Can we be certain what God is like?
I know we can’t know everything about him. God is infinite, and we have tiny minds by comparison. We couldn’t hold it all in our heads, even if it was possible to discover everything about him.
But that’s not what I’m asking. Can we know anything about God with absolute certainty?
It’s quite fashionable today to say that we can’t. The best I can do is hold an opinion about God. But that’s all it is, and I need to remember that others might be just as right as I am. It sounds so humble. And it’s so conciliatory. It helps us to get along in a diverse world like the one we live in.
Jesus, the Word
Well, we’re Christians. That makes all the difference in the world.
Today’s Gospel reading came from John’s Gospel. Here’s how John’s Gospel begins: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Jesus is called God’s Word. God had spoken to his forefathers, at many times and in various ways. But for these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom the universe was made. Hebrews 1, 1 and 2.
God may have said lots of things about himself in the centuries before Jesus. But all that speech was building up to the big climax, the arrival of the one who is God’s speech, who is God’s word. God has revealed himself, by speaking, and now supremely in the person of Jesus.
You may also remember John 14, verse 6: Jesus said to Thomas: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the truth. He didn’t just come to teach us God’s truth. He is that truth.
Which means that we can know God for certain. God has stepped into the pages of history so that we can meet him in the person of his Son.
But that doesn’t quite answer the question. We’re 2000 years too late. We don’t get to meet Jesus walking on the earth. So if God has made himself known, definitively, for all time, in the person of Jesus, how does that help us? Can we be certain what Jesus is like? Can we be certain what Jesus reveals God to be like?
Enter two intermediaries: The apostles, and the Spirit
Intermediary #1: The Apostles
First, the apostles.
God is making himself know once for all through the person of his Son. But Jesus will finish his work in earth: he’ll die on the cross, and rise again. After that, he has to return to his Father in heaven. He is the Word, but he needs to leave people behind who can spread the word.
Which he does. John chapter 15, verse 27: You also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. John chapter 17, verse 20. Jesus has prayed for the 11 apostles he leaves behind. He then moves to pray for believers down the centuries. “My prayer is not for them alone. [Not for the apostles alone, then.] I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”
Jesus handpicked twelve apostles who would be with him from the beginning of his ministry. They’d see everything, hear everything, witness everything. And then he’d sent them into the world. They’d go with his authority. Spread the Word. John chapter 17, verse 18, Jesus prays: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” Or after the resurrection, John chapter 20, verse 21: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
Intermediary number 1: the apostles.
But that still leaves doubts in my mind as to whether we can know anything about God for certain. They’re only human. When we meet them in the pages of John’s gospel, they regularly get the wrong end of the stick, miss the point totally. Jesus only had them for 3 years, and they were a busy 3 years. Wasn’t Jesus taking a big risk to leave God the Father’s plan to reveal himself to the world through his Son in their hands? What if they got their wires crossed? Had they really got hold of everything that the rest of us need to know about Jesus?
Intermediary #2: The Spirit
Well, that finally brings us to today’s reading, and to the second intermediary: the Spirit.
Verse 12: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” Well, doesn’t he just!
So here’s the answer. Verse 13: “But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Jesus is the truth. Jesus has led the disciples into the truth. But they still need a lot of guiding, teaching, shaping, truly to grasp the implications of who Jesus is and what he’s done.
For that, they’ll have the Spirit of truth. Jesus may have only had 3 years with them, but the Spirit will be with them for the rest of their days. He’ll finish off the job of making God known to them through Jesus. As Jesus goes on to explain: “He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”
Do you see? The Spirit will shine the spotlight on Jesus. He has nothing original to say. He’s taking the disciples deeper and deeper into Jesus, so that they can then make him known to others. To us.
And at least one part of God keeping this promise is the gospel of John that we hold in our hands. Peter, John, James, Thomas – they couldn’t have explained a fraction of the wonderful truths we have recorded here in John’s book. Not during Jesus’ lifetime. But after a lifetime’s tutelage from the Spirit of truth, John can write this masterly book.
Intermediary number two: The Spirit.
Conclusion
So can we be certain what God is like?
Yes, once again, I know we can’t know everything.
But God is not silent. He’s spoken in words. He’s spoken to us through his Son, made human. And he left eleven apostles behind, endowed with his own Spirit, so that we might be certain of the things God has said once for all.
On subjects where God has not spoken, let’s be humble, and not pretend we know more than we do. But where God has spoken, let’s be humble, and listen to him.