Exploring God, the Final Frontier: Introduction

Exploring God, the Final Frontier: Introduction.

“O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God! What a deep wealth of wisdom and knowledge He has! How incomprehensible are His decisions, how unsearchable His judgments! How undiscoverable are His paths, how mysterious His ways, beyond finding out! Who has understood the mind of Yahweh? Who knows how the Lord thinks, or what His thoughts are? Can anyone discern the Lord’s intentions, His motivations? Who knows enough to give Him advice? Is there anyone qualified to be His counselor? Who has given Him so much that He needs to pay it back? Who could ever have a claim against Him? For everything was created by Him, everything lives through Him, and everything exists for Him; So to Him must be given the glory forever! Amen! (Romans 11:33-36,also Isaiah 40:12-14).

Exploring a Frontier: Investigating uncharted territory; seeking something where settled territory is at the edge of wilderness; searching the extreme outer limits of something for knowledge and understanding; detecting something unknown or unexplored; leads to discovery of something new and finding something unexpected.

WANTED: Adventurers who want to explore creation’s Final Frontier, the greatest Wonder of the World; must be extremely curious about the nature of God’s Being; motivated to know more about God than you know presently; inspired by the thrill of discovery;  need to be challenged and changed in the process of exploration; have the courage to step into a safe unknown; able to invest considerable mental energy to pursue life inside God with a mustard seed of trust in Him; be comfortable with the certainty of endless exploring; have the patience to pursue the quest one step at a time for as long as it takes; must explore with the vision of C. S. Lewis in his Narnia tales, “Further Up and Further In!”

Exploring Our Wondrous God. “And Samson’s father asks the Angel of Yahweh, ‘What is your name, that we may honor you when your words come true?’ The Angel replied, ‘Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding. It is a name of wonder (“pili”).’” (Judges 13:17-18). “Pili” (pil-ee) is the Hebrew word which means: wondrous; something so wonderful that it is beyond comprehension; remarkable, extraordinary, marvelous; so awesome it cannot be understood by humans; so amazing that it seems impossible or too difficult to accomplish; so uniquely set apart from human understanding that it is God’s secret.

Focused Vision and Relaxed Vision. Trained wilderness trackers call the wide-angled view the “relaxed vision.” During our exploration of wondrous God, this is the perspective that is able to scan the whole field of vision. Relaxed vision sacrifices sharpened clarity on the details in order to enjoy a breadth of awareness that is able to get the big picture. In God-centered quest, both focused vision on His revealed Personhood and the relaxed vision of His ultimate Being is vital. Sometimes words are adequate during relaxed vision, but often it seems that we can only echo Job’s words, “I am unworthy. My words have been frivolous, what can I say? I had better lay my hand over my mouth.”  (Job 40:4). Whether with words or without, relaxed vision involves a child-like trust in the Big Picture of God’s existence.

Open in order to Close. An open mind is required, but not to remain endlessly open without discernment. As G. K. Chesterton once said… “An open mind is really a mark of foolishness, like an open mouth. Mouths and minds were made to shut; they were made to open only in order to shut. Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening our mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” An adventuresome God-explorer is one who remains open only in order to shut it again on solid truth.

“Will God really live with human being on earth? Behold, the heavens and the Heaven of Heavens, the highest heavens to their uttermost reaches, cannot contain you, O Lord!” (1 Kings 8:27).

