This is the final part of a three-part series. to start earlier, you can go to PART ONE or PART TWO.

Those of the Abrahamic Faiths have often struggled in their visualization of God. I will not pretend to have expertise of other faiths (including my own). With the Abrahamic Faiths (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) God is not imagined with statue or representational symbol. There is value in this. In Greek paganism, Zeus was represented as an idealized man (physically). This not surprisingly led to assigning human pettiness and flaws. The inability to express God visually has value, as well as recognizing our inability to express God fully in word (ineffability). But there are problems with this as well.

The first problem, in my thinking, is that God can easily become too much of an abstraction. God becomes described by what he is not (apophatic or via negativa). In some circles, especially Muslim, but sometimes Christian, things get so far as to suggest that even describing God with attributes is wrong. For Christians, this is a problem. The Bible makes it pretty evident that God is seeking to have a relationship with mankind— creating paradise as a return to paradise— harmony between God, Man, and Creation. But can humans relate to an abstraction? Such a god so represented (or not represented) is too alien for us to relate to.

The second problem is related to the first. If we cannot have a relationship to God, the best we can have is an ideology and an ethics. That leaves, I believe, a hole in our souls— that ends up being filled by rules and horizontal relationships.

But, if God seeks to have a relationship with us, God must represent Godself to us in a way that we can relate to and understand.

To me this is the primary reason for the Incarnation (enfleshment or embodiment) of Christ. God as thunder on the mountain or the unseen sender of heralds, will not suffice. God as the outsider (from our perspective) chose to enter as alien in a manner that we could understand and relate to. This is essentially what the beginning of the Epistle to the Hebrews says,

Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son. God has appointed Him heir of all things and made the universe through Him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So He became higher in rank than the angels, just as the name He inherited is superior to theirs. Hebrews 1:1-4 (HCSB)

Part way through this section it is clear that Jesus came for purification for sins, and some would say that is the one and only reason that God came to us as a man. Like saves like. While there may be some truth to this, I am not sure that we know enough to say that God could not have chose some other way. And frankly, this passage seems to point to something different.

God came as Jesus as the message of God and the radiance of His glory and exact expression of His nature. In other words, God chose to represent Godself in a manner that we can understand who God, relate to God, and understand what God has to say.

Much like a sci-fi alien we cannot heart and the mind of God through God’s representation only in the abstract. God represented Godself as Man for Man’s sake not God’s own. We cannot understand God otherwise.

And God coming as man did not do so as Mr. Manhattan or Kal el. Mr. Manhattan was a human who was transformed into a near god-like being and in so doing became more an more disconnected to humanity— becoming more alien. Kal el, was an alien who was raised up on earth looking so much like humans and enculturated so effectively as human that he became Superman, rather than Superalien. It is interesting that in more recent years, the comic writers of Superman have explored his alienness more and disconnection from humanity.

God did not display Godself as Mr. Manhattan (Adoptionism— losing humanity in the process) or as Kal el (alien living with us but not truly of us). Rather God came as God AND as Man.

Perhaps God could have come literally as a Sheep— a lamb without spot or blemish. That would line up well with the Jewish understanding of blood atonement. But if God did so, we would struggle, since we cannot relate to God through a sheep. God could have come in the form of Man… but primarily as a King or Conqueror. That might work. It may not even be wrong. However, God chose to (according to Philippians 2) represent Godself as a servant, as an example to us. Jesus came to serve, not be served, providing a model for us to practice with others.

Sci-fi writers understand that what is alien to us needs to be represented in a way to bridge the gap. We are pretty unable to bridge the gap. The form and the symbols of the alien in the encounter is critical. God understood this as well. and chose to represent/reveal Godself primarily in Jesus— loving God revealed in human form and expressed as a teacher/servant/sacrifice.

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. —Colossians 1:15-19 (NIV)