Ask anybody on the street to describe God and eventually they will come around to 1 John 4:8. There the Bible tells us that God is love. Immediately, our fallen minds can lead us astray with just this small tidbit of information about the true nature of who God is and what God is! Fallen mankind, you see, does not understand love at all. To men and women without any spiritual or Scriptural discernment, love is an emotion, a warm fuzzy that accompanies infatuation. It is something that makes you feel good about yourself and about the one you love.
Love is often seen as toleration, or putting up with all sorts of sin, just because after all, we love the sinner. Have we not all heard that line before? Love the sinner, hate the sin? Well, God hates the sin and the sinner! (Psalm 11:5). We are taught though that God loves everyone equally. (Yes, He does love everyone, but not equally! (see 1 Tim 4:10 for example). In fact, this delusional view of love teaches that God loves everyone and so as a result will not send anyone to hell.
This is an overstatement of one attribute of God’s character, His love, and unfortunately, it is an overstatement of an unbiblical form of love that is really a perversion and a misrepresentation of what God is and what love is.
So many people see a god of their own making. They see an all-loving god who is nowhere close to matching the God of the Bible, and is therefore no god at all, but an idol of their own imagination. So how can we have a right view of God?
Understand biblical Love!
Once we see love for what it is and is not, we see that there is more than emotions at work here. Love is a decision. And God is love. So how can we get a right view of Him even beyond seeing how He embodies love?
Love, as we define it Scripturally, is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) that enables us to make choice of the will regarding how we view and treat another person. Love, further, is defined as obedience to God (1 John 5: 3; John 14:15). Yes, it really is that simple. To love God is to obey Him.
So how do we define love? 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 does a fine job of giving us the characteristics of true, Scriptural love. Give the chapter a read and meditate on all that it says about love. And remember, God is love!
The Right View of God –
In the 6th chapter of the book of Isaiah, verses 1-8, the prophet sees God. And what he sees tells us much about both God and about men! First we see that God is Sovereign – He is sitting on a throne, high and lifted up reigning in Power and authority over all creation (Psalm 97: 1-4). The sovereignty of God is one key doctrine to knowing who He really is. As an all-powerful, all-knowing God who controls and ordains everything that comes to pass in the visible or invisible realm; whose plans and purposes cannot be thwarted by either men or devils (Job 42:2).
His Holiness
Then we see angels there around the Throne who are guarding His glory proclaim this truth, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
To give something emphasis in the Bible the author or speaker repeats a phrase. Jesus said often “Verily, verily”, meaning “truly, truly” and emphasizing the truthfulness of what He was about to say. And the one characteristic of God that is most emphasized on the Bible is seen right here. Above all else, God is HOLY, HOLY, HOLY. The Tri-une God is alone in His category. There is not another like Him in attributes or essence (Isaiah 45: 5). He is perfect and good and perfectly good. He cannot sin. It is not that He does not sin; He cannot sin! By His own very nature as a perfect and righteous Being, God cannot sin. He is HOLY.
When Isaiah sees this glory, this ultimate Holiness and Perfection, he is struck by one singular reality. He cries out, “Woe is me! I am undone!” What does he mean here? Well, this in the Hebrew language is actually a curse. He curses himself! Woe is me. I am undone. When compared to the holiness of God Isaiah sees immediately his own utter sinfulness and cries out that he is cursed and “coming apart at the seams.”
He cannot stand in the presence of such holiness. And yet, so many today have such a low view, such a humanized view of God, that there is nothing Holy, extraordinary, or even fearful about Him. If that is true of your view of God, then you are not looking at the thrice Holy GOD of Scriptures!
Our response
Isaiah’s response is such in this chapter that as he is cleansed by the coal from the altar, representing the atonement of Christ for his sin, then Isaiah immediately changes his cry. It is now, “Here am I; send me.” He is now ready and waiting to serve His Lord. When we do recognize Him for Who He is, we can do nothing less than curse our sin and abandon ourselves in His service.
When we see God for Who He is, we are expected to imitate what we see! The imitation of God is best understood as the process of sanctification – being conformed to the image of Christ – to be made like Him. How are we sanctified? By the Word of God! How do we imitate God? “Follow” Jesus! (John 17:14-17). For He is the image of the invisible God, as it pleased the Father that all fullness dwells in Him (Col. 1: 15,19; Matt 17:5).