Is God Worthy of Eternal Exploration? Is it worth our while to explore the Person of God in order to discover more about Him? Why bother exploring such a mystery? Yes! It’s worth a lifetime quest, because God is:

1. Better than Perfect. He is utterly complete, doesn’t “need” anything, and never needs to change. His purity outshines the sun, His goodness is infallible. Since God is an intimate and eternal 3-Person community of love, God doesn’t require anyone. He has “each other” for all eternity. “His beauty is past change.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins). “I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong.” (Deut. 32:3-4). “From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.” (Ps. 50:2).
2. Bigger than the Universe. His immensity stretches outside of natural space. God is present everywhere in the cosmos, whether at the furthest galaxy or in the microscopic atom. “His center is everywhere, His circumference nowhere.” (H. Lockyer). “The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.” (Solomon, 1 Kings 8:27). “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord, “and not a God far away? Do not I fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 23:23)
3. Older than Time. God invented time and chronology, so is outside of time itself. No birthdays for God. He was the same age 15 trillion years ago as He is now, and will be 15 trillion years from now. He never began, He’ll never end. “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God… For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.” (Ps. 90:2,4). “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8).

The Scope of the Exploration: The Subject of the exploration is far beyond even the imagination of the explorer. Even eternal heaven will not provide enough time or space to explore God. Even if we impossibly reach the limits of eternal time, there will be more to explore about God. Even if we somehow have discovered the outer fringes of God’s presence, there will be more than enough Being in which to explore His essence. Even within an everlasting timespan and the most immense cosmos imaginable, we would find it literally impossible to discover the full dimension of every aspect of God’s Being. Once started, we would never be able to exhaust our Final Frontier, we will never reach the end of our adventure. No boundary or border exists in the expanse of God’s Personhood; There will always be more to explore, even if eternity somehow came to an end, always more of God to discover even if we found the furthest of the 100 million galaxies. The joys of the everlasting Kingdom will include the ongoing exploration of God to our heart’s content, and the excitement of discovering more of Him around every corner. There will always be more to discover, which is fine because we will have all the time we need.

Let us discover more about God as we explore the wonders of:

God’s Heart. God of course has a heart. The only reason each person has a heart is that we were all made in God’s image, therefore we all have an inner home within that operates as a source of what is true and distinctive about each of us. Yes, God has a heart that is bigger than the universe, an inner home that is able to contain everything and everyone. Our spiritual location is inside of the very heart of God. What should we expect to see inside of the heart of God? At this point, we can only imagine the interior of God’s house, but we have some clues. Scripture reveals some of God’s character through the ages, His personality, His actions, His Self-descriptions (Exodus 34). Through the Bible, we can even read a little bit of God’s eternal mind. And then of course, Jesus fleshed out God’s temperament and revealed much of God’s heart during His ministry on earth. What would we expect to find waiting for us as we are escorted through the inner home of God to abide in Him? Like anyone’s home, God’s heart will reflect His attitudes, motivations, personality, character traits, His heavenly “tastes” in interior décor. God’s deeply held convictions will be revealed in His heart-home. Using Scripture as our guide, we will explore God’s heart as we make ourselves at home in Him.

God’s Bosom. Before the divine invention of time, before the foundation of the world, the Triune God existed in a profoundly intimate community of three Persons. God’s bosom (John 1:18) is the innermost place of the deepest relationship possible; the place of mystery inside of God where the profound Trinitarian union takes place; where there is complete intimate knowledge of Each Other that is reciprocal; the spiritual “womb” deep in God’s heart of hearts from which the Son is “brought forth;” the place of deepest affection where the Three are in incomprehensible communion; it is where the Three-in-One are truly “with” each other at the deepest level possible. St. Bernard of Clairvaux once tried to describe the intimacy within the Trinity this way… “Surely if the Father kisses and the Son receives the kiss, it is appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as the kiss.” We do know from John 14:10-11 and 17:21 that their communion is such that they are somehow inside each other.

