes as “testimony” in Christian circles would not be admissible in a court of law — it is not first-hand evidence. Most of what we say we “know” about God and Jesus is just stories we’ve been told. If we choose to believe them it is because of some other evidence — something in the storyteller, something in the story itself, or both rings true. The “ringing” is the Spirit and I can tell you that I’ve heard it and felt it, but I can’t make it ring for you on demand. I have to leave that up to your Higher Power.

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  28. Another good post. But who is Jesus? An abstraction that we can discuss? Someone who lived in the past that we read about in scripture? A distant personage seated at the right hand of God in Heaven? A projection of our own will? Or God incarnate, who we meet when we gather with others in his name? Who we ingest in Communion? Who we serve when we visit a prisoner or give a cup of water to someone thirsty?

    I can’t say I disagree with going into a closet and praying to Jesus, but if he is not present in the flesh, embodied in the church and in the flesh of those around us, I am not sure it *is* Jesus.

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  29. The way it is and was with me — and I have come to believe that it is this way with every Christian who has the “personal” relationship — is that I came into contact with an entity that proved Itself to be God but the “touch” was human. Given the character of the Contact it could only be the God of the Gospel — loving, forgiving, healing, desiring to serve, inviting but not demanding to be served — and Human.

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  30. Thanks, Michael. I’m a relatively new Christian. The majority of those I work with are nonChristians. I work at a college library, and my co-workers are intelligent, thoughtful people. They don’t hesitate to discuss religion, but they don’t believe in any one absolute truth. As someone with plenty of my own doubts and questions, I haven’t been a very firm witness. Your article points out where it is I’m supposed to be taking my stand — on Jesus. I don’t have to have all the answers to all the religious questions before I can be adamant that Jesus is the one and only Way, Truth, and Light.

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  31. @ MDS- Thanks for explaining your thoughts. I enjoyed reading the way that Young describes the Trinitarian relationship through his book.

    You said: “[The Holy Spirit] is not about Himself, but only Jesus. He comes to us for the purpose of revealing the Son.” When I read the gospels I get the impression that Jesus is doing a similar thing by pointing the way to GOD. Would you agree with this? I bring this up because my best friend see Jesus pointing people to the Father over and over again and so assumes that we should affix our eyes on the Father to be obedient to Jesus.

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  32. Stephen; “Could it also be said that everything that we know about Jesus is revealed in the Holy Spirit?”

    Paul Young has taken a lot of heat for “The Shack”. In my view, he does quite a fine job of illustrating the uniqueness of the three persons of the godhead. Regarding the Holy Spirit, He (she in the story) can be seen with any clarity only from out of the corner of the eye. He is ghostlike and intangible, though a very real presence.

    I remember a book J.I. Packer wrote years back on the Spirit. He wrote that the Spirit is a light who shines on Jesus, revealing Him more fully, and in all His glory. He is not about Himself, but only Jesus. He comes to us for the purpose of revealing the Son. For Packer, an overemphasis on the Holy Spirit was a distortion to the means by which chose to reveal Himself.

    I think it would be a mistake to say that everything we know is revealed in the Holy Spirit. Since the day that Jesus became a real person to me, the Spirit became a vital and living presence I naturally speak of. He is the person of God who most often speaks in me, but He speaks not of Himself, but only Christ. I cannot see the Spirit, and so there is no way I can see Christ in Him. He is active in my life, and also real. He has a solidity of presence, but I cannot see Him so as to see Christ. But He enables me to see Christ as the Person through whom Father, Son, and Spirit are most fully revealed.

    Trying to put these things in words makes me realize why it took the church so long to do so.

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  33. This thread started me thinking about one of my favorite books in the OT Canon — Esther. The book is filled from beginning to end with an active, saving G_d, yet G_d is never explicitly named.

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  37. I appreciate the comments so far. I hesitated to ask my initial question out of fear that people would assume that I’m trying to come to GOD apart from Jesus- that is not the case.

