The Radical Relocation Of GOD

THE RADICAL  RELOCATION OF GOD

 

The basis for this article came from notes I had made at a visit to Saint John by Jerry Cook many years ago. He was contrasting the way God is presented to us in the Old Testament, as opposed to the New Testament. Basically in the OT, God existed outside of human society, and so a religious system consisting of an official Priesthood was necessary, to handle the Tabernacle or Temple where sacrifices were offered to this "distant" God. This OT God was not considered to be someone you could come to know personally, in fact He was considered to be so awesome and holy that they would not even mention Him by name. Some people think that the OT is now obsolete and not to be considered as being important to us today, but that is not correct! It was not wrong, but only incomplete, so God introduced the NT!

 

God has always wanted to have an intimate relationship with us humans. Just think of how He came down in the cool of the evening and visited with Adam and Eve in the garden. (Gen 3:8) But Adam's disobedience brought sin into the picture, and changed everything! (Rom 5:12) God's plan of redemption was then put into motion, so that this relationship could be restored. This involved Jesus the Son of God leaving His place with the Father, to become the baby in Mary's womb. This miracle of the "incarnation", allowed Jesus to take on human flesh, and become the perfect man, "the Lamb of God", whose death on the cross would pay the debt of sin for whoever would receive Him as Savior! In the words of Jerry Cook, our God in "His unlimited dimensional Reality, stepped out of this dimension and into our 3 dimensional realm"! Since Jesus came to earth the first time, we now have a perfect picture of what God is really like. "For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body." (Col 2:9) NLT If that is not a "radical relocation", then I don't know what the term means! Then just before Jesus returned to His rightful place at Father's side, He gave some very important instructions to His followers. For example, in (John 14:15-17), He tells them about what the "holy Spirit" will do when He comes to take His place  on earth. In the last of verse 17 He is quoted as saying "He lives with you now and later will be in you." NLT. This is a tremendous truth, the very Presence of God was dwelling with them in the person of Jesus at the time, but shortly after that on the Day of Pentecost, the promised Holy Spirit came to indwell the 120 believers in the upper room. (Acts 2:1-4)!!

Sincerely submitted

Dave Jamer.