What Does God Look Like? - Colossians 2

One of the more refined and sophisticated pagans of the 20th century was a philosopher and atheist by the name of Bertrand Russell.  He was born in England in 1872, and died of influenza in 1970.  As a young man,  against his family's wishes, he married an American Quaker but his marriage ended because of an adulterous affair.  Others followed.  Later Russell wrote about his sexual immorality and agnosticism (which evolved into atheism) in his book, MARRIAGE AND MORALS (1929). Russell stated that human beings are not naturally monogamous.  He also opposed existing laws against homosexuality and maintained that sexual relations between unmarried people are not immoral.  

In a 1927 lecture, 'Why I am not a Christian', he stated, "The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms.  It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."  

In 1940 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the College of the City of New York. But the appointment was revoked and he was barred from teaching basically because of his libertarian opinions. Judge McGeehan declared that "considering Dr Russell's principles, with reference to the Penal Law of the State of New York, it appears that not only would the morals of the students be undermined, but his doctrines would tend to bring them, and in some cases their parents and guardians, in conflict with the Penal Law".  Ten years later in 1950, He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

When asked what he would say to God if he found himself before Him, Russell answered: 'I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence.' ¹

According to Russell and multitudes of other agnostics and atheists, the reason for not believing in God is because there is not enough information for us to determine His existence scientifically.  Otherwise, presumably, we would all be happy to believe in Him.  There’s just not enough evidence for us to come to any solid conclusions, or so they say.  Another quote which I read recently stated that if this person  were to find himself in Heaven after having lived his entire life not believing in God, he would then ask God why He had worked so hard to hide himself.²

Has God hidden Himself?  Is it indeed nigh unto impossible to know if there is a God out there in the universe?  Would SETI³ know it was God speaking if they heard him?  Would Bertrand Russell recognize God if he saw Him?  Has God hidden Himself from people so they cannot know Him?  How much evidence is necessary in order for people to know and believe in God?

This is not a scientific issue.  Science, by its own self-imposed definition, cannot address the existence of God or the creation of the universe.  The scientific community has already issued their own universally- held doctrinal statement which says everything that happens and everything that exists comes about by natural causes.  That intentionally rules out the possibility of anything super-natural or miraculous.  That includes God and creation.  Certainly God is considered to be super-natural, and the creation of the universe out of nothing is the largest collection of miracles on record.  Six 24-hour days of miraculous activity by a supernatural, pre-existent Almighty Creator.  Science cannot address the subject.

The existence of God is not a scientific issue.  It is a theological issue.  Science has disqualified itself from the entire realm of theology.  So when unbelieving, atheistic, scientific-type people start talking authoritatively about the non-existence of God or the impossibility of creation from nothing, they are speaking about something of which they can know nothing.  They are speaking from a scientific vacuum.  Theology isn’t science.  Science knows nothing of the spiritual realm by scientific means because science has voluntarily limited itself to the natural, observable, measurable, universe and has declared that that is all there is.  There is nothing supernatural, so they say.

So, is there a way of knowing if God exists or not with scientific proof?  Within the self-imposed  confines of modern science, the answer is no.  There is no scientific means of proving or disproving the existence of God or the creation of the universe.  It cannot be done.  But that is not a problem.   The Bible has something to say about these things.  And the scientific community can say nothing about our appeal to the Bible as a source of information about the reality of God.  We do not claim the Bible to be a science book.  In fact, it is not a science book.  It is the God-inspired book of theology.  

This is God’s book.  In this book God has revealed Himself to men.  In these pages, we can read and see and know and understand that there is a God.  It is not science.  It is a study that goes infinitely beyond the naturalistic confines of science.  These pages are our authoritative primary source of information about things science cannot address, such as the eternal pre-existence of God and the miraculous creation of the universe in six normal days from nothing.  We read here that the creation itself points us to its Creator and it does so in such a clear fashion that the entire human race is left without excuse in regard to knowledge of the existence of our Creator.

