THE IDEA OF GOD'S CHARACTER

Certainly the most subtle way of avoiding the encounter with God is to pray to God and neglect the studying of the Bible. Without the Bible our idea of God is distorted under the influence of sinful nature and self-righteous conscience and such an idea of God suffocates the work of the Holy Spirit. It is best seen in the lives of such people who amount to hundreds of millions in Christian world and who pray every day but still live sinfully, going to extremes. In their life there is nothing supernatural - divine.

Someone noticed very smartly:

"If you are the same person before and after prayer, it was not the prayer"

It is not possible to encounter God and remain the same.

A man who every day appears before the face of the Most High encounters His uncorrupted justice and such an encounter results necessarily in deep repentance or in hardening of the heart. A man should be very impudent to resist the call to repentance in personal encounter with God. Had it really been a prayer, man would not have been able to stay the same. So, the majority of the world in their prayers does not encounter God at all. The majority only plays with their own conscience.

Many of them are aware of the senselessness of their sinful life. They are aware of the burden which oppresses their soul. They believe that God exists and that He loves them but do not know how He could make them happy. They pray for months and years but without the result. What does God want to offer them? Money? Some blessed feeling of happiness and righteousness? They pray for months and years but without a result. In the prayer they call Christ's name by their words but neither hear nor see an answer.

Where is their mistake?

Whether we have really turned to God in prayer does not depend on the name whereby we call Him but on the correctness of the idea we have about His character. It is possible to pronounce the name of Jesus in a prayer and still have an experience with Satan (see Matthew 7:22-23), who is also called a "god of this world" in the Bible (2 Corinthians. 4:4).

There is not magic in the very form of God's name but there is salvation in the understanding and accepting of God's character.

Many have prayed for long but have not real spiritual experiences just because they have never opened their hearts really to God in prayer. Because of neglecting the Holy Scriptures' authority their idea of God is so distorted that God with His Holy Spirit cannot communicate with them through such an idea at all and make them aware of their real spiritual needs.

If we wish to acquire a correct idea of God's character let us acquaint Him through the life of Jesus Christ.

"Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?'

Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.' Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father?'" (John 14:5-9)

Let us note that we can acquaint God through His character only. Although many wish to see God with their physical eyes, they try to get to Him closer through an icon or statue and feel and experience Him through the prayer or meditation, He reveals Himself to us exclusively through the character of His unselfish love. It is only by observing His acting and by understanding of the sense of that acting that we can acquire a correct idea about the character of His love.

"He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord." (Jeremiah 22:16)

We observe God's acting through the Gospel. In such associating with Jesus we must not be superficial but have to allow Him to reveal Himself to us such as He really is and not as what we suppose, fear or wish He is. In order to understand the significance of the correct idea of God's character, let us look at the Biblical account of the encounter of a Samaritan woman with Christ:

"There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?" (John 4:7-11)

It was only after Jesus had stressed it that the Samaritan woman understood the spiritual meaning of a directed appeal:

"Jesus said, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I shall give him will never suffer thirst anymore. The water that I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life.'" (John 4:13-14)

Finally the Samaritan woman understood that there is an offer of spiritual contents before her. She always felt something missing in her life. Aware of the discontent of her soul, the Samaritan woman sincerely cried for the offered gift of salvation: "'Sir', said the woman, 'give me that water, and then I shall not be thirsty, nor have to come all this way to draw.'" (John 4:15)

Jesus did not respond immediately to the stated need. He changed the course of conversation. "Jesus replied: 'Go home, call your husband and come back.' She answered, 'I have no husband.' 'You are right', said Jesus, 'in saying that you have no husband, for although you have had five husbands, the man with whom you are now living is not your husband; you told me the truth there.'" (John 4:16-18)

We see that Jesus deflected the course of the conversation to one very unpleasant direction. Not without a reason. The woman made certain of her guilt and sins. Had she not felt guilty she would not have hidden the fact that she had "five husbands". In a very gentle way Jesus reminded her of her sin of adultery.

It was only when, in the light of the moral law, she became aware of her spiritual needs and understood the need for forgiveness of sins and liberation from the force of sin, that she could recognize and accept the offered gift of salvation.

