Does God Really Like Us?: What the Bible says

This concept is neither radical nor new. It fills the Bible from one end to the other. The idea of Yahveh searching for friends is one of the main themes of the Bible, but somehow it keeps getting missed.
Start with Genesis. Right at the very beginning of the Bible we have Yahveh creating humanity in his image. Why? For the purpose of living in relationship with him. Think about it. What was the first thing Yahveh did after creating Adam and Eve? He set aside the next day as a day of celebration between him and his creations. Yahveh set aside an entire day for the sole purpose of spending time with his creations. Why? Because he liked them.
Or what about the Fall? What was the first thing that Yahveh said after Adam and Eve fell? Was it "You idiots, how could you be so stupid?" No. Was it "Well, guess we go to plan b now."? No. It was "Where are you?" Yahveh felt the separation that sin caused and missed his friends.
Since sin causes a wall between Yahveh and his people (humanity), Yahveh choose a special people to be his conduit between him and the rest of the world. They were to be his light, drawing all men to himself. These people were, of course, the Israelites.
So the last half of Genesis follows as Yahveh begins to mold this people from a single man, named Abraham. A man that Yahveh calls his friend. Exodus opens with Israel being oppressed in Egypt. Who comes to their rescue? Yahveh, of course, through his servant Moses. Through Moses, Yahveh leads the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land, where Yahveh will make them a "nation of priests". What does a priest do? A priest communicates and communes with the god they serve, in this case the true God.
Now here is where things get really interesting. What is basically the first thing that Yahveh does with Israel after leaving Egypt? He personally talks to them and relates to them the 10 Commandments, which are a description of his character. Have you ever stopped to think about how radical and insane that is? Yahveh, the perfect, sinless, almighty Creator actually stepped down and talked with a group of ex-slaves and rebellious humans. And he told them what he was like. How many gods have you heard of doing that? Yahveh talked with people.
Understandably, the Israelites couldn't handle it. Yahveh, even hidden in a cloud, talking with them was too much to bear and they told Moses to talk to Yahveh for them. Yahveh understood, but he still wanted to be close to his people. So the very next thing Yahveh had them do was build a tabernacle for him. In fact, Yahveh tells Moses, "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you."
Now there is something fascinating about the word tabernacle. In the ancient Hebrew, the original language, the word is mishkân. Now that word has a fascinating meaning. It means dwelling place or habitation. Often the NIV translates it tent. It is used 129 times in the Old Testament, mostly referring to the Tabernacle. The other times that word is used is reference to places of residence, where people live, or dwell. In fact, mishkân comes from the verb shâkan , which is used when Yahveh says "dwell". That word means to permanently reside, to inhabit. So what Yahveh is saying here is that he is asking the Israelites to make a place for him to permanently reside, or live, among them. Yahveh is trying to get as close to his people as he can. What other god goes to such great lengths to reside, live with his people? Why else would Yahveh desire to be so close to his people?
After 40 years of kicking around the desert, Israel finally enters the promised land. Yahveh's ideal of making a nation of priests is never realized. Time after time, Israel would run after other gods; useless gods of wood, stone, and metal and nothing more. They traded the living, real Yahveh for an easy counterfeit. How often do we do the same?
To try and get them back, Yahveh sent enemies to get the Israelites attention. After a few years of oppression, they would cry out to Yahveh, who would then send a judge to rescue them. The judge would lead for a few years and the people would remain faithful to Yahveh. But, inevitably, as soon as the judge died, they would be back to their old ways and forget Yahveh. This soon became a cycle that was repeated time after time after time.
Eventually, the people gave up on the whole judge idea. It was time for a king to lead them, a strong, centralized government that would give them stability. Although not too jazzed about the idea, Yahveh gave in. And for a while, it actually worked quite well. For nearly a hundred and twenty years, Israel avoided idolatry (for the most part) and followed Yahveh under a united kingship of Saul, David, Solomon.
This was the closest Yahveh ever came to his dream being realized. Under David, Israel's greatest king, they had established themselves as a military power and were the nation of that time. By the time he died, David had either conquered or beaten into submission every nation around, controlling the world's trade routes. Solomon took the military power and turned it into an economic empire, making Israel the world's most powerful nation.
At the center of all of this was Yahveh's temple that Solomon had built for him. It was the most impressive, beautiful structure of its time. People from all over the world flocked to Israel to see what was going on with this group of shepherds. They naturally started asking questions about Yahveh, questions which the king and people were happy to answer.
It was right there, just where Yahveh wanted it, about to accomplish amazing things, where everything fell apart. Solomon got both proud and remarkably stupid and let his wives talk him into following other gods. And, of course, as the leader goes so do the people. Everything that he and his father David had worked with Yahveh to build began to crumble.
Solomon died and the kingdom spilt in a civil war, destroying the power that had once been. The northern kings of Israel went on the straight and narrow path straight down. One king after another got progressively worse, leading the people farther and farther away from Yahveh. What had once been so promising was running full-bore for disaster. In Judah, there was some hope. Every now and then, a king would take the throne that held true to Yahveh, stemming the tide of destruction a little, but it was not enough.