But God has gone even farther than giving us the evidence of the created universe and a theological record of His existence.  The invisible God has shown Himself to mankind in an unmistakable fashion.  Hundreds and thousands of people have actually seen God, walked with Him in this world, talked with Him, even eaten meals together with Him, and worshipped Him.  The Apostle John said God became flesh and dwelt among us.  Paul says it in Colossians 1 in this way:

13 He [God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 He [the Son] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20, ESV).

The real, actual, historic, human being who lived in Israel 2000 years ago, who was crucified by Pontius Pilate and the Jews in Jerusalem, who was buried and rose again from the dead, . . . that Man was, and is God.  That man, according to Paul, still is the image of the invisible God.  God, who is invisible, made Himself visible.  He became the seeable, touchable, interactive, real concrete image of God in human form.  He was not merely a man with God somehow on Him or influencing Him or manipulating Him.  He was not just a man who only spoke as a prophet for God.  Rather, according to verse 19, in that Person all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell.  

This is not a scientific statement.  It is a theological statement.  It is a statement of fact, of supernatural reality.  Many of us have been led to believe nothing can be true that cannot be proven by some objective means in a lab by forensic experts.  If that were the case, then how could Paul and John and Peter and the rest of the apostles know, really and truly, . . . or maybe we would say, “How could they PROVE that the human being who went by the name Jesus of Nazareth, was really God?”

Let’s look at another text.  Turn with me to 1John 1.

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.  1John 1:1-4

The first thing John says is, “That which was from the beginning.”  What does that mean?  What is it that was ever since the beginning?  The only thing that has existed ever since the beginning John refers to in verse 2 as “the eternal life”.  So he is saying here that from the creation of the world there has been this “word of life”, this “eternal life”.  Who saw it back in the beginning?  No one.  No one was there except God and this eternal word of life.  

John then says that that eternal life was made manifest to him and to the other apostles.  He whom no one saw at the beginning, who was invisible, was made visible, touchable, and intelligible.  He manifested Himself to them.  They heard this ancient word of life.  They testified to the fact that the person they had a real-life encounter with was the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  In other words, Deity came down from heaven, stepped out the eternal, super-natural realm, put on human flesh, talked, talked, and lived among us in the “real” world.

Now let’s suppose Jesus were to do that again.  What kind of scientific testing equipment does one use to determine that someone is God?  What kind of CAT scan or X-ray, or MRI, or multi-meter do you use to measure deity-ness?  What sort of blood tests would you take?  What does divine DNA look like?  How do you determine whether or not someone is really God by scientific means?  What criteria must a man meet who claims to be God?

Is this person who has presumably stepped out of the sky really God if He could make water into wine, or levitate Himself to walk on water?  Would He absolutely prove Himself to be God if He fed 10,000 people with a handful of fish?  Would He really be God, and would all people everywhere fall down at His feet in worship if He cured the terminally ill in all of our hospitals instantaneously by simply speaking a word?  Would this person really be God if He liberated people everywhere from all the mental institutions and restored their minds to them in a moment?  Or suppose the spirits of a group of recognizable holy men who had died over the last 3000 years suddenly appeared and began talking to Him?  What test would Jesus have to pass in order to convince Paul and all the other apostles, and this present generation in which we live, that He is God?  Obviously He did something to cause the writers of Scripture to believe it.

Would it be believable that Jesus Christ is God if He rose from the dead?  Or if He ascended bodily into Heaven in the presence of hundreds of people?  Maybe the first question we should ask is, “What is God?”  And how would we know Him if we saw Him?  What is it that constitutes God-ness?

Paul and the apostles were absolutely convinced that the Man with whom the twelve disciples had lived for three years, and who was murdered before their eyes, and who unmistakably and unquestionably rose from the dead, THAT Man IS God.  Not “a god”, but the God who is worthy of the worship of all creation because He created it all.  The Creator of everything from nothing, Jesus Christ, is God. Look at Colossians 1 once again:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

Look at chapter 2.