"The woman answered, 'I know that Messiah' (that is Christ) 'is coming. When he comes he will tell us everything.' Jesus said,

'I am he, I who am speaking to you now.'" (John 4:25-26)

The opinion frequently heard is: "Don't you see that people look for God, but they don't know where to find Him!" The human selfishness and self-righteousness is being legalized as "a desire of man for God", and so an impression has been created that the accepting of salvation has the drawback of purely technical choice: "Who would not like to be happy and blessed? All people want to save themselves, but do not know how!"

In that case God would be responsible for He has not removed the technical drawbacks because of which some can be saved more easily by chance, whereas others try to live and have no luck. However, we have already seen that the problem is not in alleged man's ignorance but in his not wanting and willing to know how to save himself. He is bothered by the consequences of sin: feelings of discontent, guilt, nervousness, tension, disrupted relationships with surroundings etc, and not the sin itself. Without the reasonable understanding of God through the requirements of God's moral law he does not see a problem in the sin itself but just in its consequences.

The Samaritan woman suffered because of her sins. She had come to take water at midday, in hot sun, because she knew that was the only way to avoid reproaches of other villagers for she was an immoral woman in the people's eyes, too. Her sinful life resulted in the feeling of guilt and conscious discontent she hoped Jesus would remove when she cried out for the offered salvation. But she was not aware of her spiritual needs at the moment. What she sought would rather correspond to what is called by God's word "a poisonous wine having intoxicated the people with drunkenness" instead of the water of life. Her idea of God was not clear sufficiently to make her conscious of her real spiritual state. We can wonder why her idea of God was not sufficiently clear.

The Samaritan woman belonged to a nation that believed in the Book of Law (Old Testament), but was, beside the faith in Jehovah, prone to idolatry as well. (About the origin and faith of Samaritans see 2 kings 17:27-41.) That resulted in the conflict with Jews and in a separate temple for worship:

"The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews." (John 4:19-22)

Let us note Jesus' statement:

"You worship what you do not know..." (John 4:22)

An icon or statue, regardless of whether they express an authentic image, do not offer to a man the needed revelation of the moral divine attributes. They can provoke sublime and generous feelings but can not make a man aware of his real spiritual needs.

The recognition of God through icons, statues or meditation does not oblige a man morally.

"And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ." "I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (1 John 5:20; Romans 7:7)

Even the personal encounter of the Samaritan woman with Jesus could not make this woman certain of her spiritual needs until Jesus did it by verbal expressing of reprimands against her debauched, lawless way of life. It was only when she, in the contact with Jesus, acquainted God's character through requirements of His Law, that she became aware of her great spiritual need and only then the confidence in Christ's love toward her got a life-giving significance for her.

Many have realized that they cannot quench the thirst of their souls by selfish enjoyments. And then, being unaware of their spiritual needs, they direct those very selfish strivings toward Christ. They hope that God will give them as a present the feeling of happiness and self-righteousness which they have failed to realize themselves. For some time God makes them certain of the character of their spiritual state. However, if they persist in their selfish and self-righteous motives and so suppress the work of Holy Spirit, they become obsessed by demons who then provoke the desired religious sensations. The spiritual needs provoked by such sensations ("poisonous wine") are just suppressed, being not satisfied as well.

Such persons pray for salvation out of selfishness, being unaware that they should renounce the selfishness itself in order to be saved. Perhaps they feel blessed and satisfied, but this is not a criterion of their real spiritual state. They are not aware they are burdened because they abolish the criterion - the law, that high point of reference on the basis of which solely they can become aware of their burden and by that itself also of their great spiritual need.

A preacher of false religion stresses to his believers that sin is not good because of its certain consequences, instead of trying that believers, in the light of God's character such as revealed through the law, become aware that sin is not good itself.

Likewise, a preacher of false religion presents God as the good One only because He offers a man the solution of the latter's sinfulness and loss, instead to try that believers, in the light of the revealed God's character, become aware that God is good in itself and is worthy of being served regardless of the blessings He offers to a man.

Such preachers speak often about Jesus in the same way the representatives of transcendental meditation advertise the advantages of their system of meditation. In "The Watchtower" publications frequently appears a term "it is useful if...". In so-called spiritualist churches God's aptness to offer physical and psychical recovering is always emphasized to a man, pleasing, of course, every non-revived heart too. As if believers would discard God had they not some benefit from Him.

It suffices if one neglects, speaking about Christ in his preaches or publications, God's moral law. A man will get a conviction that Jesus wishes to help him and that He has died for him on the cross in order to help. However, the only need a man is aware of in himself is the need of satisfying selfish and self-righteous motives and so he will look for the satisfaction of these motives in the offered idea about Christ.

