Because, he said, look at the horrible things God has done – the Flood, for instance, and wiping out Jericho, ordering the genocide of Amalekite women and children, and helping the Israelites kill thousands of people. And what about the horrors in the book of Revelation, and Jesus threatening people with eternal hellfire? And on and on the list went.

So I asked him (after his hour was up), “What shall we say then? Is God unjust?” Romans 9:14. Is God wrong in all this stuff he’s done? “Not at all,” Paul replies, because “what if God did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory,” verse 23?

The man on the phone saw God as horrible but what Paul saw was God making his “glory known.” How? Through his mercy, because if it wasn’t for God’s mercy we’d ALL be destined for destruction, verse 22. If God had left everything up to us, we’d all be dead and gone forever – BUT, fortunately, the glory God prepared us for from the start (verse 23) does “not depend on MAN’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy,” verse 16.

Our efforts only made us “objects of God’s wrath,” verse 22, and deservedly so after rejecting God for a serpent and spitting on our birthright. God had every right, therefore, to reject us in return, but “What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction?” Oh yes, God had every right to “show his wrath and make his power known” – and he has shown it too (as the man on the phone pointed out) – but NEVER to our total destruction. We deserve total destruction but God has made us “objects of his mercy” instead, verse 23, because in the end it will help us see his glory.

It’s only by God’s mercy and unending patience that we’re alive at all. And fortunately, in the meanwhile, he’s only given us a taste of the wrath we deserve. Yes, it’s involved (and will involve) some horrible things happening to people, but it’s nothing compared to the total destruction God could have unleashed on us. And when we’re all finally IN the glory God “prepared in advance” for us, what are we going to complain about then?!

But why reveal God to us? “IN ORDER THAT the love you have for me may be in them (same verse).” It was God’s LOVE FOR HIM that was so important for us to know. And why is that important? Because the love God has for Jesus can be in us, as well. That’s what Jesus was praying for here, that we could know God’s love like he knew God’s love, so we can have the same loving relationship with God that he has. That’s why he also asks “that I myself may be in them,” so Jesus can actually LIVE that relationship he has with the Father in us.

So when Philip said to Jesus, “Show us the Father” and Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father,” John 14:8-9, Jesus meant the relationship he and the Father had. To see him (Jesus) was to see the Father as well. They came as a relationship. Which is exactly what the disciples saw in Jesus. Everything Jesus said and did was either from the Father or for him. Jesus’ entire life and work was directed toward the Father, and clearly the Father’s life and work were being done through Jesus. They were working completely as one. Jesus also talked openly of the love his Father had for him, which the disciples saw proof of in how the Father answered Jesus’ prayers with amazing miracles. Well, seeing what kind of relationship with God a human like Jesus could have, the disciples wanted it too, so they asked Jesus to teach them to pray so they too could experience that same amazingly intimate and instant communication with the Father that Jesus had.

It was all very new to them, because they had no clue until Jesus turned up that God was their Father and they could approach him as God’s hugely loved children. But this is what God sent Jesus to us for, to reveal that we humans really can have this kind of relationship with God, and it was Jesus’ job to demonstrate it in all its beauty. We humans can actually be one as the Father and Jesus are one, verse 22. It was there to be seen in Jesus.

Yes it does, according to what Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he has been born again,” Jesus said in verse 3. We humans can’t even “see” God’s world, let alone “enter” it (verse 5), unless we go through a second birth. A second birth? How? “Of water and the Spirit,” verse 5. It’s a birth by the Spirit. And what does a Spirit birth make a human into? “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” verse 6. Well, of course anyone born of the Spirit is spirit. How could the Spirit give birth to anything else?!

Nicodemus was still a bit flummoxed by all this, but Jesus said he shouldn’t be (verse 7). Quite right, too. Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee and teacher, knew about the Spirit and how the Spirit would create an entirely “new heart” in people, Ezekiel 36:26-27, the evidence of which would be a wholehearted desire to obey God and trust him.

And hadn’t exactly that been happening of late, Jesus asks Nicodemus (John 3:11)? People’s hearts were turning to God all over the place in response to Jesus – as have people’s hearts ever since. Billions of people have looked to God as their “Abba, Father,” their spirit Dad, and responded to him as his children, in love and trust, just as Ezekiel predicted.

But if humans are responding to God as his children, then being the children of a spirit Dad makes us spirit too, right? Yes. But spirit in what way? In mind and heart. When the Spirit births us a second time, we’re born with “the mind of Christ,” 1 Corinthians 2:16. And it’s having this spirit mind of Christ that now enables us to “worship the Father in spirit and in truth,” John 4:23-24. We’re now on the same spirit level the Father is. We share his same mind and heart, so we can respond back to him in the same spirit mind and heart he has.

