Jesus’ View of God

An Introduction to the Idea of God

We heard about God while we were children. We imagined that the world is similar to a huge kingdom, and God rules the world like a king. As we grow older, we realize that it is a metaphor, and we look for a more satisfactory metaphor of God. We also realize that we use the word God like the X in Mathematics to mean the unknown. Usually we name something we know, but in this case we give a name to something unknown.

We realize that we always have limited knowledge of ourselves and of the world, so we imagine someone to have all knowledge of everything. We also realize that we have limited abilities, so we imagine someone to have all abilities. Also we realize that we live only for a short period of time, so we imagine someone who lives forever. Thus whatever we imagine about this unknown one (God) is the opposite of what we know about ourselves and about our world. Our limitations and weaknesses lead us to assume the presence of someone without such limitations and weaknesses. Other than such assumptions, we don’t have any verifiable facts about God. As we always think and speak of God in relation to ourselves and to our world, we use metaphors to speak of God. In fact nothing can be spoken of God without metaphors. 

God in relation to the world

God is unknown, so we view God in relation to what we know. We partially know the world, and we think and speak of God relating to the world. It is possible to use the following formulas regarding the relation between God and the world. Let us use X for God.  

1. X is a subset of the world. - theism

2. The world is a subset of X. - panentheism

3. Only X exists; world does not exist. - pantheism

4. Only the world exists; X does not exist. - atheism

5. X and the world exist side by side.   - Deism

Of these six, theism has more followers than all the others combined. It is based on a metaphor comparing the world to a kingdom and God to its king. A variation of it sees the world as a living being, and God as its soul. In spite of its popularity, it sees God as a part of the world, which is illogical. The fifth one, Deism, corrects this error placing God outside the world. But a world outside imposes a limit on God, which is also illogical, for if God is infinite, nothing can stay outside God. The fourth view, atheism, being based on naive realism, a blind belief that our five senses can perceive all that exits, is also illogical. However, atheism seems to be the most powerful one today, for it controls many of the governments and educational institutions. The second and third ones see God as greater than the world unlimited by it, for the world exists within God. There is a slight difference between the second and the third ones in perspective. Seen from God’s perspective, only God exists (pantheism), but seen from the perspective of the world, it exists, but within God (panentheism). In short, theism and atheism dominate in our world, and the conflict between them is probably the primary problem of humanity today. We will have a more peaceful world if we move toward panentheism.      

Popular View of God at Jesus’ Time

By Jesus, we mean the historical Jesus who lived 2000 years ago in Palestine, not the Jesus of faith who has been believed and worshiped by Christians all over the world. By Jesus’ view of God, we mean how his understanding of God differed from the popular view of his time. So we need to begin with an understanding of the popular view of God at Jesus’ time.

At Jesus’ time, God was believed to be the king of the world. It was a world of kings and kingdoms, so it was easy for people to imagine the entire world to be a kingdom, and God to be its king, with a huge military force consisting of angels.

Although this view helped the people to live their life meaningfully, it could not answer all of their questions satisfactorily. If God rules the world, why is there so much suffering, sickness, poverty, and evil deeds in the world? It was not easy to find a satisfactory answer to this question. However, they managed to come up with an answer that satisfied most of them for generations. Although God is the ruler of the world, God’s rule is limited to heaven. Earth is ruled by Satan, the angel who rebelled against God. God has to solve the problem by removing this rebelled angel, and appoint a new ruler. A ruler was appointed in those days by anointing oil, so the new ruler was called messiah, the anointed.

They believed that God, being the ruler of the world, will judge the world justly. The messiah would do God’s judgment as soon as he assumed power. He would have Satan and all the angels and all the people who sided Satan cast into fire. Thus messiah would eliminate all evil from the world, and would have a world fully good.

