Is it possible to really know God? On the one hand the answer to this has to be no. God is so utterly different to us, how can we possibly comprehend Him? He is the creator, we are finite creatures. Everything in our lives is bounded by time, things have a beginning and end – how can we understand what it means to be eternal? We cannot be in more than one place at once, we are not all-knowing – we cannot understand God. This is true because we are human and yet we are also sinful – by nature we don’t want to know Him. Can we know God? No
Do we then give up as if there is no hope? Is it possible to say anything about God if he is so different to us? God in his grace has chosen to reveal himself to us. We therefore can speak of God in the things he has revealed. God has communicated with us in a way that we can understand, he has spoken in human language and has used imagery and ideas familiar to us to communicate something about himself. John Calvin uses the idea that God communicates with us in a similar way that an adult communicates with a baby. The adult descends to the baby’s level and speaks in baby language.
On Sunday we saw the clearest way in which God has spoken to us. He has spoken by His Son. Jesus says in John 14v9:
“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”
If we want to know God and what He is like, we look at Jesus. As we look at Jesus, we see God Himself. Let’s spend time this week looking at Jesus and knowing God.