5.10

God Who Is

One of the most memorable revelations of God to Israel was from a burning bush, when God spoke His name to Moses. God was sending Moses to His people to tell them about His plan to free them. But how could Moses speak for God to Israel? He didn’t even know God’s name! Who would he say sent him? God gave His child His most clear and cryptic name: “I AM WHO I AM. . . say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. . .This is My name forever. . . to all generations” (Exodus 3:14-5)

God is. He is in all time and in all that occupies time; past, present and future. His identity cannot be bound by descriptors because He holds the whole cosmos of descriptors in His hand. God in His holiness defies all searching out and at the same time He can never be escaped. God shrouds Himself in mystery and His presence vitally sustains all that is. He is both more remote than the farthest edge of the expanding universe and closer than the deepest breath we inhale. How can the unreachable ever be found? How can He who mediates all things be discerned? How can the deep disentangle from itself to behold source and substance of its deepness? How can a child see the eyes she is looking through? How can anyone ever hope to hear Him if He speaks in so untranslatable a language? When we turn to find God, we are gripped by the paradox of seeking One who is more found than we are. We become cross eyed because He is much too close to focus on. God is both entirely outside our grasp and entirely too close to distinguish from ourselves. We can name all things in creation by assessing and comparing them, but it is impossible to name God. He can only be known by God who is. Only He can make Himself known

This is what God made known: He is the glorious King Isaiah saw, and He is the suffering servant King of Isaiah’s prophesy. God’s life for us is sacrificial and He requires us to know His sacrificial life. Such a revelation of God could not be known at Jesus‘ crucifixion. All rejected Him in the end, both those who grieved His death and those who were disgusted by Him. “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews’” (John 19:21), the chief priests told Pilate. Write on the plaque above His tortured and naked body that He is being crucified because He blasphemed with lying claims that He is King of the Jews. Write that He’s a liar and not our King. “What I have written I have written” (v. 22), Pilate answered. Regardless of what any of them believed or said, Jesus is who He is

Jesus is King, a divine King; the Messiah who comes as a poor baby conceived out of wedlock and born in a manger; a common carpenter until His public preaching of the gospel; serving the poor and sick and abandoned; without security of home or income; facing constant opposition and ridicule; ultimately delivered over to a shameful death; His life judged to be a lie and an offense to God. Whether or not the Jews recognized Jesus as their King, whether or not anyone acknowledges Him as King, Jesus remains who He is. In the end, He offered no words to explain Himself. His only proof of identity was His life that fully accepted all His Father gave Him, fully completing all His Father willed, Father and Son spanning the full beauty and wonder who is God

Ultimately, the only proof powerful enough to validate truth is the presence of truth. All we can do is accept Jesus revealed, and then we will see. We will know Him as King unlike any other, who does not reign over us but whose “indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16) reigns in us. On earth, kings possess power over people and property. God’s gracious sovereignty is the relationship of a majestic God and a life overwhelmed by awe. Our kings are forced upon us to serve and submit to them. God’s Kingship is the revelation of His life’s redeeming power that is sacrificed to serve. The majesty of God exists in the very nature of His presence in relation to all that is. He doesn’t ever insist on His sovereignty: it is evident over all as a grace we receive or an oppression we resist

The promised King of the Jews would be her Messiah who would serve and redeem her through His sufferings. Then He could reign in her as God had always intended, in His peace and love. Is this King for Jews only? How can He reign over only one people if He is God’s Messiah? How can an all sovereign God have so narrow a focus and concern over His creation? What is the nature of God’s focus of concern? God’s sovereign choices reveal the passionate intimacy of HIs love in His most personal favoring. God’s choosing expresses the personal concern of His heart towards us more than any other revelation of Him. God’s sovereign election is a mystery that can barely be formulated much less explained, but it is far too important to ignore