Yes, it’s the title of a Joan Osbourne song.  But it’s also a great question.

The ancient Jews must have had a hard time relating to God.  They knew Him as a cloud that hovered over the tabernacle during the day and as a pillar of fire during the night.  They knew Him as a booming voice at Mount Sinai that scared the holy dickens out of them.  They knew Him as the power that caused the earth to swallow up Korah and those who followed him in his rebellion.  God was huge, invisible, unimaginable, and a source of great fear to them.  I’ll bet it was hard for them to relate to God or, maybe more importantly, to feel like God related to them.  God was nothing like them, it seemed.  If I were a Jew living back then I probably would have wished that God was a little more human.  I probably would have wondered how God would act if He actually was a human.

That is exactly what we see in Jesus.  It is in Jesus that we find the answer to the question, “What would God be like if He was a man like me?” That is what is so amazing about the incarnation.  God put on flesh and came to be one of us.  Yes, to save us, but also so we could relate to Him and understand Him more fully.

Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus is the brightness of His (the Father’s) glory and the express image of His person. The brightness of glory is the aspect of His glory that is visible and observable.  Jesus is also the express image of God.  In other words, Jesus is the literal visible expression of God, not like the rest of us humans who are just made in the image of God instead of in the express image of God.  Jesus also says amazing things like the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (John 5:19) Here Jesus is saying that everything He does — crying at the death of Lazarus, hanging out with prostitutes and sinners, forgiving those who crucified Him, washing the feet of His disciples — are akin to the things that He sees the Father do.  Jesus shows us the heart of God the Father.

Later in the gospel of John, Jesus says, I and my Father are one.   I’ve heard some say that Jesus simply meant that they were one in purpose.  The Jews at that time certainly didn’t take it that way.  Their reaction to this proclamation was to immediately pick up stones to kill him — the punishment for blasphemy.  The Jews wouldn’t have had a problem with someone claiming they were one in purpose with God.  The Jews would have undoubtedly claimed the same thing.  They understood that Jesus was claiming He was literally one with God, and they wanted to kill Him for saying it.

It turns out that Joan Osbourne’s musical question is the very question that can save all of humanity.  If only people would really ask the question and have faith to accept the answer…

God was one of us.  And God will forever be one of us through Jesus, one of three persons of the Godhead.