By bringing together the human and the divine in this remarkable way (see Catholic Questions 11), Jesus stands as the fulfilment of the promises made throughout the Old Testament. In him, the hopes, longings, struggles and signs found in Israel’s story reach their deepest meaning.
The Old Testament gives us the account of one people’s encounter with God over a long and often difficult journey. One helpful way to think of it is as the spiritual diary of a people: a record of their attempts to understand their experience of God, respond faithfully, and learn from both their successes and their failures. Through a rich sequence of events, prayers, laws, prophecies, songs and stories, we witness God’s desire to reach out, guide, challenge, forgive and lead his people into a deeper relationship.
At the same time, we see their ongoing struggle to grasp what God was asking of them and how they were called to live. Although the details and circumstances of their lives are different from ours, their story is still our story. Like them, we wrestle with faith, freedom, trust, suffering, gratitude, and the call to love God and neighbour. Their journey prepares us to recognise the fullness of God’s self-revelation when it finally appears.
The Old Testament is like the extended overture to a great opera: the divinely guided preparation for the pivotal moment of God’s communication with humanity. That moment comes when God becomes one of us, so that we can finally see and comprehend who God truly is and what God is offering us. This ultimate communication comes in Jesus Christ: through his person, his words, his actions, and the events of his life, death, and resurrection.
For Catholics, then, the question of what God is like has a clear answer: we look to Jesus Christ, and we see God. To know Jesus is to know God. To be in relationship with Jesus is to be in relationship with God.