God’s Glory. The biblical meaning of God’s glory tends to emphasize the weighty splendor of God’s personal presence; God’s supreme worthiness to be honored and praised; the overwhelming greatness of God’s beauty and power; the eternal weight of God’s substance; the heaviness of God’s inherent majesty.  The weight of God’s presence outweighs the world; His presence is more substantive and heavier than the universe. His eternal glory remains constant, whether or not He decides to reveal Himself to us. God’s essential glory is forever Real in the heavens, whether or not we experience Him here with our senses on earth. When God’s glory makes an appearance, we can get everything from angels and trumpets and fire and earthquakes, to lightning and clouds and wind and thunder, to smoke and voices and blinding lights and foreign languages, to open graves and resurrected bodies and torn curtains and noontime darkness, to miracles galore. To glorify God is to acknowledge and applaud the awesome reality of God’s presence in the world; to make His presence heavier and more obvious; to magnify Him by enlarging His name and reputation in the world; to live in a way that strengthens God’s credibility; to honor God in a way that reveals His truth and makes Him less hidden; to live in a way that preserves God’s glorious Name and Personhood; to follow God in a way that helps others to recognize God as the ultimate Person of Substance; to publicize and promote His glorious name by demonstrating His character; to be a guardian of God’s goodness and spiritual power in the world; to recognize the true and eternal status of God in a life-changing way.

God’s Truth. If everything else in the world falls apart, only Truth will remain standing as its absolute truth. God’s truths are the building blocks of all creation; the framework upon which we build our faith; the true Reality that has established the world’s reality; that which can never be truly altered or changed; that which is universally trustworthy as facts of life; the foundation of what is truly real in our experience; the plumblines from which to measure our lives; that which is common knowledge in God’s mind; that which lines up with God’s perspectives; established facts from God as opposed to a person’s changeable opinions or preferences; that which is solid and certain as opposed to a lie, deceit, an illusion or superstition; the tangible fundamentals issued forth from the intangible mind of God. Truth is always true even when discounted or disbelieved. Since the Almighty God is the ultimate source of all truth, then it follows that the Father God is Truth, the Lord Jesus is Truth, and the Holy Spirit is Truth.

God’s Mind. “Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16). “We have…” means ‘are having,’ ‘are keeping,’ or ‘are holding;’ to have and to keep on having, an action in progress; a process that is now taking place; the present state is a continuing state. So the literal translation is, “We, however, are having the mind of Christ.” Through the Holy Spirit, we now are new creatures who were given the capacity to learn how to think like Jesus, who is in fact thinking with the mind of God:

1. We are being given the capacity to think the thoughts of the Anointed One;
2. We have the growing ability to reason, to be logical, and to think things through like Jesus;
3. We are being infused with the ability to understand God’s wisdom;
4. We are being equipped with the moral intelligence of the Lord;
5. We are being given access to the reasoning behind the actions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;
6. We are in the process of perceiving spiritual matters as Christ perceives them;
7. We have an increasing ability to understand life from God’s perspective;
8. We will be continually inspired to develop the divine common sense and street-smart shrewdness that Jesus was known for;
9. We are gaining insight into what truly matters according to the thinking of God;
10. We have a growing ability to reflect and ponder according to the will of Christ;
11. We enjoy an ongoing co-mingling of our mind with Christ’s mind, until the end, when the new will have completely replaced the old, and those two minds will be indistinguishable.

God’s Beauty. Beauty is the quality of outstanding excellence in appearance, in usefulness, in moral character, in creative expression; brings delight to the senses; well-designed and constructed; a harmony that reflects creation; extremely attractive; that which inspires awe, wonder, admiration, praise; profoundly pleasing; an act of pure goodness; the presence of loveliness and grace; something exquisite in form, function, and proportion; that which contains glory and splendor. Mark 7:37, “Everything He does is beautiful (“kalos”) and is done with excellence!”  “Kalos” means beautiful, perfect, excellent, very good, well done, admirable, wonderful, morally virtuous and  honorable. Kalos was used over 100 times in the New Testament in a variety of contexts. It was often translated as “good” in passages such as good fruit, good ground, a good tree, and good works. But when applied to a person, it often referred to the moral character and the overall beauty of someone’s inner nature and outer work. In Jesus’ case, kalos was referring to His whole personhood that was beautiful inside and out; His attractive purity; the beautiful excellence He demonstrated in His everyday life; the beautiful sweetness in His interactions with those in need; the beauty of His inner goodness and virtue; the excellent usefulness and practical wisdom of His demonstrations of power. According to the people surrounding Him and watching His every move, everything Jesus did was beautiful, excellently done, and profoundly useful.