God's blessings must not become a motive of a man's religious acting for they will then keep the man burdened by his strivings for the blessing and hinder him in acquainting God in a right way. The burden must be reprimanded by the cleanness of God's character in order that man become aware of all that makes him burdened and so be able to receive a real rest, peace and happiness in God.

A sinner must be attracted by Christ's love and induced to live for God regardless of whether he ever feels the peace and happiness of his own soul. He must find a motive for his repentance and reconciliation in God and not in his own selfish interests. One to whom misfortune and personal interests represent a motive for turning to true God will have surely a temptation by some false religion at his disposal, that religion also offering to the man a solution for his private problems but without removing their cause - sin.

Those who are not hindered by sin essentially but only by its consequences, do not see the criterion of realized salvation in a coordination of their heart with God's moral law, but pay their attention to their experiences and feelings and assess their spiritual progresses or regresses on the basis of their emotional and other blessings. However, the feeling of being saved had by many believers does not mean they are saved indeed. The insisting on the feeling of being saved reveals only their burden by an unclear conscience.

Let us suppose that a multiple murderer appears on a trial and states before the judge: "I do not feel guilty!"

Then the judge continues: "By the law of this country you are guilty! Your feelings are not the criterion!"

The defendant responds: "I was not acquainted with legal orders! I do not feel guilty!"

Judge: "You were responsible to get acquainted with the law! Even if you had not had the opportunity to get to know demands of the law, were you not warned by conscience?"

Defendant: "I solve the problem of guilt by alcohol. I am not a burdened man. I do not feel guilty! But it seems right that you wish to take away my peace, don't you?"

The defendant could also state "I don't feel guilty for, you know, I have a good system of meditation" or "I am religious".

The pills against pains do not remove the cause of illness but only the symptoms. They can sometimes have fatal consequences for they retain man in a state of self-content and apparent security.

A patient can be quite satisfied with the service of his doctor. He can state sincerely that he does not feel pains any more but is completely unaware of his inner state of decomposition. Likewise, a man can be quite satisfied with the state of his soul and be completely unaware of his spiritual hollowness. Criterion of neither corporal nor spiritual well-being is in the feelings. It is necessary to include reasonable criteria.

On a spiritual level, a law is whereby we check a factual state of things.

Without the law a man is not aware of his spiritual needs but only of his burden. He will therefore be prone to accept a religion to feel well and not in order to live for God and his neighbors.

Since he is hindered just by consequences of sin, not by the sin itself too, he is thirsty for the poisonous wine instead of the water of life and therefore he accepts a false religion (that being an answer to his selfish and self-righteous motives).

A man, of course, needs a legitimate forgiveness and not a psychological satisfaction.

How is it possible for those persons to come to God still out of true motives and not out of burden?

Only if these persons acquire, through God's help, a rational and correct idea of God's character, they would open the doors of their mind and heart to the attractive force of Holy Spirit. Reprimanded for their selfish and self-righteous desires, they would be induced to stick to Christ as to their only Righteousness. The encounter with God, through His word, would result in their deep repentance, reconciliation and liberation from the force of sin.

So, without the law, a sinner does not understand the need for the "water of life". Differently from the "poisonous wine", it is considered by them to be tasteless and needless.

How The Supreme Lawgiver can forgive a sinner without transgressing himself His own law and come under the verdict of His own righteousness?

Only by His taking on himself the punishment which is merited by the sinner.

In contrast to the poisonous wine of false religion, in order to drink from the spring of the water of life, we need a sacrifice:

"You will find me waiting for you there, by a rock of Horeb. Strike the rock; water will pour out of it, and the people shall drink." (Exodus 17:6)

The blow must fall on the Sinless one in order that a sinner becomes justified.

"And all drank the same supernatural drink; I mean, they all drank from the supernatural rock that accompanied their travels - and that rock was Christ." (1 Corinthians 10:4)

"On the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood and cried aloud, 'If anyone is thirsty let him come to me; whoever believes in me, let him drink... As the scripture have said, streams of living water shall flow out of his heart." (John 7:37-38)

"As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your captives free from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double... So on that day the Lord their God will save them, his own people, like sheep, setting the all about his land, like jewels set to sparkle in a crown." (Zechariah 9:11-17)