It is important to believe that Jesus is God, and it is also important to know Jesus as God. It was certainly this way for the early apostles. Thomas looked at Jesus and said 'My Lord and my God'; and Paul looked at Jesus and said 'Who are you Lord?' For both of them, it was a very personal matter. They not only had a deficient view of Jesus; they had a deficient view of God, shaped by pride and guilt, not by the facts.
May the Lord help us to see that God himself has appeared to redress this mean view that we tend to have of him. He is not who we think he is, not who our conscience says he is, and not who our senses feel he is. He is like Jesus. Or, rather, Jesus is the face of God, the outshining of his being. And not just a show to watch but as a Saviour to take away our pride and our guilt, and change our understanding so that we come to know God as he is—Father and Son, and Spirit too. |
