We have sent space probes to the outer reaches of our solar system but that’s only a fraction of our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of millions. We really know very little about our universe. How then can we expect to know God who is infinitely greater? How can the finite know the infinite?
Many today doubt that we can confidently know the truth about God and, in part, I agree! By ourselves we’re not able to arrive at the truth about God. We are finite creatures and he is the infinite Creator. Moreover the Bible says ‘we suppress the truth by our wickedness’ – we’re not the honest seekers-after-truth we like to think we are!
So, if we are to know God he must make himself known, he must communicate himself to us. But such revelation must be more than an information download! (knowing someone means more than knowing their height and hair colour) It must be personal if God is to be properly known. But personhood is about relationships, about interacting with others.
A solitary God would not be truly personal. What great news that the God of the Bible is Trinity (the theme of this magazine), a three-in-one divine family! God is only knowable because he is relational and his three-in-oneness says he is – three persons in loving relationship with each other for ever! Some Christians regard the Trinity as our ‘Achilles heel’, a rather embarrassing complication but it is gloriously beautiful.
That first Christmas this revelation from God was very personal. In the words of a Christmas reading, Jesus (‘the Word’) ‘became flesh and made his dwelling among us. No-one has ever seen God, but God the One & Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known’ (John 1:14,18).
We can truly know God because through Jesus coming to earth that first Christmas God has revealed his personhood, and through his death Jesus has opened up the way for us to be reconciled to God. A solitary God could never do that. Only a God who is ‘three in one’. Not an embarrassing complication but a glorious essential, which makes Christmas the good news we need!
Yours, Simon