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

How does Paul know with such confidence and assurance that Jesus is God?  Because He has demonstrated that He really is the highest and the final authority in the universe.  He has displayed His rulership over everything.  God is the one who has both created everything and rules over all that He has made with absolute authority.  Whoever does that, He is God.  That Person is Jesus.  He is the Person who possesses all authority in Heaven and on Earth.  He is, to use Paul’s term in v. 18, “preeminent”.  

The Greek word is “proteuo” (prote-yoo’-o).  It is only used here, but it is a derivative of another Greek word used many times in the NT, “protos” from which we get the word “prototype”.   It literally means, "1. First in time or place, 2. First in rank, or 3. at the first.

Jesus is God because He was/is first in time and place.  He created time and place.  He created space, geography.  He is first in rank, being described by Paul as the firstborn of creation and the firstborn of the dead.  He does not mean Jesus was the first person ever to be born, but that He has the predominant authority in the family that firstborn children have. He is the firstborn from the dead, meaning He was the first of multitudes to be resurrected, never to die again.  He is before or previous to everything else in the created universe.  That position of preeminence is what defines Him as God and worthy of worship as God.

All of this brings us to the debate about the Trinity.  How can there be one God as the Bible says,  if Jesus and the Father are both God?  Just because.  And that’s that.  I don’t have any better explanation than that.  The Bible says they are both Deity, and somehow they are both one.  The Bible also says we are physical beings and we are spiritual beings.  How can we be both at the same time?  Just because.  Or, to put it another way, I don’t know.

If Jesus were here in bodily form right now, you might look at Him and think, “This is God?  He’s just like us.”  He is a man with a human body.  Obviously, if He were here, we’d realize that His human body isn’t exactly like ours because His is 2000 years old!  But He would look like us, like a normal human being.  If that was the case, then how would we know for sure that He was not only a man, but also God?  How could you prove it?  What is the scientific definition of “deity”?  There is none.  There is no such scientific definition because, by and large, they refuse to believe there is such a Person as God, the Intelligent Designer of His universe.  There is no definition because they have no faith.  Proof of God is a matter of faith.  It is not science, but theology.  

Listen to the words of the apostle Peter as he writes to his fellow Christians:

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1Peter 1:8-9

I think Bertrand Russell has now seen enough evidence to conclude that there really is a God.  He also understands now that the evidence for God which he claimed to be insufficient was all around him his entire life.  He simply refused to accept what God has made clear about Himself.  Just as it was when Peter wrote these words,  today there are multitudes of people who love the Lord Jesus in spite of having never seen Him in the flesh, in spite of never seeing a single miraculous event.  They believe in Him because this theology book is true.  They rejoice in Him because of the work He has done in their souls.  

They receive salvation from their sins from Him.  On that final day when the Judge of all the earth sits upon the throne of the universe and brings all of humanity before Him to be tried, these people who have believed Jesus is who the Scriptures say He is, will rejoice in Him and be welcomed into eternal life.  They will be those who acknowledge Him as preeminent, as God in the flesh, as the final and ultimate authority over all creation, as the Judge of the living and the dead.

There will be a lot of disappointed scientists and philosophers and other educated elites on that day when they find out what and who God is.  And a lot of others as well.  There will be an abundance of practical atheists and multitudes of the self-righteous who will say things like, “I went to church.”  I listened to Christian radio/TV.  I taught Sunday School.  I was a good person.  And they, along with  the most obstinate atheistic scientist, will be turned away.  The King of Glory will say to them also, “Depart from me.  I never knew you.”

Jesus Christ is God.  He is the one to whom we all must answer.   He is the image of the invisible God.  In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
----
1. Gleaned from an article found at http://kirjasto.sci.fi/brussell.htm
2. This may be a derivative of the first quote which also came from Russell.  If you know who said this, let me know.
3. Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (http://www.seti.org/)