Imagination is integral to my craft as a
painter. Suppose that I consider painting a picture of God, not as an idol to
be worshipped but rather to tell God's story using visual imagery, how can I
paint God when God is not observable? I am confounded. God is concealed,
invisible. I have no model, nothing upon which to base a rendering. However, I
remember that Jesus was a young adult when prayed the words, “our Father who
lives in heaven.” Imagination encourages me to envision God the Father as at
least one generation older than Jesus himself. Furthermore, in first century
culture, men did not shave their beards so God likely had a long white beard.
Would that seem plausible? It's highly unlikely. Let's say that it's at least
convenient because it indulges the human mind that finds it easier to process
the physical than the spiritual.
I often play orchestral classical music
while I paint. As I begin to paint my proposed portrait of God, let me suppose
that I stimulate my creative ability by listening to one of the great hymns of
the previous century, a Welsh tune by John Roberts (1839) with lyrics written
by Walter Chalmers Smyth (1876), entitled, ‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.’
The result might be that I become so absolutely mesmerized by the person of
God, so enthralled in the worship of the incomprehensible, invisible God that even
imagination couldn't help me to paint God. I am in an even greater quandary
than when I began. Listen to the words and consider how could we possibly paint
a portrait of this?
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of
Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise.
Great Father of glory, pure Father of
light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their
sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
'Tis only the splendour of light hideth
thee.
Almighty God Made Himself Visible in Jesus
The biblical evidence is clear that Jesus
is God and that he came in the flesh to show God to us. The mysterious
invisibility of God has always been a problem for humanity. The seeming
invisibility of God is where agnostic and atheist thinkers make their mistake
by equating invisibility with unknowability and from that conclusion, then
leaping to God’s non-existence. However, scientists have long ago learned that
invisibility is not equivalent with imaginary or pretend or untrue. Science
knows that atoms are invisible but they are real. So are sound waves, time,
wind, and gravity invisible but nonetheless existent. God’s Invisibility does
not make God less authentic, less authoritative, less nearby. Rather, this
breathtaking, invisible God is as actual as anything else that we perceive with
our senses. The wind blows wherever it pleases and it makes things happen, like
waving grasses and bending trees and crashing waves at the shoreline. Similarly
God affects outcomes. He exists even though he is unseen.
With this painting predicament, I turn to
Colossians 1:12-20 and specifically verse 15 where I find a most profound
resource.
12 … and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:12-20)
Two truths are stated in verse 15. First, God is invisible, and second, Christ reflects and reveals
God. “The Son is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation.” We cannot find God by searching for
him because we don’t know where to look or for what to look, but if God reveals
himself to us, then we can know him according to that revelation. Humanity
either concludes that God does not exist or it fabricates unverifiable notions
about God. Stated again, unless the real God reveals himself, which is what God
has done, humanity cannot know God.
It is the Son of God who is the ultimate subject
of this section. Publishers of the Bible, not Paul, inserted paragraph
divisions as a convenience to readers. In verses 13 and 14 Paul wrote that God
rescued believers and brought them into the kingdom of his Son whom he loves. Editors
have used a highlighted heading and created a break between verses 14 and 15 that
effectively interrupts Paul's developing, continuing thought about Christ's
supremacy. That interruption compels us to note that in verse 15, although the "Son'
is not repeated in the original language, it is the Son who is the implied subject
of the statement, ‘He is the Image of the
invisible God.’ The son is the natural, logically deduced subject within
this context. The NIV has supplied what the original text and the other
translations inferred which is, “The Son
is the image of the invisible God …”
The disciple named John spent a lot of time
with Jesus, heard him, witnessed miracles, listened to him pray and in John’s
personal testimony he wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him
all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,” and, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling
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," and, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God
and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John
1:1-3,14,18). In coming here, Jesus made God visible to us. Jesus is God.
On the night before His death, Jesus
responded to Philip's request, “Lord,
show us the Father and that will be enough for us,” by saying, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have
been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the
Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on
my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.”
(John 14:8-10)
Scripture is God’s self-revelation. There
is so much in scripture that attests to Jesus being God and coming in flesh to
make God known and to let people see God face to face. When Jesus was here, he
proclaimed, "I and the Father are
one" (John 10:30), by which he meant "of one essence or
nature." Only "God" can be of the same nature as
"God”.
With verse 15 informing me, I know that if
I can paint Jesus Christ, I have nailed my purpose to paint God. Jesus is after
all, the image of the invisible God who is spirit, or is spiritual in nature.
If I paint Christ, I have painted the person of God. As satisfying as it may be
for me artistically to know that if I paint Christ, I have painted a portrait
of God, Paul wrote this statement not to give Colossians artistic inspiration
but rather to correct some wrong headedness about Jesus. --- yea, I know what you are going to say. We don’t know what Jesus looked like either, but I am sure you got my message, right?
"The seeming invisibility of God is where agnostic and atheist thinkers make their mistake by equating invisibility with unknowability and from that conclusion, then leaping to God’s non-existence."
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't sound right to me ... is it really God's "invisibility" that leads to a conclusion of non-existence? The wind analogy is a fitting one: something invisible can still produce measurable effects on the physical world, such that the cause of these effects can be predictably identified and distinguished from other possible causes. That's where your analogy to detecting the existence of God breaks down: how can I identify those effects caused by God while excluding other possible explanations? A child with an inoperable brain tumor is suddenly cured of the disease and avoids certain death. Is this a miraculous intervention by a divine being? Maybe. But how do I actually detect the causal agent and his/her specific role in this event as distinct from other possible material explanations, especially given the thousands of other children who suffer and die from brain tumors on a regular basis?
If you assume the existence of God as a given, then of course you find this kind of "evidence" of his influence everywhere you look. But how is such a world distinguishable from one in which the unusual, random, unexpected sometimes occur? If "God is as actual as anything else that we perceive with our senses," then we should be able to reliably make such distinctions. Consider the thousands of different human conceptions of who/what God is and what roles God does or doesn't play in human affairs. That's nothing like the uniformity and certainty with which empirical observations testify to the existence of the wind, or gravity, or anything else we perceive with our senses.
(posted by Paul Burry)