Biblical Support for a Personal Relationship with God
When was the last time you describe your relationship with God as a "personal" one?
A recent article I read last week pointed out that when it comes to a personal relationship with Jesus:
As far as the Bible is concerned, this doctrine is simply made up by evangelical Christian theologians.
The article seems to be a response to something Rick Warren wrote. The author then goes on to debunk the doctrine by quoting some Bible verses (I don’t know if the author is quoting Rick Warren or making his own apologia). In any case, the verses used are totally not something I would have thought of using and I don’t know how one would use them to defend the idea of a personal relationship with God.
John 15: 1-13 | John 10:1-16 | Revelation 3:20 | Revelation 19: 7-9 | Revelation 19: 17-21
With that said, I thought it was worth a discussion here at MassTheo.
If you believe in a personal relationship with God, how do you define it? What Bible verses would you use to back up this doctrine or teaching?
p.s. the original article is from an atheist site so I don’t want to link to it from here unless you want me to.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area, I think the people trained as theologians might be of better help. I think I would point to some John 16 action. The Holy Spirit coming to dwell within us. I think it is through that avenue that we have a personal relationship with God.
A real personal relationship with Jesus in the here and now? I thinking that might be a position that is hard to defend. Because of a lack of verbal and definite response to prayers (at least for me and everyone I have ever talked to about this), I think personal relationship is right out.
This might rile some people up – but help me out here – where and how do you see a personal relationship as you experience personal relationships around you with other humans. If it is not a personal relationship – what is a good term for it. I know and feel the indwelling and prompting of the Holy Spirit. However, it is not personal, but something else, a something else for which I do not have a good name.
Anyone else wanna take a stab?
When I look at the book of Acts and the apostolic preaching, “personal relationship” theology is absent. Instead I find in Peter’s Pentecost sermon, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified…Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:36-38). Peter told Cornelius that Jesus is the one, anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the Lord and Christ, fulfilled the prophecies of the prophets and is now the appointed judge and in him does one find forgiveness of sins by faith (Acts 10:34-43). In Paul’s ministry in Athens Paul said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31). Repentance and faith are what the apostles commanded. When the Philippians jailer asked Paul what must be done for salvation in Acts 16:29-30 Paul answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household (Acts 16:31; note also that Paul and Silas then went to this man’s house and preached the word to the whole family, preaching is essential it seems). Jesus also speaks of faith in the gospel and repentance of sins when he preached (Mark 1:15).
If one understands personal to mean an intimate relating to Jesus and that relating is person-to-person, then yes the relationship is personal. But one must never forget that the apostles, and Peter especially (see the citations of Peter above), did not view Jesus as a friend but as “the Lord.” Luke uses two terms to translate “Lord” in Acts, κύριος and δεσπότης. κύριος is the LXX translation of Yahweh. It is the term used for salvation. δεσπότης is used in the prayer of the church in Acts 4 to denote Jesus and God as absolute sovereign, a slave-master. The early church did not forget the position of authority that Jesus had as their judge and therefore did not come to him as a good ol’ chum to hang out with. Jesus wasn’t a buddy only. The idea of Jesus as our friend is in John and he is that, but we is more than a friend, he is king. I think American Christianity forgets that God is the sovereign and Lord of the cosmos. The Health-Wealth-Prosperity gospel and the name-it-claim-it movement are two clear examples of this. I don’t think that we should get rid of the personal relationship theology, it just needs to put within the biblical framework that our “friend” that we have an intimate relationship with is our king and our judge who demands that we fear him and do what is acceptable to him (Acts 10:35).
I read the article as well, and the author seems to be criticizing Rick Warren more than anything else. I would call our relationship to God personal becuase it’s obvisouly not impersonal. God consists of three persons within the one Godhead. We don’t worship a pantheistic force, but a living, active God. Also, any interaction between or among persons is rightly called a “relationship”. The only alternative is to deny either the “personal” or the “relationship” aspects.
I see the idea implicitly in Scripture, but not explicitly. We can get off track when we start, as Hank noted above, emphasizing our relationship as between best buddies instead of patron-client.
Dan (and Hank),
I like what you are saying about the buddy Christ concept of relating to God. Throughout all that you are saying, it seems like you are denying the “personal” aspect of this relationship in the here and now as well. I don’t relate to my “king” (president) personally.
Honzo,
You need to define “personal.” I don’t deny personal in the sense that it is person to person and intimate. What I think needs to be done away with is, like you affirmed, the idea of this soft, gentle, buddy. The church in Acts just didn’t see Jesus that way. Jesus was tender and gentle, but he could be very harsh as well. Too many times I know of people who just ignore the harder, rougher edges of Jesus because it doesn’t appeal to them, or to a mass of unconverted PoMos (I say this not in reference to anyone here but rather what I have experienced in evangelism). We need to recover the full testimony of Jesus, the God-Man who wept at the death of Lazarus but also was cracking a whip of cords in the Temple courts and called the Pharisees and scribes “white-washed tombs” and a “brood of vipers.”
I don’t know if you were implying that God/Jesus is our president in your comment, but I just want to put out there that an elected leader just wasn’t much of a category in the NTera, especially in Jewish circles (yes I know that the Romans and Greeks did have elected leadership, just not in the first century CE).
