What is God like?
John 8:12-30
There is a wide range of views concerning God (good, critical, involved, not involved, authoritarian, distant, etc). They are formulated from values of society, parents or our own personal views of what we would like God to be. The only true answer must come only from the revealed Word of God, the Bible.
Using the backdrop of the Feast of Tabernacles and it symbolic use of light, Christ cries out “I am the light of the world” (v12). Darkness is a picture of chaos, ignorance of God, confusion, death which is ever stalking us. In the midst of darkness Jesus asserts that He only is the only way out of the darkness that envelops each and every individual. John 14:6 states “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” and in John 1:4-5 we read “In him (Jesus) was life and the life was the light of men”. The very first act of God in Genesis was “let there be light”, John the Baptist reveals Jesus as that light and those who believe in him will become children of light.
God is also truth (v13-20). His words are true because of his origin (heaven) and no one can know the word of God without knowing the God of the word.
God is also life (21-30), “unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins”. Death is simply a separation. If an individual experiences on one birth (physical) they will experience two deaths (Physical, separation of soul and body, and also eternal death, separation for all eternity from God in a Lake of Fire). On the other hand if an individual experiences two births (physical and a new birth spiritually, born again by accepting Christ as their savior) they will only experience one death (physical) and they will live eternally with God. Jesus told Nicodemus “you must be born again” and in John 3:15 “that whoever believes in him (Jesus) may have eternal life”.
It does not really matter what views you may have formulated concerning who God is. Fact is that Jesus is God, our only hope of salvation.