God is love. God is light. God is Trinity. God is Spirit. God is invisible. Who can fully explain such statements? We cannot explain God, but we illustrate, as best we can, what is reflective of God. We use parables as Jesus did. This is important to remember. We cannot prove God if we must follow the rules of nature’s proof systems. If we could, God would be greatly reduced from his reality. To reduce God to earth systems is like trying to carry a volume of water in an ordinary paper bag. Can’t be done. If we could find a way, we would not need faith, the sixth sense – a sense some persons cannot, or do not, accept or activate. As a person may be born blind, so cannot see, there may be soul blindness. Although persons practice faith as matter of course, in interpersonal relationships, some persons refuse to grant the process with God. Without faith between mates each night, they would not go to sleep in the same room. We put some faith in weather, in institutions, in others, in ourselves, but we deny it to God. Where doubt grows, in social or spiritual context, faith weakens. Also, losing faith in anything weakens it.
God is light. (1 John 1:5) All through the Bible we are informed that, in some way, God is luminous. We learn that we will not need the Sun. In heaven God is the light of it. This magnificent light is somehow related to God’s person. Perhaps the parable of light might help us understand God’s nature. We choose the rainbow as illustrative, as it is known in Scripture following the flood in the days of Noah. On the outer arc there are violet hues. On the under arc of the rainbow are the reds. Beyond the violet hue there are the ultraviolet rays: on the underside the infrared. With the visible rainbow there are three considerations, in this sense, but we see only the visible – which could not be seen without the invisible on either side. The seen relies on the unseen.
The visible part of the rainbow can be seen (viewed with the eyes), and felt (light as we know it gives off heat that can be measured). Infrared rays cannot be seen, but can be felt. Ultra-violet rays can neither be seen nor felt. We cannot have a rainbow without all three related indivisibly (but also functioning individually) to the other. We may liken the pattern to the Trinity – the Son has been seen and felt. The Holy Spirit has been felt but not seen. The Father has neither been seen nor felt. (Note Romans 1:20; Colossians 1:15-16; 1 Timothy 1:17; and Hebrews 11:27) These three are One.
1. The Son of God, Jesus, has been seen and felt. He is our experience of easy verification. Had there been cameras in his day, a photograph might have been taken.
2. The Holy Spirit has been felt (note the early Church experience of Pentecost in Acts). However, he has never been seen. He is felt in conscience, in prayer, in faith related to daily life.
3. The Father God is neither seen nor felt. He is vitally involved, but his function differs from the Son or Holy Spirit. Hearts do not do what lungs do. All are integral to each other, but also identified separately. God is one in three persons. Man confuses the Trinity because he sees nothing higher than human personality. Even in natural life we know enough to make sense of God, one in three persons. He is in nature Light, in nature Truth, and the list can be extended, but not as extended for us as it really is. Already our imaginations are tested as we tend to fall back on only those resources that nature provides and permits – restricting us to limitations. That story also can be extended. To cover human lack of information, and to make a way for mankind, God offers faith. This faith inspires reliance. Those engaging it find it works. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020