The Nature of God

"Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible nature, namely His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Rom 1:20)

This is the week before Easter, the Holy week. I thought it to be appropriate to think about the nature of God. Springtime more than ever suggests us to admire creation. After the long winter everything wakes up again with new life. It is very predictable, first little snow flowers, then pretty green leaves and finally everything blooms all over sudden. Easter is time wise just in the middle of this reawakening. Let’s celebrate the resurrection with some deeper understanding about the God who sent Jesus.

“God has male and female aspects and he/she has something like a mind that determines the direction of its energy and force which is expressed in the physical creation.”

“The final conclusion is that God is a person – outside of time and space and that God has both male and female characteristics. In one word, according to the teaching, God is a parent.”

So, God’s nature is:
• Male – female attributes
• The creator – man is created in the image of God
• Internal and external expressions (like mind and body)
• Unchanging, absolute and eternal
• Love, mercy and grace
• Truth, beauty, and goodness
• Law, order and principle
• Omnipotent – all powerful, all-mighty
• Omnipresent – beyond space and time, universal present
• Omniscient – all knowing
• “I am who I am” – the beginning and the end.

The whole reason we want to know about the nature of God is so that we can emulate those characteristics. That was the main reason God sent Jesus so that we can learn from a man here on earth in the physical flesh. He showed us how to live.
Unfortunately, we didn’t understand why Jesus came, felt judged, and used excuses to crucify Jesus. With the execution of Jesus, God’s plan for the kingdom of peace went awry. If Israel had received Jesus as the Messiah, he could have brought about a world of peace, uniting cultures and religions of the East and the West. Jesus, however, died on the cross, and God’s work of complete salvation was delayed until the Second Coming. This is a new understanding of the cross and many established churches and Jewish communities have opposed this view.

Did you ever consider that there was another prophecy for Jesus to be the king of kings, the Messiah and the Son of God who will bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth (Isaiah 9, 11, and 60, Luke 1:31-33)? If you think about it, why did God have to prepare the Jewish people for 2,000 years to welcome the Messiah, just to put him on a cross? That seemed like a lot of preparation and suffering on the account of the Jewish people.
Did Jesus really have to die to forgive our sins? In many passages of the bible, Jesus forgave sins and healed people while he was alive on earth (Luke 5:20; Luke 7:48; Matt. 9:2)
It is a very serious question: Did Jesus have to die on the cross to save us? It is very controversial with Christians, and they give you all the proofs from the bible, that the cross was predestined as the original plan of God.

Even in the short time Jesus had on earth, three years, Jesus demonstrated the nature of God like no other. In that he truly was the Son of God. He showed love like no other and introduced God as our Heavenly Father. This is the most precious relationship that we have a Heavenly Parent. In all of our earthly quarrels, if we could only take notice of that, than all differences among the people of this world could be smoothed and all the problems could be solved. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!!!

Here are some links:

http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/DPHSC/hs-creation.html Nature of God and Man; the Purpose of Life ~ The Divine Principle Home Study Course ~ Volume 1
http://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/be-still-and-know-that-i-am-god.htm Be still and Know that I am God.
http://www.answering-christianity.com/jesus_nature.htmThe nature of Jesus
http://www.bibleed.com/bibleteachings/jesusandthepromises/thenatureofchrist.asp The nature of Jesus Christ