Hank makes a good point. We have lost our reverence and awe for God.
I’m probably oversimplifying this, but God speaks to use through his word and we speak to him through prayer (primarily). That seems “personal” to me.
I agree that the preaching of the word in Acts and elsewhere focuses on the “repent and believe” message. The word “love” isn’t mentioned once in Acts. That doesn’t mean love isn’t in there, just that there are no examples of the Gospel being shared with a “God loves you so much, maybe you should consider trusting him” message.
Double ditto the loss of reverence and awe for God.
I think we need to understand that what is explicit in Scripture is explicit not necessarily because there is a word-for-word spelling out of every truth that is to be received from the Word, but it can also be explicit because necessary inferences can be made. Concerning the personal side of God, I do not really recall any verse or words in the Bible that explicitly say, “God is a personal God.” (what is the Greek/Hebrew word for personal anyway? The best option for Greek would be “idios.” More on this later.) Rather, I think there are many many examples of sufficient conditions for the personalness of God in the Bible (i.e. conditions in the Bible that, if true, necessarily entail that God is personal). Examples:
1. If God gave His only true Son to die for the sins of people who are completely undeserving for the Son’s death, then God is a personal God.
2. If God is gracious to some people and condescends for the betterment of mankind, then God is a personal God.
3. If God loves people, then God is a personal God.
4. If God has a personality that he reveals to us, then God is a personal God.
The antecedent clauses (i.e. sufficient conditions) in (1)-(4) are clearly and saliently said to be true according to the Bible. And if (1)-(4) are all true (which I think it is clear that they are true), then we have four different cases where the Bible says (by inference) that God is personal.
Want Biblical evidence? Read all of 1 John 1-5.
Neil, is that really personal? What other “person” do you have that sort of relationship with? I don’t talk to a person and then scour a codebook to see what she says back with any other person I know.
Hank, I know! No one else is defining it either. I don’t know of a nice, easy definition, but if we are going to use the word personal, then it needs to mirror how we interact with persons. Some core components to the definition would include direct and immediate verbal feedback. A true two-way dialogue. What I fear is Christianity promising too much with it’s “its not a religion, it is a (personal) relationship” tagline and then letting down scores of people who leave jaded and no longer able to hear.
I think a very appropriate and necessary question is what is meant by “personal”? I’d like to hear definitions of “personal relationship.”
Travis
It sounds like you are defining personal as person(God/Jesus)-to-person(s) relationship, am I correct?
The image that I have when I hear the idea of “personal relationship with God/Jesus” is that of Adam and God in the garden of Eden. There in Genesis 3:8 we read about God walking in the cool of the day. Many interpreters have thus posited that Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day. It gives the impression that Adam and God were (forgive the expression) “beer-drinking buddies” who’d go to the local pub every night to watch the soccer/baseball/football/basketball/hockey game. However that is a bad translation of the Hebrew and the passage should be seen as a judgment theophany where God comes in a storm motif (Look at Genesis 3:8 NET footnote 22 or click here). God is still relating on a personal level, but the idea of what American evangelicalism conveys is not that of a God who came to Adam in judgment, it is the walking in the cool breeze of the day. I really want to see American Christianity reclaim reverence and awe for God and Jesus. I have no problem with saying “God is a personal God” or that “We relate to God on a personal level.” However this idea of “personal relationship” needs to fit the biblical text.
Travis,
I think there is a substantial difference between an entity being a personal entity and set beings having a personal relationship. Your argument above argues for the former, but the issue at hand is the latter. I am a personal being, but Stan Lee and I do not have a personal relationship.
Hank, the president thing is as close as I could get, because I don’t have any “kings.”
Oh, I’d like a link to the atheist article – (I don’t think it will spread here).
Honzo,
I was actually arguing for the latter. You will find in every antecedent the words “people” or “us.” I meant each conditional to be a description of God’s relationship with mankind, and a fortiori, I am defining Him as a personal entity. But my main point is to show that if the Bible claims these antecedents to be true, then the Bible inferentially claims the consequences to be true. In essence, what I am trying to reject is the deistic conception of God, who is a person but not a God who interacts with His creation.
Hank,
I completely agree that within our personal relationship of God there must be a sense of awe and reverence. What better place to look than at the example of our Lord? He called God His Father, and in the same breath, declared Him to be holy. Here a the beauty of the Gospel: we are able to approach the seat of a perfect and holy God as his sons and daughters, even while we are still sinners. Simul justus et peccator.
What I fear is Christianity promising too much with it’s “its not a religion, it is a (personal) relationship” tagline and then letting down scores of people who leave jaded and no longer able to hear.
-Amen to that… this is exactly my point. We’re building false expectations.
Honzo, I sent you a link to the article.
[...] been increasing attentive to posts at the blog Theology for the Masses, especially this one on whether there is Biblical support for a personal relationship with God, this one on the [...]
Travis, you say you are arguing against a deist God. Great, no one is asserting that there is a deist God. What is under question is the personal relationship that Christians have, in the here and now, with Jesus/Father/Holy Spirit. I don’t see your argument touching that aspect of our conversation.