NOTHING BUT THE WORD
Who is God? How best can you describe God? If you were to physically see God, what would the appearance be? We understand that the best descriptions of God will fall short. The same is true of depictions of Christ we see in pictures today. None of them likely reflects Christ as he was in real life. God is so beyond the physical, mental or imaginary realms that any depiction of him will be underwhelming and in fact insulting. That is why the Bible forbids idol worship. The closest we can come to appreciate God is reflected in the ark of the covenant that was placed in the Most Holy Place in the temple of God.
During the dedication of the temple by Solomon, we read this description of the ark.
‘The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place………….There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt’. 2Chronicles 5:7-10
When no resource was spared to build a most extravagant temple with gold and precious metals being poured out for the construction, the content of the ark appears underwhelming. There was nothing in it except the word of God inscribed on the two tablets given to Moses. There is a reason for that. This deliberate minimalistic furnishing is because that is truly the most we can ‘see’ when we try to picturize God. God did not want his people to assume that anything could represent him- no figures, no carvings, no precious things. Nothing can except the word of God.
The word of God as revealed in the Bible- the Old and the New Testament is the best description of God revealed to us on this earth. We should not assume that what we understand or imagine with our minds is an adequate description of God. But by reading and studying this word that we can ‘sense’ God in our spirit, as we grasp what is written by our minds. Let alone what we can see or hear, even what we imagine about God will be deficient. But our physical senses and our minds provide windows for our spirits to connect to God at a spiritual level separate and above these to be able to discern God. And no other medium helps us to do that better than the word of God.
Nothing but the word of God was the theme of the ark and needs to be theme of our lives as we embark on a journey here on earth to seek and discern God.
