Exodus 33:18–23; 34:5–8; Micah 6:6–8; John 4:21–24

Bible Studies for Life
Associate Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University

GETTING TO KNOW THE FATHER
Exodus 33:18–23; 34:5–8; Micah 6:6–8; John 4:21–24
This week’s lesson begins a quartet of lessons titled “Experiencing God Triune-ly.” The lessons focus on the distinctively Christian understanding of who God is, which sets it apart from all other religious concepts, and on the implications of that understanding for living the Christian life. During the first few centuries of the Church’s existence, Christian leaders sought the best way to teach the biblical revelation that one God is from eternity Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They carefully steered between two inadequate extremes: an overemphasis on the oneness of God that neglected the important distinctions between the persons of the Trinity (John 1:1 — “the Word was with God”) and an overemphasis on the distinctions between the persons that neglected the oneness of God (John 1:1 — “and the Word was God”). We are indebted to the early church for these labors to clarify our doctrine of God, and we should keep its clarifications in mind as we take up these lessons. Each person plays a distinctive role in God’s work of creation and redemption, but all three persons jointly participate in the work of each. Thus when the Father creates, the Son and Spirit share in that work; when the Son redeems, the Father and Spirit are involved, too; and when the Spirit indwells believers and enables the Christian life, we are experiencing the work of the Father and Son as well.

How Can We Know the Father? (Ex. 33:18–23)
This passage emphasizes two key truths about our knowledge of God. First, we know God only through His free and gracious acts of self-disclosure. In specific acts of revelation to individuals like Moses, in the fullness of God’s revelation in the person of Jesus Christ and in the Bible through which the Holy Spirit bears witness that Jesus is the location of this revelation, it is God who moves toward us so that we may know Him. When we think we have come to know something about God on the basis of human reasoning, our “knowledge” is more likely to reflect whom we would like Him to be than who He really is. Second, even what we know about God through this free and gracious self-disclosure does not fully exhaust everything there is to be known about Him. “Now” we “know only in part,” but on the other side of this life, we “will know fully” (1 Cor. 13:12).

What’s the Heavenly Father Like? (Ex. 34:5–8)
In the next chapter of Exodus, God discloses something specific about the divine character. It is radically other than the character of sinful human beings and yet is the perfect expression of the character that can be manifested, however partially, in the lives of human beings created in the image of God. God is merciful, loving and faithful in a way far beyond our best imaginings of those virtues, but He is also justly opposed to human actions that are contrary to His creative intent and allows us to experience the consequences of those actions — as an expression of His love for us. These very characteristics of God can be reflected in our lives, for the work of the indwelling Spirit of God is to reproduce the divine character in us (Gal. 5:22–26).

What Does God the Father Desire for Us? (Mic. 6:6–8; John 4:21–24)
Micah’s prophetic words and Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman are also instructive examples of how the work of the triune God makes something known about Him. In these two cases, God lets human beings know His desires for our character and conduct. This is not done so we can do something to earn God’s favor but as a gracious disclosure of whom we ought to be that helps us know how far short we fall of that. It also motivates us to seek the help of God’s Spirit in becoming what we were created and redeemed to be. That is people who seek God’s justice in the midst of this unjust world, who treat other people as kindly as God treats us, who are humble in relation to God and other people and whose lives worship God inwardly and outwardly.