But Yahveh did not just sit there and let his people run after other gods like the local slut. To combat the disastrous course of the kings, which were leading people away from Yahveh in worshiping false gods, he sent prophets.
Prophets were people with whom Yahveh spoke directly, and then they relayed that message to the public. Essentially, they were Yahveh's mouthpiece. Prophet after prophet was sent to Israel and Judah. Through them, Yahveh pleaded, begged, and threatened his people to get them to come back to him. Some were listened to by one king, but then scorned by the next. In Israel, they were unilaterally ignored. Others were so hated that they were executed by either the king or the people. But most were simply ridiculed and ignored. Once again, a Yahveh in search of friends was ignored by the people he had so lovingly cared for.
Of course this blatant disregard for Yahveh and his people could not last forever. His own nation were destroying his name and driving others away from him. Something had to be done. So Yahveh, ever so reluctantly, sent Assyria and Babylon. Assyria utterly destroyed Israel, scattering the surviving inhabitants throughout the nations, ending the Northern Kingdom.
It was over a hundred years later before it was Judah's turn. Babylon came and ended their independence, but did not destroy them. Yahveh had not given up on Judah yet. Instead of wiping them out, even though they richly deserved it, he simply exiled them to Babylon for 70 years. 70 years to think about what had happened, where they had gone wrong. A 70 year timeout, if you will.
Amazingly enough, the Jews (as they were now known), actually seemed to do that. Quickly after the exile, they focused on getting their act together. There were a few slip ups here and there of course, but on the whole, they seemed to be following Yahveh with their whole hearts. Soon, rabbis, or teachers, began popping up, expounding on the Law, explaining what it means and how to follow it.
This seems like a good thing on the surface. In many ways, it was. People began to turn more and more to follow Yahveh. But slowly, yet surely, things began to breakdown again, just in a different form. Instead of following after other gods, the Jews began making a god out of the Law.
Now, in and of itself, the Law is not bad; indeed just the opposite. However, the rabbis began to focus almost exclusively on the "how" to follow the Law. Frightened of the possibility of another exile, they began making rules to prevent a person from actually breaking the Law.
Once again, on the surface, this seems like a good idea. After all, Yahveh gave his Law and intended it not to be broken, right? Of course, the Law is meant to be followed. But the Jews began to focus exclusively on the Law, as if that was Yahveh himself. See the problem developing here?
To give an example, one of the causes of the Exile was the repeated breaking of the Sabbath. The ancient Israelites pretty much stomped the Sabbath to death. In fact, the length of the Exile was determined by how many Sabbaths had been essentially destroyed. So, when the Jews came back from Exile, they were determined not to break the Sabbath again, or even come close. As such, the rabbis came up with 39 prohibitions on the Sabbath. Each of these were expounded upon to be more specific for daily situations.
To continue down this road, one of the 39 prohibitions (forty less one, officially) was against cutting on the Sabbath. Therefore, you were forbidden to climb a tree. Makes sense, right? Well, the logic followed thus: if you were to climb a tree, you run the risk of breaking a twig. If you break a twig, that was cutting, ergo you had worked and broke the Sabbath. This is just one of the many, many rules made to protect the Sabbath.
Of course, this attitude was not just with the Sabbath, but everything in life. Period. See the problem now? How can one live like that? All the joy of following Yahveh was sapped out. The Law was turned into these walls that protected the Jews from outsiders. As such, the Jews developed this "holier than thou" attitude that drove people away from Yahveh, rather than drawing them to him. So, Yahveh's people had swung to the other extreme and were still not following him.
In the middle of all this, a man appears. This man is a Jewish rabbi that goes around telling everyone that all of this is wrong. He tells people that what Yahveh really desires is a relationship with his people, that what Yahveh really desires is love, mercy, compassion shown to man, not condemnation and judgment (something the Jews handed out with regularity). He told the people that following Yahveh was a way of being, rather than what we do. This man's name was Yeshua; we call him by the Greek name, Jesus.
This was the Messiah, the one promised back at the gates of Eden, the one that the entire Tabernacle service had been built around, the one that the Prophets had been predicting for thousands of years. He was what everyone in Israel had been longing for and waiting for. He was the Savior and Deliverer from sin. This was Yahveh come down in human flesh to tabernacle, dwell with his people. In John 1:14, the author says that the "Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" The word used for dwelling is the Greek word skēnoō , which means the same as the Hebrew word shâkan. It is a reference to when Yahveh dwelt with his people in the Tabernacle in the wilderness.
The sad part is that the Jews were so blinded by their devotion to the Law, that they could not see the Lawmaker standing in front of them. The one that they had been hoping and praying for was there with them and they could not see it. His message was about breaking down the walls, about setting people free from the rules to truly follow the Law and the Jews could not handle that. Jesus message was so contrary to what they held dear, that they could not follow the Messiah they had been longing for.
Instead, they killed him by hanging him on a cross. The cross was the most gruesome and humiliating punishment in the Roman Empire (rulers of the world at that time). For a Jew, it was even worse, for anyone who was hung on a tree was condemned for all eternity. They tried to send to hell their Creator, Redeemer, and Messiah.