    As I’m writing this morning the winds, outside, are gusting above 60mph. I’ve been thinking of that passage in 1 Kings where Elijah is on the mountain and experiences the great wind, that GOD was not in the wind or fire or earthquake.

    So I’ve been thinking about this account and the comments here, and I find myself asking this question, “do we understand the context of GOD and Elijah through Jesus?”

    My questions come out of conversations I am having with people. I suppose that the heart of this question really is about the nature of relationships within the Trinity. Would you also say that everything we know about the Holy Spirit is revealed in Jesus? Could it also be said that everything that we know about Jesus is revealed in the Holy Spirit?

    again, thanks for your comments.

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  38. Surfnetter,

    You are illustrating Michael’s point when he says, “But at bottom, Jesus isn’t defining the God conversation. So the conversation is on the wrong foot and making a wrong turn. It may not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.”

    If you are talking for hours with a Jewish scholar about God but never talking about Jesus, “it many not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.”

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  39. I agree with those commenters who use 12-step programs as an example of when we should not force Jesus as an issue. We KNOW Jesus is God, but many don’t. If a person who is struggling with the impact of alcoholism (or abuse or some other pernicious thing in their lives) gets help from a “higher power,” I don’t think it is my place to say, “You mean Jesus. Otherwise your view of God is off.”
    I’ve struggled with this, and would like to ask other commenters about it. My view is this: If someone truly gets help from a Higher Power, than that power is actually Jesus, because He is God. They may not know Him or be willing to call Him by that name, but Jesus is a (the) God of love, mercy, and compassion, who wants to save people from their sins and heal people from their diseases (including mental and emotional dysfunctions). If people pray to a Higher Power, to me that means they are praying to Jesus. I don’t mean that this is enough to save them in the sense of actual belief in Christ and His death and resurrection. But it is at least the beginning, an opening of their hearts to the one and true God, whom we know to be Jesus.
    Does that make sense?

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  40. Real life “conversion” is the name of the game in 12-Step fellowships. God talk is what it’s all about, most meetings are held in Christian churches and while most come to a real faith in Christ, you almost never hear the name Jesus.

    God is good — and very capable.

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  41. Before Thanksgiving I had to go to a church to represent my agency in an alternate giving fair. This is a supposedly Christian church I’m taking about here – I’m not going to out the denomination – but I sat through an entire sermon. It was the week before the start of Advent. I didn’t hear the name of Jesus once. It was all God this and God that. The pastor quoted Walter Bruggerman once.

    Speaking of which, Imonk what think you of Walter Bruggerman?

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  42. Fisher; Willoh; Surfnetter excellent points.

    My experience also includes 12-step and I think that in any given conversation it may be a mistake to go Immediately to Jesus. Everyone is different, they come to the table with a lifetime of experience, problems and questions. We have to start where they are in order to find the right direction. There is an old saying – when you don’t know where you are, no wind is right – ie. until you know where you are you can’t chose a good course.

    Ultimately everyone who truly follows the way arrives at the foot of the cross, and finds that Jesus is God manifested to us.

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  43. I have participated in the conversion of one devout Jew, Fisher, and it was certainly not by pushing the issue of Jesus being God. My friend knew I believed in Jesus as God. The point I pushed was to ask, “Why is Jesus no the Messiah? What did he do that was not Messiah-like.” She tried to answer by protesting that Jesus could not have been God because God could not be a human and could not die. I simply said, “I didn’t ask you why Jesus wasn’t God. I asked why he wasn’t the Messiah.” She had no immediate answer and over a weekend of pondering this it created enough of a crack in her reasoned resistance to allow the Spirit to illuminate her soul. And he eventually convinced her Himself of Jesus’ divinity.

    The fact is that no human argument or reasoning can convince another person that God even exists, no less what His Name is. This is one reason that 12-Step programs work so well where denominational spiritual programs fail. When I hear a 12-Stepper say in a meeting, “The God of my understanding whom I choose to call God …” it says to me that this person is most probably Christian and Jesus has identified Himself to this recovering soul personally.