God’s Wisdom. “God’s understanding is infinite.” (Ps. 147:5). Aspects of His incomprehensible wisdom includes:

1. God’s wisdom cannot be reached by human wisdom, and is not the fruit of human effort;
2. God’s wisdom does not depend on philosophical speculation, or verbal eloquence, or logical argument, or persuasive speech;
3. God’s wisdom appears to be utterly foolish to the unbelieving world and highly improbable to the skeptical world;
4. God’s wisdom includes the Cross, which is absurd to unbelievers: the Son of God in glory comes in the flesh, is a humble servant, poor and rejected, is weak and powerless, and submits to a sacrificial death. Nonsense!
5. God’s wisdom inspired the unexpected plan of salvation, which makes very little sense to unbelievers;
6. God’s wisdom is personified in Jesus Christ, who carries out God’s plan to perfection;
7. Believers are those who have been given the mind of Christ, and thus can begin to understand God’s wisdom;
8. God’s wisdom demonstrates the convincing power of the Holy Spirit;
9. God’s wisdom is generally not fashionable or popular, and is often misunderstood;
10. In His wisdom, God revealed Christ to be our wisdom;
11. God’s wisdom devised His secret plan of salvation before time began, and only waited to reveal it at the appointed time with Jesus;
12. God’s deep secrets can only be revealed to us through His Holy Spirit;
13. God’s wisdom planned the scheme of salvation to center on simple faith, not on skill, status, achievement or intelligence. That doesn’t make sense to the prideful human heart that wants to earn it or claim it;
14. God’s wisdom is drenched in irony, appearing to be weak and foolish but in reality is powerful and true;
15. In His secret wisdom, God is transcendently humble;
16. A key component of faith is learning to trust God’s wisdom, that He knows what He is doing, even though there is much mystery involved;

God’s Flesh. Down through history, God has been an invisible force in the world. God is a Spirit, so it’s no wonder that no one has ever seen Yahweh-God in Hebrew Scripture. God is audible, but invisible. People have heard God, and seen His effect on people and nature, but no one has actually seen what God looks like, if He actually looks like anything humans would find intelligible. But here comes God’s eternal Son, Jesus Christ, wearing the Face of the Almighty God! And Jesus said, Do you want to see what God the Father looks like? Then look at me! Once you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father. We are so intimate and knitted together, in fact, that we are inside of each other, and you can see the Father through Me like a window. Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh, the exact likeness of God. “He is the visible image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15). Jesus is like the perfect portrait of the unseen God. There is an unmistakable family resemblance between the Son and the Father, a twin-like resemblance that is not coincidence. “Christ gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.” (Eugene Peterson). Jesus displays the fleshly likeness of His Father in heaven. In fact, “Christ’s likeness to God is so genuine that it provides mankind with a perfect and exact representation of God.” (NKJ notes). Does God even have a face that could shine upon us? What would that look like? Well, Yahweh has a face now, in the flesh. He has Jesus, the very face of Yahweh.

Contemporary Frontiers. What are the most compelling frontiers in our world that we could explore… Outer space with its 100 billion galaxies, each of them having 100 billion stars? Inner space where protons and electrons and all the subatomic particles seeming to be dancing in joy? The ocean floors across the earth, 80% of which are unexplored? Or perhaps land areas such as remote mountain ranges, untraveled deserts, impenetrable jungles and rainforests, the frozen tundra of the Arctic, isolated islands in the middle of nowhere, or virgin caverns and caves that are largely hidden from humanity? These are all worthy frontiers, but there is a final frontier that tops them all… God. And whatever might be discovered about the Person of God, it’s only the tip of the eternal iceberg.