Let's face it, God is awesomely terrifying.

Sure, He's a loving God's whose mercy and grace know no bounds. In fact, one of the persistent themes in all of scripture (both Old and New Testaments) is the extraordinary goodness and amazing love of God.

You’d be amazed at how much space the Bible devotes to this subject of His compassion, His tender mercies, His loving-kindness, His patience, His long-suffering, and every other word that expresses the virtues of love. You see this so much in the scriptures that you might start to conclude that God is a sweet old man, who formerly used to be very angry, but has changed and now gives the best hugs, kisses, and gifts to whomever would take the time to pay Him a visit in His old house. But have you met the God of the Bible? Certainly love is one of His attributes, but if we’re honest, divine revelations of Him in the scriptures paint a picture of one heavenly Father no one’s in a rush to give a hug! 

Allow me to walk you through a few Biblical texts that triggered this thought process.

I’ve been spending some time in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Exodus, and specifically in Exodus 19.  Let me bring you up to speed. The Israelites have been in Egyptian captivity for 430 years. Life sucks badly and they cry out to God to launch a rescue mission. God obliges and raises up a nomad named Moses as deliverer. Pharaoh (king of Egypt) plays hardball and refuses to release the Israelites from oppressive slavery. God responds by pulling out the big guns and simmers Pharaoh down by dramatically ruining the Egyptian economy. Pharaoh cries, “uncle” and lets the Israelites go free. Later, Pharaoh changes his mind while they’re leaving and chases after them in a murderous rage with his entire army. God proves He's bigger than Pharaoh by dramatically drowning the Egyptian army. Israelites are finally free and head towards the desert. After a few road-bumps in the desert, the Israelites settle in a desert location at the base of a mountain named Sinai. There, God intends to give them non-negotiable instructions for how they are to live and love as a people solely committed to Him. (Now, we’re in Exodus 19).

You could almost say this was their (Israelites) first date with the Lover and Redeemer of their souls. God had not only birth them as a nation and delivered them from slavery, but He had also prepared a home for them, a land He describes as “flowing with milk and honey” (which basically translates as, “your own little paradise in the Middle East"). In anticipation of their first meeting, God extends them a two-day waiting period to prepare themselves to meet with Him, (remember, this is a first date. So, “take a shower, get some new clothes, and prepare your heart”). This moment in the desert should be super-exciting for the Israelites. It should be a butterfly-in-your-belly kind of moment, sorta like when you see your true love for the first time in a long while. Cue the hugs and kisses.

On the morning-of, everyone has assembled to see Him. THIS IS IT!

..…but, God is not quite what they are expecting.

Listen to what happens when the Israelites shows up for their first official date with God. “On the third day at daybreak, there were loud claps of thunder, flashes of lightning, a thick cloud covering the mountain, and an ear-piercing trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp shuddered in fear. …Mount Sinai was all smoke because God had come down on it as fire. Smoke poured from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain shuddered in huge spasms. The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God answered in thunder.” (Exodus 19:16, 18-20 – The Message)

Let’s call this what it is. T.E.R.R.I.F.Y.I.N.G!

The Israelites were so afraid of all they saw and heard of God that they pled with Moses not to let them go on the date. “….they pulled back and stood at a distance. They said to Moses, “You speak to us and we’ll listen, but don’t have God speak to us or we’ll die.” I learn best visually, so upon reading this text, I immediately went online to find a picture that captures all these key words, “lightning, thick clouds, mountain, smoke, fire, shuddering mountains, and thunder.” Below are two images I ended up with. Images that in my mind best capture what the Israelites might have been looking at on that mountain (and were deathly afraid of).

You know what’s even more frightening than those images? The fact that someONE spoke intelligibly from it!

In fact, when Moses came back down from the mountain, He wasn’t even aware that the skin of his face had gone nuclear because he had been speaking with God, so much so that when the Israelites saw his radiant face, they were afraid to go near Him. He actually had to cover it with a veil (you know, cos we like our super-heroes in the movies, not in real life!).  Incidentally, Moses never even looked directly at God’s face, though he pled with God for the honor. God had to hide him in the cleft of a rock (think, bomb shelter) as His glory passed by because, “….no one can see [His] face and live.” His point? If you show up in God’s presence without the “right covering”, you will explode (or is it implode?). Either way, it’ll be a bad day for you!

