Immanuel: God with Us
John Barnett
Matthew 1:18-23
This morning all of us humans have a real problem--we are an endangered species in this Universe, we are very fragile with a very short life span, only God can help us--and God is unapproachable.
On top of all that, we can't even see God and if we did, we would die.
Moses once had a conversation with God over 3500 years ago, as one of the only humans to ever get to know God up close. Here is what the Lord told him--
Exodus 33:20 But He said, ''You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.''
Paul in the New Testament reports the same facts about God. Paul's record is--
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:13-16 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing,15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate (dunastes 'power'), the King of kings and Lord of lords,16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Those verses should give all of us in this age of casual familiarity with God, a reason to pause.
THE UNAPPROACHABLENESS OF GOD
Yes, God is our loving and gracious Heavenly Father--but He eternally dwells in unapproachable light. That means that God transcends us and is totally beyond us.
In Theology proper a Latin term is used to capture this reality; God is defined as Deus absconditus, which translates as 'the hidden God'.
If God had not initiated revealing Himself to sinful and fallen mankind in the Garden of Eden and onward through the Old Testament; if God had not chosen to come out of His holy habitation--mankind would have hopeless ...
John Barnett
Matthew 1:18-23
This morning all of us humans have a real problem--we are an endangered species in this Universe, we are very fragile with a very short life span, only God can help us--and God is unapproachable.
On top of all that, we can't even see God and if we did, we would die.
Moses once had a conversation with God over 3500 years ago, as one of the only humans to ever get to know God up close. Here is what the Lord told him--
Exodus 33:20 But He said, ''You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.''
Paul in the New Testament reports the same facts about God. Paul's record is--
1 Timothy 1:17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:13-16 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate,14 that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing,15 which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate (dunastes 'power'), the King of kings and Lord of lords,16 who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.
Those verses should give all of us in this age of casual familiarity with God, a reason to pause.
THE UNAPPROACHABLENESS OF GOD
Yes, God is our loving and gracious Heavenly Father--but He eternally dwells in unapproachable light. That means that God transcends us and is totally beyond us.
In Theology proper a Latin term is used to capture this reality; God is defined as Deus absconditus, which translates as 'the hidden God'.
If God had not initiated revealing Himself to sinful and fallen mankind in the Garden of Eden and onward through the Old Testament; if God had not chosen to come out of His holy habitation--mankind would have hopeless ...
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