The Fruitage of Spiritual Gifts

The Personality of God

It is with the deepest reverence that we approach this exalted truth. We know that man cannot comprehend God, but we dare not let that idea banish all thinking about the Lord. The human mind has the ability to think about attributes and power without thinking of a form, but man cannot, I believe, think of a personal being without giving that being some form. Speaking of the Father, Jesus says that we have never “seen His shape” (John 5:37), indicating that God has a form, as Daniel also implies in his vision of the Father. (Daniel 7:9.) In writing of God, Mrs. White uses these words: FSG 421.1

“I saw a throne, and on it sat the Father and the Son. I gazed on Jesus’ countenance and admired His lovely person. The Father’s person I could not behold, for a cloud of glorious light covered Him. I asked Jesus if His Father had a form like Himself. He said He had, but I could not behold it, for, said He, ‘If you should once behold the glory of His person, you would cease to exist.’”—Early Writings, 54. FSG 421.2

The above words are in full harmony with these sentences: FSG 421.3

“The mighty power that works through all nature and sustains all things is not, as some men of science represent, merely an all pervading principle, an actuating energy. God is a spirit; yet He is a personal being, for man was made in His image... FSG 421.4

“In the creation of man was manifest the agency of a personal God. When God had made man in His image, the human form was perfect in all its arrangements. Through Jesus Christ, a personal God created man, and endowed him with intelligence and power.” FSG 421.5

“God saw that a clearer revelation than nature was needed to portray both His personality and His character. He sent His Son into the world to reveal, so far as could be endured by human sight, the nature and the attributes of the invisible God.”—Testimonies for the Church 8:263-265. FSG 421.6