Week 5—Sunday Philippians 2:5-10
WHAT DO I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GOD?
We continue to meditate on: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is the bosom of the Father, he has made him known” (John 1:18). He “has made him known.” The old version says: “He hath declared him”—“declared him” would be the Word become word—a verbal revelation of God. This has been tried and has failed. You cannot describe God; you can only show God; make “him known.” Jesus has made God known in the only way God can be made known, by Life.
What do I want to know about God? God’s omnipotence? It would scare me to death to see what God can do. God’s omniscience? How could I, limited as I am, know all that God knows? And what good would it do me if I could know God’s omnipresence? How could I, limited by a body and confined to a spot in this universe, understand God’s everywhereness? And God’s everywhereness all at once? These three things would not help me; they would leave me helpless and prostrate. Then what do I want to know? I want to know what God is like in character. For what God is like in character, I must be like. I cannot be at cross purposes with reality and not get hurt. So Jesus makes “known” the character of God, makes it known in the only possible way God’s character can be made known, namely through another character—Jesus’ own.
And Jesus reveals the central thing in God’s character—Love! “Who is in the bosom of the Father” Jesus is not in the arm of the Father—God’s omnipotence; nor in the mind of the Father—God’s omniscience. Jesus is close to the Father’s heart—the revelation of God’s Love. So Jesus came, stripping himself of everything as he came—omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence—everything except love. “He emptied himself,” emptied himself of everything except love—his only protection, his only weapon, his only method. And Jesus showed that love is the only omniscience, the only omnipotence.
O Jesus, you used love and only love, and you won with love and only love. Now we see into the heart of God, and what we see is very beautiful, so beautiful that we are at your feet. And we wouldn’t be anywhere else for all the world. Amen.
AFFIRMATION OF THE DAY: In some faint way I shall make my Father “known” in everything I do today.