Of course, Jesus knew all along that he was going to die. That was his purpose in coming; to die for all and thereby providing forgiveness for all. He died the death that all of us deserve. In dying, Jesus ultimately smashed down the wall that sin had put between Yahveh and humanity. His death and subsequent resurrection bridged the gap between us and Yahveh, so that now we can live forever with him as we were intended to.
This, quite naturally, changed everything. No longer was it about the Jews as Yahveh's chosen people. From then on, it was about the Christians who had chosen Yahveh. Yahveh was raising up a people from all those who truly sought him. Hence, the Christian Church was born with the express purpose of going out into the world to be agents in rescuing and redeeming the lost. Unlike Israel, which had people come to it, the Church was to go to people and reconnect them with Yahveh.
Now is where we come into the picture. We are part of this Church, this new people bent on following Christ and bringing others to him. Over the last couple of thousand years, the Church has had its ups and downs, but the core of those following Jesus is still here. What is our purpose? To reconnect people with Yahveh. Indeed, that seems to have been his purpose throughout the Bible.
The question that I must ask is why does he wish to reconnect with us, to recover what was lost in Eden? There are two answers to this question. The first is that he loves us. Living disconnected from Yahveh, living apart from him, leads to chaos, pain, and eventually death, true death, which is non-existence. Living connect with Yahveh leads to order, joy, and true life, eternal life that is full.
But there is a second, deeper reason. Yahveh really does like us. He misses that closeness we shared with him in the Garden. He desires to walk and talk with his people as he once did, as friends do face to face. Essentially, Yahveh misses our company, our friendship. Thus he has bent all his resources in recovering that friendship, doing whatever it takes to get that back. In the end, he will succeed with all those who want it too. All through the Bible, you find a Yahveh longing for people that he can share a friendship with.
So what does this mean? What are the implications of having a Yahveh that not only loves us and does what is in our best interest, but actually likes us, that longs for a friendship with us? A prominent implication is that instead of a Yahveh who dictates a list of do's and don'ts, we find a Yahveh who is about relationships, not rules.
Yahveh's entire goal and purpose has been to return us to the Garden State (not New Jersey) of being, where there was perfect harmony between Yahveh and man and the world in general. Yahveh's purpose, as we have said over and over again, is to return to a real, genuine friendship with his creations. Therefore, it is all about the relationship with Yahveh, not the rules.
Conversely, Satan, who is Yahveh's enemy, is about only the rules. Rules, by themselves, make walls, barriers between people. Walls separate, don't they? They get between people and between Yahveh and people. They destroy, not help relationships, don't they? One look at the Jews of Jesus day proves this point.
Satan is all about destroying relationships any way he can. Focusing solely on the rules accomplishes that quite nicely. Therefore, Satan is about only the rules, whereas Yahveh is strictly about the relationship.

Does God Really Like Us?

Yahveh is selfish? Okay, that is not quite what I meant. What I meant was that Yahveh desires something from us, there is something that Yahveh wants from us. This too, is a pretty bold statement. What could Yahveh possibly want from us? Isn't he the infinite Almighty? Doesn't he have everything already? You know, cattle on a thousand hills, right? Is there actually something that we could give Yahveh, something that Yahveh desires from us?
When one really understands what like actually is, to say that Yahveh likes us is a rather intense claim. It is to claim that there is something that Yahveh doesn't have, something that we could give Yahveh that would bring him joy and pleasure. At first, such a claim flies in the face of an infinite, almighty Yahveh. It seems to reduce Yahveh to this dependant being with superpowers.
Yet there is something that we possess that Yahveh doesn't have and that Yahveh wants. This doesn't actually lessen the majesty of Yahveh, if anything it enhances it. What Yahveh wants is us; you, me, the guy sitting next to you, every single one of us. He wants the human race as a whole and he wants you as an individual. Yahveh desperately wants you to want him, he wants your friendship. Let me say that again; Yahveh wants your friendship, to be your friend.
However, Yahveh doesn't necessarily have that. This is because Yahveh has left it up to you and me to choose him. He has chosen us to be his friends, his companions, but he wants us to choose him back. This is what it means that Yahveh likes us. Screwed up as we are, Yahveh enjoys our companionship and desires that. There is something about us that he enjoys being in relationship with. Yet Yahveh does not, indeed cannot, force us to give that to him. Only if we give it to him of our own choice does he receive what he desires.
So often we focus on the fact that Yahveh loves us, which is both true and appropriate. But it is also obvious. I mean, he created an amazing and perfect world for us to take care. We dropped the ball on that one. But instead of simply abandoning us to our fate, as he had every right to do, Yahveh chose to send Jesus to die for our sins, to give up the majesty of heaven to suffer and die for people who had turned their backs on him. Even today, he continually gives and gives selflessly for our benefit. Yahveh most certainly loves in ways that we cannot possibly fathom.
But it is so much more than Yahveh just giving to us. There is a dimension to Yahveh that actually likes us, that wants us to give something back. Yahveh desires us to be his friends, to live in relationship with him, to be with him. That is what is meant by Yahveh likes us, because he does. There is something we can give Yahveh; our friendship and ourselves.
(Psalms 50:10)