The arrival of messiah was meant to be good, for it would end the rule of Satan, and would begin a new world order. Although it sounded good, it created a lot of anxiety in the common people, for there was a high possibility for them to be on the left side of the messiah on the judgment day. Therefore, the one question that rose from everyone was this: How can I be sure that I will be on the right side of the messiah, and will inherit the kingdom of God?   

The Pharisees taught that all people of Israel who strictly follow the ritualistic rules of Sabbath, ritual washing, etc would be on the right side of the messiah. They classified people into righteous and unrighteous (sinners) based on this criterion.

This is the context in which John the Baptist comes to the scene with a radically new view of who will be on the right side of the messiah. He claimed that rituals are of no value at all. What matters is how we treat our fellow beings. Whoever cares for their fellow beings will be on the right side of the messiah, and whoever does not care will be on the left side. He challenged people to get immersed in Jordan and renew their commitment as a new Israel. He brought about a radical shift of focus from meaningless rituals to improving human relationships.

Jesus’ View of God

This is when Jesus enters the scene. He sided with John the Baptist in rejecting the view of the Pharisees, for they were being hypocritical, and they were focusing on the ritual rules ignoring the moral rules. They were also making most of the people feel bad about themselves and lose hope. However, soon Jesus realized that John’s view was not powerful enough to overthrow the Pharisees’ views. Using John’s view as a stepping stone, he climbed much higher with a radically new view of God. He taught that although God remains a king to the world, God is a father to humanity. Although this idea of God had been in existence, Jesus made it the central category that determines God-man relation.

It was also known that God is all-knowing, holy, and all-powerful. Jesus clarified these concepts and presented them clearly and relevantly. If God is all-knowing, nothing happens in the world without God’s knowledge. It also means that we have only limited knowledge. Even if we can’t explain everything in the world, we can feel safe knowing that God knows everything about everything that happens in the world. Such trust/faith in God helps us to live our life in this world with confidence. Because God is all-knowing, God is holy/righteous/good, which means that God does only what is right. This implies that we, with our limited knowledge, do errors in our everyday-life. This understanding helps us to forgive others and to apologize for our mistakes. Being all-powerful, God alone has all the abilities. We, with our varied abilities, are supposed to support/help each other with our abilities.

To go back to the central aspect of Jesus’ idea of God, Jesus made it clear that God is a father who loves all people unconditionally. Jesus claimed that God raises the Sun to give sunlight to all people, both the righteous and the unrighteous. God also gives rain to all people regardless of what kind of people they are. Jesus also made this idea of God clear in parables like the prodigal son. The father of the prodigal son remains loving his children unconditionally. The older son is righteous and obedient, and the younger one is unrighteous and disobedient, but the father loves them both in the same way. When the younger son returns, the father accepts him. The older son had a different expectation of how his father should have behaved. He wanted the father to be a just judge who rewards the older one and condemns the younger one.

The older son in the story represents the Pharisees of the day. They wanted God to be a just judge who rewards righteous people and condemns the sinners. But in Jesus’ story, God does not act as a judge at all. It is the older son who judges. He judges his father and his brother. Through this story Jesus presented God as a father who does not judge at all. It is the self-righteous people who judge God and their fellow beings.

This idea of God was reflected in Jesus’ understanding of the messiah as well. It was believed in Jesus’ time that the messiah would make a judgment as soon as he arrived. Jesus had a different idea of how the messiah would behave. If God wouldn’t judge, God’s messiah wouldn’t judge either. This explains why Jesus didn’t try to escape when he was caught, judged as a convict, and crucified. Jesus could easily with his supernatural powers escape from the soldiers, and destroy them. He could also judge Pilate and the high-priests instead of being judged by them. But true to his understanding of God, he chose to be crucified rather than crucify others. He chose to remain a convict rather than a judge. Thus in the crucified Christ, we see the crucified God.

Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God. It was believed that Satan was ruling the world, and people earnestly looked forward to the day when God would replace Satan with the messiah, who would rule the world on behalf of God. Jesus’ proclamation meant that God’s kingdom was already there, and people need to make it a reality in their lives by replacing Satan by God/messiah in their life. God, being our father, has given us the freedom to accept or reject God’s love. God wouldn’t force His rule upon anyone. It was believed that God had to make the next move by removing Satan and appointing the messiah. But Jesus made it clear that the next move is ours, for though we are already living in God’s rule, we have alienated ourselves from God, and subjected ourselves to the rule of Satan. Jesus made this idea clear with the parable of the prodigal son. He left his father, and became a laborer under a master. Now it was up to him to leave that master and return to his father. It was a good news (information) about his father that made a change in him. He realized what a good man his father was, and this realization made a radical change in him. Thus the good news of the Kingdom of God was really the good news of the love of God.

People were more scared of the judgement of God than about the rule of Satan. The rule of Satan had been familiar to them, and so they were not so scared of it. However, they were really scared of the coming of the messiah and messiah’s judgment, for they knew that God being just and holy would not put up with sin at all, and so all sinners would be cast to fire. The gospel of Jesus put an end to this fear. He talked about a God and messiah who would not judge us but love us unconditionally. Thus, that God loves us unconditionally was the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed. 

Initial Transmission of Jesus’ View of God

This idea of God was so radical at that time, that not many people grasped it clearly. Jesus himself didn’t write anything for the posterity. Paul came to the scene a few decades after Jesus’ time, and he hadn’t had the privilege of any first-hand information about Jesus’ teachings. However, he managed to understand the teachings of Jesus with great effort. However, what we see in his letters is a mixture of how he understood Jesus’ teachings and his own beliefs of what Christianity is. The gospels were also produced several decades later, and are also mixtures of Jesus’ teachings and the stories and beliefs about him. This makes it very difficult for us today to understand what exactly Jesus taught. We can be sure that the parables such as the prodigal son and Good Samaritan have come directly from Jesus. The Lord’s Prayer and the sayings have come from Jesus. Most of teachings found in the sermon on the mount and other sermons seem to have come directly from Jesus. John’s first epistle and James’ epistle seem to be very close to Jesus’ teachings.

Peter warns that Paul’s letters are not easy to understand. This is true about the entire Bible. Everything needs to be placed in its original context. In order to understand Jesus, we need to live with him in his time and place, and we need to look through his eyes, and hear through his ears. We need to see him through the eyes of his disciples, his friends, and his enemies. In order to understand the Bible, we also need to learn to distinguish between facts and beliefs, and also between literal and metaphorical.

The unconditional love of God was expressed by Jesus when he chose to be crucified rather than crucify. Later for the apostles, the subject of gospel became the cross of Christ or the blood of Christ, for it represented the unconditional love of God. Jesus’ death was seen as a sacrifice-- a self-sacrifice. Apostles proclaimed that this self-giving of Jesus was the true sacrifice pleasing to God, and not the animal sacrifices that had been done in the history of Israel. 

Later Corruption in the Christian View of God

Unfortunately, this metaphor of relating Jesus’ death to a sacrifice was later over-extended. It was believed by many people that Jesus’ sacrifice was essential for God to forgive our sins. Jesus’ death was seen as a new sacrifice that inaugurated a new covenant with God.     

The very mistaken concepts of God that Jesus tried to overthrow returned and occupied the central stage of Christianity. Thus Christianity’s God became once again the judge-God whom Jesus tried to overthrow. The Judge-God and his final judgment once again became the primary problem of humanity. Jesus was believed to save people from the judge-God by satisfying His justice and the resulting wrath by becoming a sacrifice. Moreover, as Jesus was elevated to become the second person of the Trinity, the dogma of salvation became so ludicrous-- God became a human being to become a sacrifice to save mankind from God himself! As a result Christianity became a laughing stock, and it continues so.

Unless and until Christianity regains the original gospel of Jesus Christ, Christianity will continue to be a laughing stock. Instead of converting our world to heaven, it will continue to convert our world into a hell.                    

         

John D. Kunnathu
March 8, 2019