    When you forcefully turn every spiritual conversation to one about Christianity, you might make some points with your pastor, but I’m not so sure about how the Good Shepherd feels about it. There were times when He Himself ordered His followers to “tell no one.”

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  44. Hbr 1:3 Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

    It is impossible to know God without Christ, at least for me, and IMHO you too! To understand God is impossible, He is God you know. We will spend all eternity praising Him and still will not know all of Him, He is God.

    But Jesus show the character of God. see above quote. Amazing!

    “But at bottom, Jesus isn’t defining the God conversation. So the conversation is on the wrong foot and making a wrong turn. It may not be worthless, but it isn’t reliable.”
    True that, and Amen.

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  45. Hi Surfnetter

    You were saying: I don’t know about you people, but I can talk about God — and the Bible — with a Jewish scholar for hours without forcing the issue of Jesus Christ and both of us will be edified and satisfied. My faith in the crucified Messiah has grown immensely from such conversations.

    I have some Jewish relatives, so maybe I can relate more than you think. But I also ask myself: are the only choices “forcing the issue” of Jesus Christ (on the one hand) or forcing him *out* of the conversation on the other hand? I know our faith in the crucified Messiah can grow, but theirs doesn’t …

    Take care & God bless
    WF

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  46. iMonk Great post.

    @ stephen
    The cross stands as the hinge of history all of the Old Testament leads up to it setting forth the basis of G_d’s judgment of mankind and each individual. The New Testament flows directly from the Blood and Resurrection of Jesus.

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  47. @ stephen

    I appreciate your honesty, and I think there is something to what you are saying. Everything we know about God was not revealed to us in the gospel record of Jesus’s life. There is much more revelation in the rest of the scriptures as well.

    Much of what Paul wrote to early churches was outlining how the God was in fact revealed in Jesus, and he did much of it by referring back to OT texts, themes, and events.

    So, some of the things we know about God are not revealed in the recorded life of Jesus that we have in the gospels, but they are still revealed through him.

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  48. When I was in college I was a member of the Philosophy Club. We often had seminars discussing God’s existence or His different attributes. I would often interject comments from Scripture, which annoyed most professors because they do not like to use arguments from authority. One professor, annoyed with me, said, “We are not talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Joseph (yeah, I know,he got that wrong; should be Jacob), we are talking about the god of the philosophers.” This is a popular quote amongst philosophy professors first uttered by Kiergegaard, I believe. Now, I was at a RC college and the professor was a practicing RC. My response to him was, “Oh, is there more than one God?” The professor was more annoyed with me at that point.

    Well, in philosophy God is talked about all the time without referencing Scripture, Christ, the Holy Spirit. I enjoy these discussions and have participated in them. They can only go so far however, in understanding or learning about God. Are those conversations a waste of time? Well, I was not attempting to convert anyone there at that time (most of the professors and students were RC)and so, my personal testimony about my releationship with God through Christ or arguments from authority were not received well.

    Did I waste my time in college? I don’t think so. If we are going to become all things to all people, as the Apostle Paul exhorts, then we need to learn the language of those we are amongst. I did form relationships with a few of the professors and my peers and I was open in other forums with them about my relationship with God through Christ.

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  49. Although we start with Jesus when we think about God, we cannot ignore the Comforter (John 14:16) who is present now. Holy Spirit’s work is here on earth with us (since Acts) while Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father interceding. We are anointed to do as he did. The instructions are clear in his words. He never commanded us to think or discuss, but rather to go…

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  50. I always struggle to make sense of how “divine” and “human” can somehow “unite”. I also struggle to agree to every formulation of the creeds. However, I can say this – Christ was the best expression of this “divine” that we can claim to know. That is enough for me.

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  51. I don’t know about you people, but I can talk about God — and the Bible — with a Jewish scholar for hours without forcing the issue of Jesus Christ and both of us will be edified and satisfied. My faith in the crucified Messiah has grown immensely from such conversations.

