Here is a great question that was posed by Scottish theologian H. R. Macintosh in a sermon he was giving in 1938; certainly how one answers this question speaks volumes to what “tradition” you approach God through, indeed there are at least two major traditions that theologians have tried to talk about and know God through — and Macintosh’s question revolves around those two traditions.

FIFTY years ago, and indeed much nearer our own day, discussion went on constantly regarding the Divinity of Christ. People raised the question: Is Christ one with God, is His nature the same as the Father’s? That was a vital problem, and will always remain so; but you will observe that it assumed that we knew beforehand what God is like, and could compare Jesus with Him, and thereupon decide whether Jesus corresponded to the Divine nature as we knew it. I think it is fairly accurate to say that just at present people are chiefly concerned not about the question whether Jesus is the same as God, but rather the question whether God is the same as Jesus. You see, they have turned the problem round and are looking at it from the other end. They say, we know what Christ was like, for we can read about Him in the Gospels; is God’s character of the same kind? Can we argue confidently from the one to the other? Can I take the mind and heart of Jesus Christ, as He lived among men and for men, and say to the perplexed, or to my own heart when it is troubled: There, that is what you can rely on at the very heart of the universe? God is exactly like Jesus, and as Dr. A. B. Bruce once said: “If God is like Jesus, this world has reason to be glad.” (Quote taken from: here)

Have you ever thought about this? Does your understanding of God come from looking at Jesus, or do you have an understanding of God, generically considered, which you fit the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to? Or maybe you’re wondering, what about the Old Testament time, this was prior to Jesus’ incarnation, right? 😉