And God put us on that same spirit level with him through the Spirit. It means I’ve got a spirit Dad I can respond back to with affection, complete trust and obedience. Like a real son of God. It’s still taking some getting used to, though, just as it took Nicodemus a while too, to grasp what the Spirit’s given us.

He sees us from two points of view. We’re still helpless sinners in constant need of rescue and forgiveness (Ephs 2:1-5), but we’re also “holy and blameless in God’s sight,” and it’s a pleasure for him to call us his children (Ephs 4:4-7). I see both, then, just as God does, when entering his presence. I accept the fact that, being his adopted child already, I’ve already got his full love and mercy; but I also accept I’m a sinner still so I need his mercy every day, too.

It brings to mind why Jesus died for us. It wasn’t only to rescue us from our sins (Cols 1:21-22), it was also to make us God’s children (Ephs 1:5-7). It’s for both reasons he died for us, so we take both with us when entering God’s presence.

To focus on only one of them messes things up for us, because how can we stand before God with confidence if we think God only sees us as sinners? But just as important – how can we stand before God with confidence while taking sin lightly? God certainly doesn’t; he exalts the humble, chaps like the publican who readily admit they’re sinners when they come before him. And I notice the publican “went home justified before God,” too (Luke 18:14). He left God’s presence feeling utterly reassured.

We can enter God’s presence with confidence, then, when we see ourselves as sons and sinners. Not just as sons because that could get us thinking, “So what if I sin? I’m God’s son, he loves me regardless of what I do” – which is true – but using sonship to excuse away my sin makes entering God’s presence embarrassing. On the other hand, seeing myself only as a sinner doesn’t help either, because that could get me thinking, “So what if I’m his son? He can’t love me the way I am” – which is also true, God hates sin – but using my sin to say he can’t love me as a son, how can I ever enter his presence with any kind of confidence thinking that?

God’s Word is clear, however. We are sons despite our sin. We are also sons who can admit their sin, because it’s both together that enable us to enter God’s presence each morning knowing we’re utterly welcome.

How can God, being spirit, sire a child? That child would be a created being, and therefore not like God at all. God is eternal, so any son of his would have to be eternal, too. The term “Son,” then, can’t be a son as we humans think of sons, as beings we create, because Jesus wasn’t created. Verse 2 also clearly states he was “with God from the beginning,” so wherever God was at “the beginning” Jesus was with him already. He didn’t appear at some later time, as a later creation. “The Word was God” and was “with God” always, verse 1.

Jesus wasn’t a created being, he was the eternal Word, and as the Word he told us God had a Son. It was a startling revelation! Here was Jesus, a human being, with edges and skin like any other human, stating to all and sundry God had a Son, and that Son was him. To the Jews back then it was blasphemy! God was one; he’d always been one (Deut 6:4, Isaiah 40:25).

The idea that God could be two – well the Jews had never heard of such a thing. But here was Jesus saying “I and my Father are one,” John 10:30. But how could God still be one with two?! Jesus explained: it was in their relationship. The term “Son” made that clear. It showed that “God” wasn’t a singular Being on his own, he was, instead, a loving Father/Son relationship, and it was in their relationship together that two had become one – just as the Bible says husband and wife become “one.”

In the Bible, then, two can become one based on their relationship. And it’s love that does it, as Jesus made clear when he said “you (referring to the Father) loved me before the world began,” John 17:24. That’s an amazing verse. It not only tells us Jesus existed before the universe was created, it also tells us God existed in relationship. God had always been a loving Father/Son relationship. And they were still in that loving relationship when Jesus was here, too: “I love the Father,” he said in John 14:31, and “the Father has loved me,” John 15:9. It’s what’s made them one forever.

We need look no further than Jesus the Word, then, to get an accurate picture of God. The Word is, and always has been, God in all his glory, but he’s also the one through whom God reveals his glory. And that’s why the Word came as the human Jesus, to reveal that glory of God to us. He was still “the Word,” being what he always was, and doing what he’d always done. As a human, therefore, nothing changed. The Word took on a human body, yes, but his eternal purpose of revealing God remained exactly the same.

As the Word in human form, Jesus was perfectly equipped to make God and his purpose crystal clear to us. Everything he said and did was a perfect representation of God. It didn’t matter that he was human. It didn’t limit his ability to be the Word. The Word was the full expression and revelation of God in whatever form he was in. Human or spirit, the Word expressed and revealed God perfectly. In Jesus, therefore, we see and hear God, and even though he was only a short time with us, Jesus was still able to show us all we need to know about God, John 1:14 - ”The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” As the Word, Jesus came to us full of God’s grace and truth. But that’s because he’s “the Word.” That’s his glory, it’s revealing God in full, and we humans “see that glory” when we accept and believe that’s what he came as the Word to do (verse 12).