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  52. If it is not possible to define the term “God” in detail — and that could take volumes — without using the name of the Person “Jesus,” then it is impossible to even talk about the relation of the two (even it they are the same).

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  53. This seems so simple but we always turn it into something else.
    It is our nature to take what is of God and His grace and turn it into law therefore making it a sin.
    We cannot help ourselves.
    Our flesh struggles against the Spirit.
    I know I come off as a broken record (that means something that repeats itself over and over for you youngsters) but it is all of the hoopla that we have added that diverts our focus from the crucified and risen Christ.
    All the ideas start out sincerely but end up being law therefore sin.
    We must always guard against what happens in worship or even in privacy becoming the object of worship and not Jesus Christ.
    Our traditions, however ancient or new, must never be confused with the living relationship to the living God who we know as Jesus.

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  54. IMONK,

    I’m a Navy chaplain currently serving Marines in Iraq. This IS the dillema for any Evangelical or Christ-centered Christian serving in institutional chaplaincy. It is a major temptation to fall back on generic “religion,” especially since in some situations it is expected. That being said, the most successful chaplains in the military are the ones who love people AND preach Jesus and Him crucified.

    Chaplain Mike

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  55. Until Jesus is a living being at the center of our faith, God is an abstract idea. When the supreme God is Idea, when the center of reality is an abstraction, everything else is as well. The great Idea depends upon perfected doctrinal formula. People become lesser abstractions, subservient to the higher abstractions of doctrine and so on. Apologetics that serve the Idea are offensive because of this. People are not abstractions. They are real beings of body, blood, soul, and spirit.

    The Holy and Supreme Idea is not real. As I advance in my worship of the Idea, I begin to lose my humanity. The darkest deeds of inhumanity are always those done through service to the Great Idea, whether the Idea is that of Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, Islam, or Christianity.

    When I come to know God in Christ Jesus, I can no longer deal with God as abstract Idea. In coming to know Jesus, I begin to see that other people are also real. I can no longer treat them as abstractions to be manipulated for the glory of the Idea. And then I find that I too am becoming real.

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  57. Dear reader, that swoosh is the sound of religion lifting off your shoulders. Great post, Michael, thanks.

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  58. “I believe the weight of this statement, but I still wonder if there is aspects of GOD to know that is not revealed through Jesus.”

    No.

    He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. (Col 1:15)
    For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell (Col 1:19)
    For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily (Col 2:9)
    No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

    Again Luther – “I know no other God than this man named Jesus.”

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  59. This post is why I have followed your blog for 4 or 5 years, Michael. Here’s where I wrestle: can we find all that we can know about GOD through the incarnated Jesus?

    I love this last paragraph: “Jesus will break our idols, complicate our assumptions, overturn our tables and put himself squarely in the center of every question. He is the way, the truth, the life. He is the answer. He is the one way we think about, know, love, worship and relate to God.”

    I believe the weight of this statement, but I still wonder if there is aspects of GOD to know that is not revealed through Jesus.

    please be gracious toward my question.

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  61. This post is dead on. This is why there is so much turmoil created with situations like the military chaplain that insisted on praying in Jesus’ name. They didn’t care if he said God a million times because people can take that however they want to, but Jesus as God is much more defined and concrete. I was part of a baccalaureate service this past spring and the speaker kept talking about creator this and the creator that, but she seemed afraid to mention Jesus for some reason.

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  63. I’ve been really working hard lately to cultivate a true friendship with Jesus. And I don’t mean that in a sappy way. I mean real, human friendship.

    Here’s what used to be available: “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”

    And yet what we have in and through Christ is greater than that which Moses had.

    When Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” … wow.

    By the way … not to make this thread too controversial, I hope, but this is probably the chief most reason that I can no longer call myself a Calvinist.

    I stand firmly in the Reformed tradition, but the ethos of those who label themselves ‘Calvinist’ is so wrapped up in what you critique here … well … enough said. (OK, other than saying that I could double post this in the Open Mic.)

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