Five Ways God Speaks To Us (John 1:1-18) Series

GOD’S BEST WORD TO US

John 1:1-18

Bob Marcaurelle bmarcaurelle@charter.net

(Writing in the AD 90’s to counteract the teachings that Jesus could not be both God and man. John shows us how God reveals Himself to us through creation, conscience, contacts with individuals and the chosen people and their Bible. This comes through to us when we are converted by the truths of Scripture. )

A little girl, when asked by her mother what she was drawing, answered, “A picture of God.” The mother said, “Honey, no one knows what God looks like.” To which the girl replied, “I know, that’s why I am drawing Him”. The little girl is wrong. All we know about God is nothing. Close your eyes and picture God. Anything you come up with is wrong. A. W. Tozer said, “We ask what God is like and the answer is that He is not like anything. All we can describe Him with are things that came from Him but are not Him”.

With all our religion and philosophy John says “No one has seen God.” Looking at creation we are like soldiers on guard duty at night who, knowing someone is there, say, “Who goes there”.

Years ago two men watched a nice, quiet middle aged man come home from work to his family. His children ran to meet him and he often had treats for them and other children who were there. One day the two men grabbed him and threw him into a van and drove away. They were Nazi hunters who had just captured Adolph Eichmann, one of the cruelest followers of Hitler.

Creation tells us a little. We know He exists. The first word in the Bible assumes Him. There is no argument or proof. It just says he is there, deal with it. The Bible dismisses atheism with one verse, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” (Psalm 19). Mullins said, “He said it in his heart his head knew better.” The atheist hasn’t been born yet who can convince us the three little bones floating inside our ear, the laughter of a baby and the courage of a soldier are the products of slime and time.

That part of God we human beings can relate to is called the “Word”. If I open up to you and talk with you and listen to you, you get an idea of who I am. My words come from my “word”, who I am as a person. And God’s word speaking to us is first:

THE WORD OF MYSTERY

The Bible and John’s Gospel begin with, “In the beginning God”. This is the mystery of his eternal existence. We take this “by faith” (Hebrews 11:3) and can no more prove God than the atheist can disprove Him. Augustine said in the AD 400’s, “Arguments for the existence of God, for the unbeliever are unconvincing and for the believer are unnecessary.” The religious person’s faith is harder to believe than the faith of an atheist. He believes this vast universe is uncreated. But we believe the Creator, who is far more complicated than his creation. Our faith is instinctive. It is part of what it means to be human. A young Communist girl wrote on her test that Lenin’s Tomb was inscribed, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” When she learned she was right her first thought was, “Thank God.”

In Genesis God says, “Let us make man in our own image.”. John says that in eternity “the Word was God and with God. This is the mystery of how the one God has a plural nature. This introduces us to the term “Trinity” (Three in One) adopted by the Church around AD 200 to describe God as He is presented in Scripture. The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are sometimes equated and sometimes seen as separate Persons. The only way to wrap our minds around this is to see it as the way we experience the mysterious God. The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are sometimes equated and sometimes seen as separate Persons.

We know there is a God above and beyond anything we can imagine. We know that 2000 years ago God came to earth. His name was Jesus and right now he is in some kind of place called heaven with our loved ones who have died. And we know there is a God who speaks to us in our hearts.

We cannot explain it. No one can. It is something we experience. The thirsty man is thankful for water; the ice skater is thankful for ice and the engineer is thankful for steam. They are all thankful for one thing - water. A little girl was asked how big God was and she said, “He is so big the universe cannot hold Him and He is so small I can hide Him in my heart.