Revealing God in full has always been the Word’s glory, though. It was his glory before humans existed and his glory ever since. It was his glory while he was human himself, and his glory now he’s back to “full power” again. In whatever form he’s in, human or spirit, his purpose never changes. He keeps on doing what he’s always done. Through him we know God, in full. And in that we can trust: we have God’s Word on it.

Am I an afterthought, that’s what I want to know? Am I just another idea God had, or merely a trial run for a “much improved” creation in the future, perhaps? If so, I could legitimately wonder if God has other projects on the go that also came to mind at some point in eternity. Perhaps there are other creatures he’s developing, other universes and other dimensions he’s tinkering around with, and we’re just one of many designs he’s trying out. Or what if we’re actually a failed experiment he’s about to chuck out?

Or has God always dreamed of human beings – as his ultimate project? Paul certainly thinks so: “God saved us according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ FROM ALL ETERNITY,” 2 Timothy 1:8-9. In other words, there was never a time when God hadn’t been thinking of us. We’ve been the apple of God’s eye for his entire life. I like that. It means there aren’t any other creatures some place else he’s working with, no other great plan afoot, no other universes, no other dimensions – we’re it! Because we’ve always been it. “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself,” Ephesians 1:4-5. Not some other creature; it was always “US.” We’re the plan because we’ve always been “The Plan.” God intended to adopt us as his children for as long as he can remember.

And how important has adopting us been to him? Important enough for him to die to make it happen. That was in his plan all along, too: “He was slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8. Imagine that. He was already “slain” long before humans, and even the universe, existed. So we’re no afterthought. We’ve been worth the life of God for all eternity. He staked his life on our adoption. That’s how important we are to him.

But if anyone knew that for a fact, Jesus did, because “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of man (John 3:13).” Jesus knew God firsthand, and knowing God as he did he simply had to tell us that “life is God.” There’s nothing more that life could be about than God. God was it. God’s always been it. There’s no life without him.

I’ve just done a Memorial Service for a lady who believed that, too. Her favourite expression was: “I don’t want to make it without him.” That’s exactly what Jesus was saying. There’s no life in life without God. He is the life in life. Compare a day with God in it to a day without him. Well, she couldn’t stand the thought of making it through a day without him. Without him it was just another day, going through the motions of keeping oneself alive physically, doing one’s chores and duties, and collapsing in front of the TV when tired out. And it all becomes a rather pointless, numbing existence after a while, like the droning tick of a grandfather clock. Another tick, another day. And for what purpose?

Perhaps that’s what this life is for, then, to discover the difference that God makes to a day. And I think I’m beginning to experience what that’s like, as I realize he’s interested and involved in every part of my life, and in every second of what I’m doing. He’s the ultimate Dad, who loves being with his children, loves watching them, loves joining in with them, loves hearing their ideas, loves helping them out when they can’t get something to work, loves helping them find things they’ve lost, loves to feed their creativity, develop their skills, open up new dimensions and give them new thoughts.

And it’s knowing his Dad’s this way that makes a child’s life come alive. A day is so much better with Dad. Life is Dad. And we’ve got such a Dad for eternity, too!

     Some faces I can’t help myself staring at. Like the TV reporter I see occasionally who has a rather plain face when serious, but when she smiles it’s like a sudden window into this other life she lives, full of humour and mischief. How our faces give away what we’re really like!  

     There’s nothing like the human face in all creation. But there’s one face above all faces I’d like to see, because in that face, the Bible tells me, I can see what God is really like. It acts like a window, 2 Corinthians 4:6, into the “glory of God.” We can actually see the brilliance of God himself. How? “In the face of Christ.”

     But how can I see Christ’s face when we have no record of it? And what would it tell me even if I did see it? But Paul explains himself in verse 4. “The god of this age,” he writes, “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

     The way we see Christ’s face is in “the light of the gospel.” To understand the gospel, therefore, is to see the “glory of Christ.” And why is that important? Because Christ is the “image of God.” See Christ in his glory and we see God in his glory. And how do we see Christ in his glory? In the gospel. It’s in the gospel that we see what Christ is like, and in seeing what Christ is like we see what God is like. It’s a simple formula: understand the gospel, we see Christ; see Christ, we see God.  

     No wonder the “god of this age” blinds people to what the gospel is all about, because it’s through the gospel we see God. The gospel is the face, or the window, into what God is really like. And who understands that? We do, verse 6, ”For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

     We can actually see God. How? In Christ. How in Christ? Through the gospel. How important is it to know the gospel, then?