The Rorschach Godنموونە

Shadows of the Divine:
Welcome to The Rorschach God plan! I’m Matthew Hester, and over the next ten days, I hope to empower you with a biblically accurate understanding of who God is while dispelling many common misconceptions about His identity and nature.

The issue we face as believers is acquiring the most accurate representation of God possible. To have this accurate imaging, we must go to the source of God’s nature most perfectly displayed. We must find the perfect reflection of God in Jesus. Jesus is perfect theology. This statement is loaded; it’s both simple and profound. It is futile to try to understand God in a healthy way outside of the Person of Jesus.

Jesus taught that all Scripture is about Him and that He is the life of Scripture. In John 5:39-40 (ESV), we see this plainly: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” Curiously enough, Jesus immediately went on to tell the Pharisees that they were incapable of accepting this truth, even though they studied Scripture diligently. And the reason, Jesus said, is because they did “not have the love of God in [their] hearts”(John 5:42, author paraphrase).

Clearly, discerning how all Scripture points to Jesus requires more than diligent study. Jesus is the perfect revelation of God’s love, and only those with a heart to embrace and trust this love can discern how it is reflected in all Scripture. Along similar lines, because Jesus constantly confused the Pharisees, He at one point asked them, “Why is my language not clear to you?” He immediately answered his own question, saying, “Because you are unable to hear what I say” (John 8:43, NIV).

Now, Jesus obviously wasn’t saying that the Pharisees were deaf. Rather, Jesus pointed out that these religious leaders could not grasp His outward speech. Jesus taught that “people’s hearts become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed eyes” (Matthew 13:15, NIV).

Jesus’ own disciples illustrate the truth of this teaching. At one point, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” John tells us that people thought He was talking about the temple in Jerusalem, but He was actually referring to His own body. Then John adds, “After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken”(John 2:19, 22, NIV).

God has a singular face, revealed through Jesus. In Jesus, we see the Father’s likeness; in the Father, we see Jesus’ reflection. This truth has always defined the essence of God.

“Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9, ESV).

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”

(John 6:44, ESV).

When we look at Jesus, the curtains are finally pulled back, revealing the whole picture of who God is and how to really understand what He’s all about. Jesus is the bridge that helps us get to the heart of God’s love and grace, going way beyond what we can grasp on our own.