The God of the Bible: What is He Like?

THE GOD OF THE BIBLE: WHAT IS HE LIKE?

Based on the creeds (Nicean [Nicene] and Athenasian Creeds) adopted by Christianity in the early centuries following the Savior’s earthly ministry, there is strong feeling among the “enlightened” in the Christian world that The Church of Jesus Crist of Latter-day Saints has a false concept of what God is like. The basis of this strong feeling is the fact that Latter-day Saints do not subscribe to those creeds.  The creeds proclaim a three-in-one God without body, parts, and passions while members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate beings and that the Father and His son Jesus Christ have corporeal bodies of flesh and bone.  And Latter-day Saints further believe that the Bible supports that position.

In an effort to resolve this difference of understanding and to help us all better understand the God of the Bible, I ask all people to carefully consider the following scriptures with an open mind.  I believe that these scriptures give ample support for the proposition that God the Father and Jesus Christ, His Only-begotten Son in the flesh, are two separate and distinct beings, that they have corporeal bodies (in whose image all mankind were created), that their bodies have parts, and that those body parts are the same kinds of parts that you and I associate with the bodies of human beings.  The following scriptures, I believe, deserve serious consideration:

  • Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and  female created he them.
  • Genesis 5:1-2: This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
  • ­Genesis 9:6:  Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
  • Genesis 32:30:  And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
  • Exodus 24:9-11:  Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.
  • Exodus 31:18:  And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two  tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
  • Exodus 33:11: And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of  Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
  • Exodus 33:22-23: And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
  • Numbers 12:7-8: My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
  • Matthew 3:16-17:   16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
  • Matthew 14:23 (Mark 6:46): And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
  • Matthew 17:5: While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
  • Matthew 26:39, 42: And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. … He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
  • Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
  • Luke 6:12: And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
  • Luke 9:28, 35:  And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray… And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.
  • Luke 24:39:  Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
  • John 17:1-26: These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:  As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
  • Acts 7:55-56:  But he [Stephen], being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
  • Hebrews 1:1-6: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,  Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;  Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.  For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
  • James 3:8-9:  But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
  • 1 John 1­-2:  Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
  • Revelation 22:3-4:  And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:  And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

The Old Testament: understand it, love it!