Let’s face it. God is scary. Yet, His very essence is love.

Let’s take that scene in the desert a step further. Assuming someone somehow managed to get past that terrifying display of God’s awesome glory on the mountain and met up with him face to face, who and what might they have seen? I’ll jump ahead to the Old Testament books Daniel and Ezekiel to answer that question. In a heavenly vision from God, here’s what the prophet Daniel saw when he was allowed a peak at the throne of God Himself. (Note: God is referred to here as, “the ancient of days.”) Daniel 7:9-10 says,  “…thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him.”  The prophet Ezekiel (who was given an all access pass to the same scene in throne room of God) adds a little more detail, “…and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.” (Ezekiel 1:26-28).

No matter what angle you look at it, the Biblical picture of God is one of omnipotence robed in a blazing glory of incomprehensible, fiery, unapproachable holiness, (I don't even fully know what that means, but I'm compelled to bow in worship before Him!).

Lest anyone think, “Oh, that’s just the Old Testament where God was very angry. He is totally different now in the New Testament.” I’d point you to Matthew 17:1-6 and Revelation 11:19 where we find that God is the same yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever more.

Okay, pause. Now that I’ve scared the crap out of you and totally ruined the picture of God you’ve probably spent your whole life crafting, here’s the incredibly good news, (good news that the Israelites didn’t comprehend on that day, and for the most part, still hasn’t comprehended as a nation).

Though God IS a consuming fire, and though an awesomely holy fire surrounds His throne, and though that fire may cause great destruction, that love-infused-holy-fire also refines and purifies. It does this in the sense that God Himself takes the initiative in clothing you with “Fire-Proof-Protection” that allows you to stand in His glorious presence without being consumed.

That loving fire-proof-protection has a name, and His name is JESUS CHRIST.

You may (or may not) be aware that “love” in our culture today is primarily conveyed as a feeling, an emotion, usually involving unfulfilled desire. Hence why we love stories of our celebrities, “falling” in love, which is ironic because no one falls faster “out of love” than those same celebrities we so quickly place on an unrealistic pedestal. But the Biblical expression of love is more than a sensation, a force, or some sort of cosmic energy. Love in the scripture is a personal being and is most clearly exemplified in the life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.

It’s what the scripture is telling us in John 15:13 when it says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It’s also what Romans 5:8 speaks of when it says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 1 John 4:10 sums it up beautifully this way, “This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.” (The MSG).

The good news of the gospel is that God doesn’t just overlook sin and gives hugs to everyone, but through the awful price Jesus paid on the cross for our sin, God has taken the initiative of providing a means through which we could come close to Him. Hence, through faith in Jesus Christ, we become acceptable and presentable before a loving God. THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS, WE CAN STAND IN THE BLAZING PRESENCE OF HIS FIERY HOLINESS! It’s the invitation of the scriptures when it says, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

I don’t know what your perception of God is. Perhaps experiences in your life have caused you to see Him as a FIERY cosmic cop looking to pull you over for every sin, or you see Him as a FIERY talent show judge whose expectation you can never live up to, or worse still, you see Him as a NON-FIERY sweet old man who owns an all-you-can-have buffet. Whatever your misperception of God has been, I pray that this Biblical view of your FATHER in heaven sets you on the right track that leads to Jesus Christ.

Yes, God is awesomely holy and terrifying. Yes, He IS a consuming fire who abhors sin and lives in what one scripture writer describes as "unapproachable light", and someday you will see Him as He truly is in all His glory. But as you stand in awe of His fiery glory, keep this in mind, HE HAS PROVIDED A MEANS THROUGH WHICH YOU MAY SOMEDAY STAND CONFIDENTLY IN HIS PRESENCE.

That means is Jesus Christ, and He alone can present you faultless before God.

May His extraordinary goodness and amazing love draw you ever closer to His heart.